we often talk about the importance of
power-to-weight ratio when you're going
up a climb but just how much difference
does it make if you lose a big chunk of
your body weight well I'm Matt and I've
come to Andorra on a real world climb
we're gonna do some real world powers
which is in different real-world wait
and see what the difference is yeah it's
some real GCN does science and the tests
we're going to carry out or as follows
we're going to ride 5k of this climb two
runs each the first run we're going to
have a 5 kilogram rucksack on our backs
we're then going to ride at set power so
I'm going to ride at around 275 watts
and Dan is going to ride it two to five
watts we're then going to have a little
bit of a lie down to rest recuperate and
then do the run again but this time
without the rock sacks but at the same
given power so two to five and 275 to
see what the difference is both of us
will be using power tap p1 pedals with
power tap dual GPS plus head unit to
measure our wattage my canyon ultimate
complete with full bottle power meter
cetera comes in at 8.1 kilograms my bag
weighs five point one three five and I
including all my kit come in at seventy
four point four that's a grand total me
on run one of eighty seven point six
three five my bike including a full
bottle camera and power meter weighs an
eight point three eight five my bag
weighs in at five point zero for me with
my full kit helmet shoes weighs in at
seventy five point one kilograms giving
a grand total of eighty eight point five
to five kilograms
so run number one
we've both got around five grams of
weight in our respective rucksacks down
to the off first because he's going to
be riding at slightly less watch than me
at two to five
remember down just go steady it's not
race I'll try remember alright ready
three two one Calabar oh dear
okay so it's my run now if you want to
count me in please Nick as if I'm
clipping he's in first time look at
tell you what it's a bit warm
my elapsed time 230 what 25:56
so that's run number one done I'm
absolutely covered in sweat as you are
Dan what was your time
25:56 I have is 230 watts in the end I
tried keep into two to five but the
gradients a star are quite severe right
now so even in 3628 especially this
rucksack oh and I was struggling to keep
down to two to five so he cadence was
pretty low when I went partial my time
was 21 minutes and 41 seconds and my
average wats were 278 well I think
before we even get to the conclusion
about the way there's two things that we
conclude already both dissuade ourselves
got over 500 grams in sweat so number
one keep hydrated kids also 278 Watts
versus 230 48 what's different doesn't
sound huge I guess it's over 20% still
but a four-minute difference and a LaVon
what's really and I we roughly the same
way toward your own told aren't we so
that's incredible how much difference it
makes
hashtag wats matter
right well Matt and I now freshly
hydrated to the point where we now weigh
the same as we did for the start of run
one this is run too obviously without
the 5 kilograms of extra weight in the
rucksacks I'm really interested to see
how much difference is going to make but
firstly I think it's gonna be two
minutes this time you caught me rather
quickly go on in two minutes it is right
we ready 3 2 1
he's off oh I took me just as long to
clip in as last time
here we go
remember it's not a race map
okay well we've spent the last two hours
with a calculator yeah
and we think we've got our head around
the results but before we get on to the
raw numbers we are going to state that
we quite deliberately use that weight
and also those powers so there will be
some of you who can do more than 280
watts for that sort of Eurasian and
there will be others of you who can't do
230 but that kind of band judging
doesn't come as a lot of regular riders
power output yeah and in relation to the
five kilograms it is actually quite
feasible amount of weight for many
people to lose especially when you look
at me and you I'm actually six kilograms
or six or seven kilograms above my
Raceway yeah I'm almost exactly five
kilograms above where I raised back in
my days at the Civello testing well
enough enough of that yeah on to the
results themselves so my first run 25
minutes and 56 seconds my second 24:40
so that is a saving of 1 minute and 16
seconds which doesn't sound like a whole
load but if you wait on the side of the
road for a minute in 16 seconds quite a
long time to hang about
well I the difference in my runs was 1
minute and 33 seconds my first run was
21 41 and my second one was 2008 I did
ride it too what's difference but still
a considerable time saver yeah I didn't
say actually I did one watt more on
second one versus the first one so as
you might have expected before we even
start this video losing some weight from
your body does make a significant amount
of difference on a climb and this was
just five kilometres at gradient of
around about 7% albeit not steady all
the way up the magic you did more yeah
over just 20 minutes of riding now if
you think about 150 kilometres sporty
for example 50 kilometres of climbing
it's far too for free by about
it's a saving of a round about a quarter
of an hour and that's just from losing
the weight as well imagine if you also
increased your FTP from 230 Watts up to
280 to us whilst losing five kilograms
then you were saved on this climb close
to five minutes Dan straight off the
back of that for a video on how to
improve your FTP how about clicking just
up here I've got another relevant video
just down there is how to lose weight
through cycling climbing and to
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