QUESTION: I’ve been uploading my rides to Strava for a while now and it gives me estimated wattage, but it’s unclear to me if those numbers are any good or not compared to other riders. I’m doing ok with my times on some local segments, but what’s a good average wattage cycling in general? — Kenneth M
ANSWER: It’s unfortunately a little bit more complicated than giving you a simple wattage number, because wattage depends a lot on rider weight. A bigger rider can put out more watts than a smaller rider, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that he’ll be riding faster — because it takes more watts to propel his heavier bodyweight.
A more useful way to compare “apples to apples” is to look at watts per kilogram (w/kg). That’s how much wattage you are generating for each kilogram of your body weight. If you consider those numbers, you can compare to someone who is heavier or lighter than you and see who is generating the most power by weight.
Power to weight ratio is very important in cycling, as it is in running. A lighter cyclist who can put out raw high wattage numbers is going to go a lot faster. This is why cyclists sometimes get obsessed with buying lighter cycling equipment.
But losing weight can make just as big or a bigger difference to your power to weight ratio. It’s near impossible to drop 10 pounds from your bike weight, but might be reasonable to lose that much weight from your body safely.
This Bicycling article examines the Strava results of a bunch of pro riders who have uploaded their rides and made them public. The article claims that a typical fit cyclist might be able to crank out 250 to 300 watts as an average for a 20 minute FTP (functional threshold point) test, while the pros usually average 400 watts. But this is misleading, because how much do those pros weigh, and how much does the “average cyclist” weigh?
A much more accurate way to look at it is this chart from Data Cranker, which shows the average watts per kilogram (W/kg) that cyclists at different abilities typically can maintain for time periods of 5 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes and 60 minutes.
That chart shows that a Cat 5 (lowest category) racer might be able to maintain between 2.4 to 2.9 w/kg over a 60 minute period, while an international pro could maintain a dramatically higher 5.6 w/kg or perhaps higher. If both the Cat 5 cyclist and the pro weighed 70 kilos (154 pounds), then the Cat 5 cyclist would put out an average 203 watts and the international pro would put out an average of 392 watts during a one hour period. The pro is putting out almost twice the wattage!
Do you own a smart trainer? If so, you can get an even better idea of how your wattage compares by looking at the racing category data from Zwift. Here are the categories that they recommend you race based on your FTP data and watts per kilogram.
The Zwift C category (next from the bottom) says that you should be able to ride at the level between 2.5 to 3.1 w/kg. If you want to succeed in the A category, you’ll need to be able to hit 4.0 w/kg or better. If you ride better than 6 w/kg on Zwift for any extended period in a race, they generally suspect cheating and filter you out of race results.
As the coach states, there is a lot more to it than how simple it seems on the surface. W/KG means more when climbing. For example, my daughter raced for 1 year, went from women’s cat 4 to cat 2. At somewhere around 105 lbs, her FTP was 226w, low compared to a 190 lb male who can push out 300w. During group rides, she would draft on the flats/straights but when the hills came, with a W/KG at 4.21 (she’s right up there as an elite cat 1 female), she would accelerate away from the 190 lb guy at double the speed he could maintain in the hills.
Taking it to the next step, let’s ask the coach what a power profile is. This will tell you what type of phenotype and athlete you are, where your strengths and weaknesses are and how to train correctly. As a USAC cycling coach, we are trained to work with cyclists to get the best out of them.
So, what is a power profile and how do I get one and use it to get some gains in performance?
Let’s be clear: watts/kg is what matters when climbing, but on the flats it’s pretty much just watts. Yes, a 100 kg rider will have a bigger profile into the wind, but if they have the same watts/kg as a 50 kg rider, they will blow away the lighter rider on the flats. These two hypothetical riders would probably be even on a climb but no comparison on a flat road.
What counts on the hills is W/kg. What counts on the flats is W/sq m of frontal area.
The easiest way for most riders, even pros, to increase the power to weight ratio (Watts/kg) and thus ride faster, is to lose body fat Increasing muscle mass also helps, but it is much easier and quicker to lose body fat. For an endurance rider, training slow twitch fibers, which includes increasing the number and size of mitochondria, is most important. For a sprinter, increasing fast twitch fibers is more important. There are endless ways to enable these changes through training; well beyond this discussion.
Ralph Barone is mostly correct about W/kg and W/sq m of frontal area. Generally, taller riders have less frontal area relative to power; resulting in greater W/sq m. However, there are exceptions to how this affects ITT performance. For example: Remco Evenepoel, (19 yrs, 67 inches tall, 134 lbs) was second to Rohan Dennis (29 yrs, 72 inches, 156 lbs) in the World ITT championships.
This article should have started by saying that Strava power estimates are very inaccurate.
The only meaningful way to use power for cycling is use a power meter.
Probably the most important aspect of Kenneth M question is he asked is what’s a good average wattage cycling in general? It has already been stated there’s a lot that goes into that answer and one crucial question is what is his age? A guy in his 60’s (as I am) is not going to have as much power as someone in their 30’s or 40’s. I’m not nearly as strong a rider now as twenty years ago and I ride and train a lot. That’s why sporting events have age groups. So my suggestion is if your an older guy trying to keep up with a younger group, find a group closer to your age or get an ebike. That’s what I’m doing. I still ride and train on my regular bike and I still enjoy doing longer and faster rides with my local cycling shop rides of which I get droped especially during the really hot and humid days. With my ebike I can still enjoy what I’ve always loved.