• This topic has 153 replies, 77 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by jonba.
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  • 500 watts for 5 minutes? Anyone done it?
  • BenjiM
    Full Member

    DrP
    Full Member
    I think I’m going to set up a custom workout in zwift with just a good warmup and a five min block of 500w and stick it on erg mode.

    Would be a fun challenge see if I can crack it before the end of lockdown…

    ooh..agreed!

    I’d probably start with a 400w for 5 min workout…
    see how that sits.. then build it up i guess??

    DrP

    Might just have a go myself, sod building it up warm up then 500w and se how long i can hold it before I collapse in a heap or my legs explode, I’m reckoning about 50 seconds!

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    benman
    Free Member
    There’s a STW zwift race tonight, would be great to get some of the heroes in this thread involved.

    Don’t you worry! I’m signed up already. I’ll be nibbling on the heels of the backmarkers & make no mistake.
    I might even poke a stick through the spokes of anyone attempting to lap me….

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    I’d probably start with a 400w for 5 min workout…

    Is it ok if I start with 300w for 5mins

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    phil56
    Full Member

    @w00dster

    Have to agree with TPBiker

    You shouldn’t, because he’s talking complete bobbins in so far as he’s taken the OPs original question down a rabbit hole. The question was ‘have any of you done it?’, not ‘how hard is it for a good road cyclist’ (who generally have a physiology uniquely unsuited to the task).

    According to intervals.icu 500w for 5 mins puts you into a very narrow sliver of people

    This, just like all the other reference points being banded about, is misleading because you’re starting with a narrow sliver of people (good road cyclists) and then confirming how hard it for this narrow sliver to turn 500w for 5 minutes – which is probably true, but that doesn’t mean in itself it’s that difficult.

    I really don’t think it’s that unachievable at all.

    I’m a crap road cyclist, I don’t enjoy it, I’m too big and heavy, my neck and lower back are too stiff to get into a comfortable aero position and I can’t create any meaningful cadence with my legs. A a result I’ve done less than 200 miles of road cycling in my life.

    According to Zwiftpower my best 5 mins is 401W and I did that as part of an 18 minute time trial, so I’m quite certain if I focused on just a 5 minute effort I could improve on that – and I’m a few weeks away from my 65th birthday.

    My leg strength comes from 30 years of playing rugby at a reasonable level, and whilst this and the rest of my physiology makes me crap at road riding, if I’ve just got to sit there and blast out power for 5 minutes I can make a reasonable fist of it – and the 30 year old version of me would have knocked this out of the park no problem.

    So even if @dylu19 has only been riding a bike for a couple of months, if he’s any kind of an athlete there’s no reason he can’t achieve this with youth on his side.

    slowpuncheur
    Free Member

    That’s interesting @Phil56. The OP did his on an exercise bike so I think the distinction between that/Zwift etc and a decent road cyclist is reasonable. Your position on a bike on the road is a compromise between optimising power and aerodynamics – especially TT’s where it’s accepted that a power loss will be a trade off for aero gains. 500w for 5 mins is very impressive on a static bike but on a road or moreso a TT rig is truly exceptional. Then (unless you’re on a track) there’s finding the road and conditions where you could even attempt this.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    My leg strength comes from 30 years of playing rugby at a reasonable level, and whilst this and the rest of my physiology makes me crap at road riding, if I’ve just got to sit there and blast out power for 5 minutes I can make a reasonable fist of it

    It’s funny you say that because I was gonna add a comment along the lines of “I suppose if you are a large rugby player or rower, then perhaps this would be a more feasible figure” but deleted it.

    My brother used to lift a lot of weights – while at one gym he was urged to enter this rowing challenge that they had going. He’s not really into that kind of thing, so resisted at first but eventually had a go at it after being badgered to have a go. I think they were trying to get the number of people on the list up. Anyway – he blitzed it, ended up at the top of the leader board & no one could get close.
    Not sure he’d have got a seat on the Oxford-Cambridge boat race though.

    tpbiker
    Free Member

    I’m a crap road cyclist

    You have an ftp of 350 watts..you clearly aren’t a crap road cyclist at all. You are also however quite a big chap as far as I recall

    Dylu is 76kg, so not so big, and he has only been cycling for 6 weeks. He also didn’t say he had been training in any other sports, which would be a key factor. I’m sure it’s possible and if so a top effort, I however find it unlikely.

