Coggan Power Profile Table

harringtonp

Anybody here with a power meter figure out where they stand in the attached tabled ?

Did it correlate reasonably well with your racing category and how you perform in that category ?

And what is cat 5 ? Was wondering is it only a US category and are the other categories roughly the same as those here ?

Beasty

They are US categories, so you can equate category 5 to A4 (which I manage to escape for 5m and FT, but that's because I put my effort into TTs and pursuiting - if only I could shed those 8 kilos or so again ...)

BTW, I suspect the "untrained" is probably the equivalent of pretty decent leisure cyclists, as I know it took me a while to hit 10w/kg over 1s, never mind 5s

Lumen

Wouldn't bother with those charts.

IMO the threshold of adequacy for road racing is 4W/kg for an hour, 5W/kg for 5 mins.

harringtonp

Lumen wrote: »

Wouldn't bother with those charts.

IMO the threshold of adequacy for road racing is 4W/kg for an hour, 5W/kg for 5 mins.

Depends on the level doesn't it which is why those charts are so interesting. They show there is a large difference between categories. I presume those levels you give are for adequacy in our higher categories ? I know several who have got out of A4 (which presumably means power levels more than adequate for A4) who would have levels nothing like these.

harringtonp

Beasty wrote: »

BTW, I suspect the "untrained" is probably the equivalent of pretty decent leisure cyclists, as I know it took me a while to hit 10w/kg over 1s, never mind 5s

Something similar with my profile, 5s best put me as untrained where as when I got to 5 min and FTP I was a fair bit higher.

Then again I have never really trained for sprints, however I do train intervals and these are mainly in the 2-12 mins range which would give a comparatively strong 5 mins.

kumate_champ07

I hate that table, it just tells me Ive to loose a load of weight

Lumen

harringtonp wrote: »

Depends on the level doesn't it which is why those charts are so interesting. They show there is a large difference between categories. I presume those levels you give are for adequacy in our higher categories ? I know several who have got out of A4 (which presumably means power levels more than adequate for A4) who would have levels nothing like these.

My point is that I don't really think it does "depend on the level" as much as the chart suggests e.g. the diff between cat 2 and cat 4 on that chart is about 33% FTP. Nobody racing fit at A4 is going to find another 33% through training better and doing longer races when they move up.

harringtonp

Lumen wrote: »

Wouldn't bother with those charts.

IMO the threshold of adequacy for road racing is 4W/kg for an hour, 5W/kg for 5 mins.

These figures somehow got etched on my mind, think I was traumatised by them and couldn't forget :eek: So coming back to them now that I have done some racing with the PM, understand it better and have a good feel for my own levels.

First of all any racing newbies with power levels like these will be out of A4 like a hot snot.

As many have discovered once you get to A3, it is not just A3. Particularly in the west where fields can be smaller and you generally have combined A1/2/3 races (with small handicaps). In bigger races like the Nenagh A3 every half decent junior in the country is present so it feels no different to a lower profile A1/2/3 race.

So as you're racing with riders of a higher standard than A3 it comes down to what is "adequate" for these races.

If ones definition of adequacy is being able to ride near the front in these races and get into some breaks, then I reckon these figures are about right.

If however your sights are lower and adequacy in your mind is being able to finish in a decent size group and not get spit out on your own (or with one or 2 other lonely riders) then you will get away with lower levels. This is where I am and I reckon the levels for this are about 3.5 W/KG for an hour and 4.5 W/KG for 5 minutes.