chaparral wrote:
trail wrote:
chaparral wrote:
Obviously not enough for someone to notice without some pretty precise measurement.
Like a stopwatch? :)
Well how would you know that you did not clime faster or slower because of power differences? Not just difference in average power, but how that power was applied over the course of the climb, like if you went harder on the steeper bit one time, but had the same average power, because you went easier on the flatter part. Or because the wind changed? A stop watch would not be able to measure that. Would also need a very well calibrated power meter to tease out a 2% difference in weight.
2% is a lot. Don't need a power meter. I have a 10-mile climb I repeat a lot. Hard. 2% is over a minute time difference. The first time I could explain it away as wind conditions, bad day, etc. But I don't think it'd take all that many repetitions to build up a pretty good idea.
4lbs is the difference between my CX bike and my road bike. Or my off-season weight and my road racing weight. It's non-trivial. A minute to the summit in a road race might as well be all day. Even 5 seconds on a much shorter climb could mean getting gapped off to the point that you never see those guys again.
Weight matters in road racing.