    Going back to the initial OP’s question, I’ve already stated 500 watts should be doable for any good roadie assuming they weigh north of 80kg.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    I’ve already stated 500 watts should be doable for any good roadie assuming they weigh north of 80kg.

    Pass the donuts, 10kg of donuts then jump on the turbo and I’m sorted!!

    r8jimbob88
    Free Member

    Let’s not forget that different types and brands of powermeters are not necessarily consistent with one another.

    One mans 500w is another mans 450w. According to my stages I did a 460w for 5 mins last year whilst training for some hill climb events. There’s not a prayer I can do that on my Wattbike. Not even close

    imnotverygood
    Full Member

    One mans 500w is another mans 450w. According to my stages I did a 460w for 5 mins last year whilst training for some hill climb events. There’s not a prayer I can do that on my Wattbike. Not even close

    Yes. Trying to ride a Wattbike up a hill climb is a mug’s gaame.

    speedstar
    Full Member

    Would a more reasonable challenge be more like say the average punter on here is 80kgs? Then 500/80=6.25 w/kg for 5 minutes? or if the average is 70kgs then 7w/kg lol

    dirtyrider
    Free Member

    don’y come in here with your maths and facts and calibrated power meters, this thread is better than the power profile one on weightweenies training sub 😂

    speedstar
    Full Member

    Haha those numbers royally hurt just looking at them 😀

    markgraylish
    Free Member

    Curiosity got the better of me, so I’ve just tried it on Zwift. Created a custom workout with a bit of a warm up, ease off to get everything back under control then a 5minute block @ 500w, followed by a cooldown.
    For reference, I weigh 87kg, have been riding for many many years but not in any way formally trained nor a particular racer (did some xc MTB races about 20 years ago!).

    Anyway, I held 500W for…..
    .

    drumroll

    ….49 seconds….😳

    Oh dear…must try harder next time.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    49s is a good effort I reckon

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    I am going to give that a go. 49 seconds might be a longer term goal than an immediate target though. 😉

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    I’m 70kg and doubt I could hold 500w for more than 15-20s.
    Wont try it just yet as still down on power post covid in Jan. pre covid my FTP was 265, last week I did a virtual TT and couldn’t hold 250w for 5mins!!!

    BenjiM
    Full Member

    I didn’t try the 500w for 5 mins last night as it wasn’t my planned workout but I did manage 8 reps of 498w – 557w for 20 secs using my vector 3 for power on Zwift as I'[m sure the Vortex Smart bumps the figures up somewhat. I’ll run the workout again with the trainer for power to see the difference. (Won’t be tonight though!) For reference I’m 67kg. Whether I could manage 49 secs is a different story!

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    Just looked on zwift for a reference. 994,414,282 and 251

    20 min not much lower that 5 minute. I guess that is mostly because i tend to do longer rides (for me) on there. Now how to set up that custom workout to fall short of 49 seconds.

    K
    Full Member

    73kg here, going to give it a crack on Zwift if I remember and see how long I can last the biggest challenge is try to remember to post back here. Got a drivo II, this also reminded me to calibrate it. So many things to remember!
    I’m sure there are plenty of larger people that could do 500w for 5 mins and it doesn’t really have any relevance to anything but it will be good to have a go and see how far I get…

    sbtouring
    Free Member

    Raced as 2nd cat on road for several seasons. Even at my peak I doubt I’d get close to 350W for 5 min, nevermind 500W. Thats was at 75kg (I’m not even close to that nowadays)

    Looking at some of the charts previously linked my power numbers wouldn’t have been good enough to be classed as a 4th cat never mind 2nd cat. Seem to have really low ftp and and always done badly on any stationary bike tests.

    However put me in a race and I could suffer all race and still have a decent sprint at end of race. Power numbers aren’t always everything.

    Good luck to anyone trying 500W for 5 min, not my idea of fun and no chance I’d even try it.

