Question: Our local weekend ride attracts several racers and a couple of strong recreational riders. Last Sunday we did 60 miles in rolling terrain at an average speed of 19 mph. It was hard, and here’s the problem: 19 mph sounds so puny compared to the 25+ mph average for pro races of up to six hours. Are we really that bad? Or are pros that good? — Bill P.
Coach Fred Matheny Replies: Yeah, the pros are really good. Power numbers show just how superior those guys are.
For example, I did a solo 35 miles the other day on my bike with a PowerTap. I averaged 19 mph and 185 watts on a course with some short hills. Pros often report an average of 200-215 watts for their races. But remember, they ride in large packs where it takes just 100 watts to roll along at 25 mph.
Great, so we need only an extra 15-30 watts and we’ll be ready for the Tour, right?
Wrong! The difference is that when the crunch comes in pro races, wattage jumps dramatically. Two minutes at over 600 watts on hills, or 10-20 minutes over 400, is commonplace. This makes average wattage misleading. Power output when it counts is extremely high. I couldn’t hang. Neither could most riders.
The pros’ superiority is hard to visualize because their muscle size isn’t so different from many good recreational riders. But if you think of world-class athletes in other sports, the gap between recreational athletes (even accomplished ones) and the pros is easier to see.
For instance, how much does the 250-pound strong guy at your local gym bench press? 300 pounds? 400? In powerlifting meets, it’s not unusual for the winner to top 500 pounds — and that’s in the 165-pound class.
How about the best basketball player in your city league? Pretty good, until you put his moves and hops up against any NBA forward.
So we aren’t nearly as good as the pros. But so what? Our inability to come remotely close to doing that isn’t as important as having fun on rides, staying healthy and fit, and sticking with cycling all our lives.
it isn;t muscle size – it is heart/lung capacity
As Larry suggests, it’s the professional racer’s ability to process oxygen that is the final determinant of his or her athletic ability in a sport where most efforts are aerobic.
Apparently Greg Lemond’s V02 Max was off the charts at the beginning of his pro career.
I believe there was one contemporary racer in his league: Indurain.
Lemond’s exceptionalism could give credence to his claim that he never doped, not even a testosterone shot before his Tour-winning time trial where he unexpectedly defeated Fignon by a considerable margin.
Or just compare your time running the mile with the pace world class marathoners set for 26 miles!
I cannot understand how a person can break 5 minutes for a mile, I cannot break 60 seconds in a 440 and have never broken 6 minutes for a mile. In cycing the hour record is about 50 km (~30mi), who among us can do a 10 mile time trial in under 20 minutes? I struggled to do a 10mile time trial in 30 mins when I was a top high school athlete / swim team captain.
What Don said! The saddest thing in the world is to see a “wanna be” local athlete who is good locally or even regionally but can’t begin to compete on a national or international level. Yet they “practice” thinking they can improve enough.
You either have it or you don’t when it comes to speed and/or strength. At least at the top levels of competition.
So in my case, I became an accountant as I could push a pencil with the best of them and ultimately pushed the right computer keys with the best of them!
That said, I’m a good recreational rider and my power numbers out me squarely in the Cat 5 category (at best)!!!
The pros are that good. My son used to road & track race until he was 15, that’s when he concentrated on swimming so he could get a college scholarship to help pay for his education. He is an elite D1 distance swimmer and would have been swimming at the Olympic trials this summer. He has swum at NCAA’s, Nationals and Open water nationals a number of times. He is now home for some time till this Covid-19 settles down and he can get back to his college team. He dusted off his road bike and has been on it a few days keeping in shape. We went out for a ride together the other day in the mountains the first half of which was up hill. I feel I’m a pretty good above average recreational cyclist. I got destroyed by him, his heart and lungs can process oxygen so much better than the average athlete. He was dancing on the peddles and popping off bursts of speed at will going up hill. It is so amazing to watch a talented elite athlete in their sport.
Pros start out as genetic freaks, Then they train 6 hours a day. You?
Why I would never attempt to ride with my son-in-law, a just-retired professional cyclist who spent his career with Tier 2 teams, never raced The Tour, but has raced in something like 47 countries. He qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with his country’s cycling team, not that it will happen this year. I’m an over-70 rider who pretty much averages about 11-12mph over most terrain. Any extended effort above that speed leaves me wasted after only a few miles. So I mostly ride solo, and he trains with other pros or with Cat. 1 amateur riders. He and they can ride together and challenge one another. I wave as they fly by.
A combination of age difference and VOMax differences.
Sorry for being frank but an honest answer to the OP is that even the lowest category road races will typically average 25mph. As another guideline you can consider yourself an OK time trialist if you can do a sub hour 25. A “good” one can do 100 miles in under 4 hours.
A group containing true “racers” and “strong” riders should be able to comfortably average 20mph plus for 3 hours over a course that does not include huge climbs or very steep climbs.
You really can’t compare an apple to an orange. The huge difference of power between the pros and recreational cyclists is easy to explain. It’s not a fair comparison unless you match: age, natural genetic ability, average weight, focus on strategic training science with coaches, training load, total daily sleep sleep average (very important)., diet and last but not least desire. There are many recreational cyclists that could compete with the pros if they chose to put in the same focus and discipline as the pros do.
I’m a 70 year old former competitive runner who when he’s riding in a group can average 17-19, but when I’m by myself I’d be thrilled to average 17. Thinking about it after reading that Fred can average 19 by himself for 35 miles I realized that, living in densely populated suburban area where there are many, many lights and you have to go about an hour before you hit open road, location has a awful lot to do with average speed, especially if you obey traffic laws.
I read somewhere that after Jim Ryun’s first summer of running, he was able to break 5 min for the mile.
True world class athletes are genetic freaks..