Saturday, March 07, 2015

Guesstimating Climb time from power

If you have access to a power measure and are planning a ride involving lots of climbing or if you just want to measure yourself up against the pros then this application may be of interest.

http://bikecalculator.com/index.html


By plugging in some basic info about yourself and the climb it comes with an estimate of the time to climb. I have found it to be remarkably accurate. 

By way of illustration the table below shows some numbers for a variety of different riders on the principal climbs used on the Marmotte. (The "pro" is David Lopez, data from the 2013 TDF stage where they climbed the Alpe twice, shows the difference between "tempo" and taking it "easy")

The difference between actual and calculated is small. Even where they are "wrong", on the Glandon, it illustrates an interesting point. This climb as a vicious little V valley midway up that will slows you up. It is also the first climb in the event so it gets congested and time is lost working your way through the field. Those going faster and/or starting at the front suffer less from this.


Rider Kg Climb Distance Gradient Power Act Time Calc Time Difference
Pro 67 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 360 45 43 2
Pro 67 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 288 55 52 3
RiderA 74 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 313 54 52 2
RiderB 71 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 222 70 69 1
RiderC 70 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 247 64 65 -1
RiderD 70 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 263 58 59 -1
RiderA 74 Galibier 18 6.6 306 66 65 1
RiderB 71 Galibier 18 6.6 224 84 81 3
RiderC 70 Galibier 18 6.6 223 82 81 1
RiderD 70 Galibier 18 6.6 241 74 75 -1
RiderA 74 Glandon 23 4.8 331 64 62 2
RiderB 71 Glandon 23 4.8 254 83 74 9
RiderC 70 Glandon 22 4.8 274 74 69 5
RiderD 70 Glandon 23 4.8 245 81 75 6
RiderA 74 Telegraph 12 6.9 335 40 41 -1
RiderB 71 Telegraph 12 6.9 250 50 51 -1
RiderC 70 Telegraph 12 6.9 259 50 49 1
RiderD 70 Telegraph 12 6.9 241 48 52 -4

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