    GHill
    Full Member

    Thinking of this in terms of FTP, this would be just under 160% for me. For 5 mins? I wouldn’t even try. If it was 130% I’d be fairly confident.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    Yes, you need to look at it as a percentage of FTP rather than absolute figures. Even 3mins at 120% of FTP is bloomin’ hard work – that’s typically top end of VO2max, so you’d need an FTP of somewhere around 420W to even consider it.

    Fillipo Ganna averaged 488W for 12mins27secs in the Etoile de Besege so it is possible if you are good enough.

    For the record my best one minute power is 406W so no way could I manage 500W for five minutes.

    DanW
    Free Member

    Love this thread 😀

    ^ Good way to look at this thread through the prism of the rough requirement of a 420W FTP for 5 mins at 500W. I think it helps to put some of the BS in to context 🙂

    That is an inhuman effort for a 60kg GT winner or a really decent effort for a national level 80kg rider. Even if you were 100kg that still puts you ahead of most people who ride/ train regularly year after year and put a decent amount of effort in!

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Yes I think we are all looking at this from the perspective of cyclists, not other kinds of athlete.

    tomlevell
    Full Member

    Most of the hill climbers at the top of the UK sport can do it while weighing not a lot.
    Yes they specifically train for that time and IMO anyone who is at 400w from “normal” riding would be able to hit it at 500w with specific work. Probably quite a lot of it too.

    Andrew Feather 493w (after doing 550 in the shorter event 2 hours earlier) weighs 63kg according to Strava.
    https://www.strava.com/activities/4121530948/power-curve/300

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Andrew Feather 493w … weighs 63kg

    Snort

    DanW
    Free Member

    I mentioned Mr Feather 2 months ago on page 2 😉

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    There’s no way that he weighs 63kg.

    bjj.andy.w
    Free Member

    Recently started using a coach instead of be self coached and had to do some power tests to reset my training zones. One of them was my five minute max. After a good warm up I ground out a 430W effort. More than pleased with that number, especially as I don’t normally train for this sort of duration (long distance TT’s are my bag) I also did a twenty minute test the day before so might’ve had a bit of fatigue in my legs. Could I hit 500 ? At my age (47) and the amount of training I’ve done over the years (my gains have slowed down dramatically) I very much doubt it.

    steve_b77
    Free Member

    However put me in a race and I could suffer all race and still have a decent sprint at end of race. Power numbers aren’t always everything.

    There’s been a bit about this on Twitter recently from Cameron Rooney-Mason, FTP doesn’t win races, being fast in the right places wins races.

    A good way to look at this is the kids (15, 16, 17yr olds) at the top of the BC development programme are all knocking out well over 5w/kg for their FTP and most of them weigh naff all and quite a few of the older ones are heading to Europe as part of U23 development squads.

    DanW
    Free Member

    There’s no way that he weighs 63kg.

    <stalkermode>

    https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/fitness-and-training/andrew-feather-hill-climb-champion/

    </stalkermode> 😀

    jacob_randolph
    Free Member

    I’m 16yrs old (58kg) and new to the great sport of cycling. I train around 10 hours a week and only started training properly since January this year. I have done a 5min test on a climb and managed 379w at 58kg and held 406w for 4mins. I did a seperate 2min test and did 465w. I enjoy riding uphill fast, is my power good because I train alot, or is it maybe because I have a good V02max system? If I was 77kg, I guess I could hold 500w for a minute?

    jonba
    Free Member

    It’s probably got something to do with youth as well! Most of us are middle aged on here.

    Those seem like good numbers. But numbers aren’t everything. Certainly at your weight and age you’ll be flying up the hills. Don’t over do it. Remember to have rest periods. But you’ll only get stronger over the next few years in my experience. I rode with a skinny 16 year old (6years ago) who was fairly handy. I’d normally have the upper hand. He just got better and better and is being paid to ride a UCI race next week with some of the best. He’ll do ok.

    Are you a member of a club. The best way to compare yourself is to pin a number on and race. I’d suggest you have a look for a club and enter some hill climbs in late summer. They can be found on the CTT website. You’d also do well at hilly time trials.

    Most of all above numbers, stay healthy and enjoy yourself.

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