he was riding an Argon 18...

280 Watts from Faris is insane. I can barely hold that wattage for 3-5 min riding in the aero position on a trainer. 4.5 hours is something else.

"Al-Sultan has worked on his body aerodynamics with SRM founder Uli Schoberer at the track in Buettgen/Germany - a famous oval, where many pro riders have worked on their positions and tuned their tt speed."



http://2peak.com/...tic/ticker/index.php

at the 1/2 ironman relay I did, 268w avg got me a 24.9 mph average for the bike leg, I know that I was suffering to hold the average power towards the end,


280w for over 4 hours is impressive. Floyd Landis does 6 hour training rides averaging over 300w, for comparison.

http://www.sindballe.dk/

"for comparison."

Not sure but for comparison isn't comparing wattage numbers [largely, somewhat?] meaningless without knowing body weight of each rider? Isn't the relevant metric W/kg?

Also note that Faris put out 3.89 watts per Kg while Torbjorn put out 3.29.

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- Nick
Now that I know some of you guys look through the special needs bags for kicks, I'm gonna put some really weird stuff in mine. I can see it now. "What the heck was he going to do with a family pack of KFC chicken, a football helmet full of peanut butter, a 12 inch rubber dildo, and naked pictures of Bea Arthur?"

Gary, at my last half Ironman, I did a 2:15 bike (just under 40 kph) including ~ 2min lost due to a flat.

I have no clue how many watts I am pushing on the bike. I am a smaller rider (140 lbs, 5'6") and not particularly aero. Recently I did some workout on my TACX basic trainer, and I struggle to hold even 250 W for 10 min segments. I am wondering how many watts I was pushing over 90K in the real world. Granted, this was a bullet fast course on super smooth pavement with no hills. Moreover, when training with watts, what type of intervals should I be working on to optimize my Ironman bike splits which are relatively lame compared to what I post at the half Ironman distance.

Not on a long loop course. W/kg matters on mountain finishes. Everywhere else, watts/CdA matters far more. For the best riders in the world (ie, grand Tour winners), they tend to go together since both abilities are required to win. But the fastest rider in TT will have the highest watts/CdA ratio.

The fastest bike split in any IM race goes to the guy with best watts/CdA ratio. Last year, that was Normann. This year it was Sindballe.

A CdA in the 0.250-0.255 range could give you that split at 250 watts. Hard to know for sure without a powermeter. You might be pushing more watts than that. 2:15 is pretty fast.

At 250 watts in a half, I would guess you could hold ~210-215 comfortably in a full, with plenty in reserve. On a flat smooth course, that oughtta get you in around 4:55 or so, including time for drink pickups and other slowing down. I easily go 23 mph at 210 watts in full race setup and I'm a bit bigger than you.

How does one go about measuring CdA? (I'm guessing that's a measure of frontal area[?]).

There are metrics for calculating what you should hold. If you get your CP60, then 1/2IM is about 85-90% of CP60 if you still want to run well. IM pace is 75-80%. This is assuming you are doing to proper training for the longer distances. But these numbers are pretty reliable. If you go over 80% for IM, you will likely be paying the piper later on...

Trainers are often pretty far off. Plus holding wattage steady on a trainer is difficult because it is so constant. None of the natural ebb and flow of a real world course, which can make it more taxing -- exact same muscles, over and over and over...

IM intervals seems to rely on a lot of big gear work. That is what I've heard about Faris, and heard from Olaf and others. Cadence for IM is often lower than for half-IM, accompanying the lower wattage output. You need to work on FORCE. So push the big gears at low cadences. Get strong like bull...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Ashburn, perhaps my trainer is miscalibrated, but 250W on my trainer feels way tougher than my half Ironman race intensity. To be fair, the 2:15 was on a smoking fast course. I am more of a 2:23-2:28 guy this year on a rolling courses.

I guess a powertap is the next toy to spend my son's college fund on :-)

I can never hold as many watts on a trainer. I've been doing 2x20' sets on my trainer (using the powertap for power-targeting) at 216-218 watts and hurting. I went out Friday afternoon to the local TT course and knocked off a 2x20' set at 231 avg. watts without suffering too badly. Go figure.

I'm telling you -- <2:15 is at least 250 watts, even considering a flat fast course.

Posted at Gordo's board earlier:

First, you must have a reliable powermeter (SRM, Powertap or Ergomo). Then, you must find a flat place to ride at least 1 mile in each direction without wind or traffic. Then you gather data for your bike position. Do one pair of runs at 150 watts; then at 170; then 190; then 210; etc. until you max out. Do it again until you have 10 runs for a given bike setup. I'll skip the math here -- go to biketechreview.com's forum and ask or search the d-base (it's a simple Excel calculation). You can get a rather accurate figure for CdA, with a tire rolling resistance figure thrown in for free.

With patience and a keen sense of observation, you can make very big improvements. You can't get the accuracy down to where you can tell one aero bar from another, but you can sure tell if you're gonna save 15-20 minutes in an IM. It takes an hour of work to get data for a given bike setup.

"I'm telling you -- <2:15 is at least 250 watts, even considering a flat fast course."

spot on Rick

I did 2:10 that 268w avg for a 54 miles 1/2 IM flat course split, but your aerodynamics may be better than mine

explanation must be aerodynamics?

Need to also look directly at watt per place on the course....then again, conditions (wind) can change quickly. Assuming aero factor was the same...FAS pushed at the "wrong" places (i.e. windy sections...so much of his increased power went towards fighting resistance).

That site appears to be entirely in Danish, can you translate the relevant section for us, please?

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

for comparison: who is able to run a marathon after bike?

sultan or landis?

Would you like me to spoon-feed you too?

Are there any tips you can suggest in reducing CdA, that you found when improving your own or is it a very indervidual thing?

I am hoping to use this years bonus to get a powermeter and wondered if it was worth getting an adjustable stem and playing around with my position to try and find the most effective one?

Another discussion about his going on in Gordo's forum.

http://www.coachgordo.com/...x.php?showtopic=5370

Rappster, funny you mentioned big gear work. I improved my late season biking post Ironman LP, but really doing a lot of big gear riding in the aero position up hills (OK, don't laugh, I know I ride a 48 tooth, but 48x14 up hill at 50-60 RPM and aero is still big enough...) and I had solid bike rides in my late season Ironmans...in fact they felt easy, but I likely still went too hard as I paid the piper with pretty lame half Ironman runs in the 1:38/1:39 range.

You guys are likely correct about at least 250W for 2:15. Early in the year, I rode the Zofingen course on my buddy's CT. I had only 500K under my belt for the year and it was the weekend after Boston and I averaged just under 240W, so I guess 250W over 90K late in the season is possible. It just seems really tough on my Tacx Basic trainer to hold those wattages.

In any case, regardless of calibration etc etc etc, the fact that they guys are holding 270-280 for 4.5 hour and still running sub 2:55 is unreal. I'd love to see Reid's data. I bet you he was still doing high 260's as an average.

Dev

Whats more remarkable is Stadlers ride last year.

Based on his time it was estimated that his avg watts were 335. Faris was 289 last year. If Stadler had put together that kind of ride this year he would have smashed the bike record by a long way.

Everytime I read that Stadler rode an estimated 335 watts I wonder how they came up with the number. How big is the standard deviation on the guess + or - 50 watts???

I figure the estimate came from his wind tunnell data compared to his average speed, but it does not take into account wattage spikes, the effect of a draft as he passed people to get to the lead, the varying effects of the wind, etc.

It seems that there are way to many confounding variables to get any sort of reasonably accurate guess. Almost pointless to talk about someones wattage when they are not using a Power Meter.