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Thanks for your thought, but when you look at the physics you see your conclusions are relevant for the flat only
On the flat (or indoors) weight is relatively unimportant, a couple of kg makes minimal difference.hence why zwift only cares about your weight not anything else. On an climb it’s very relevant. Have a look here, or one of the many equivalent calculators.
For example myself at 56kg takes 139w to go 30kph, add a 8kg bike and kit increases to 142w, which is irrelevant in the w/kg, 2.48 vs 2.53
Now change those figures to a 5% gradient that changes to 372w with a zero weight bike accounted for or 409w with the same 8kg bike.
That’s a difference of 6.65 to 7.34 w/kg, so your bike weight is very relevant and that’s why I asked the original question.
If we don’t consider both then w/kg is only a useful expression when comparing the flat… Which might be what some want but not when your a skinny climber like I am.
But what about your gear (shoes, clothes, helmet, spares, fuel, hydration in bottles, gps, etc.)?
It also weighs enough to be significant, if you’re comparing the difference in bike weights. You have too many variables to consider to make your calculation meaningful.
Summer kit =1kg, winter kit 2kg, a hundred g up or down Jersey to Jersey is not substantially variable. The only thing that varies is a water bottle but compared to an additional 7 or 8kg bike weight it’s a much smaller impact, no more that your natural weight variation day to day, whilst you never vary 8kg on a day.
I have no problem taking a standard mass for additions summer vs winter
Additional 7 or 8kg bike?? Are you using steel mountain bikes for these climbs? At that point you aren’t even comparing apples to orange. You are comparing apples to elephants.
This thread is crazy lol. Look, w/kg uses athletes weight only as it measures power output by the athlete divided by their weight->its a completely physiological parameter. Think of it this way, if you would use an e-bike that, lets say generates 150w of power, would you add those watts to your power output? Would you add those 150w to your FTP, for example? Ofc not, that would be ridicilous. But for sure you would go faster on the climbs, wouldn’t you. Same applies to gear weight, it doesn’t affect athlete perfomance physiologically, so there is no need to to calculate w/kg with gear weight.
Ufff, just enter into this thread and I’m freaking out.
Riding a bike is simple in terms of Physics. You want to overcome some resistance using a power output.
Power output is characteristic for a specific rider. Resistance depends on the context and varies due to road, gradient, weight, wind conditions, drafting, etc.
Resistance will be different even for same rider if any of these external conditions changes (not only bike weight).
I think that what you are actually interested in when comparing climbing skills for your team mates is to evaluate the resistance each one has faced during the same climb.
For this purpose, I am using equivalent gradient and consequently equivalent altitude gain. Being equivalent gradient, the gradient that would generate same resistance to advance as the addition of all other resistance causes (actual gradient + weigh, aerodynamics due to wind and draft, rolling resistance, …)
Therefore, you can compare actual resistance for different rider in the same context or for same rider on different days. Both climbing and riding on plain roads.
In case of using Garmin Edge devices, you could get it using Power+PRO data field
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