I’ve never thought of myself as a big guy. All through high school, college, and law school I thought of myself as skinny, even scrawny – although I stand 6' 3" and weigh ~ 82 kilos. It wasn’t until I started racing bikes that I discovered that I am a big guy, at least by the standards of most successful bike racers and endurance athletes. My relative size became even more apparent when I started training with power. Suddenly everything is expressed in terms of watts/kg – such as the benchmarks for a rider’s VO2max power and functional threshold power in the power profile chart. Clearly, the higher your power/weight ratio is, the better you’ll be at climbing. But the chart neglects an important point for us bigger riders – that on the flats, it’s your power-to-drag ratio that’s much more important. Overcoming air resistance is critical on the flats (and, for that matter, any time you’re going more than about 15 mph), so anytime you can increase your power relative to your coefficient of drag, you’ll have an advantage over a smaller rider with less power relative to their frontal area. And because the differences in frontal area between smaller and larger riders is less than their relative differences in weight, it is possible for a large rider to crush a smaller rider in a headwind or crosswind situation. Just ask Tom Danielson or local rider Bryan Vaughan (who complains about little guys not providing any significant draft in a breakaway).
Given the reality of my situation, I thought it would be fun to start compiling a list of riders - pro and local amateurs - who belong to The 80 Kilo Club. Maybe this list will inspire you big guys to increase that power, get more aero, and crush the little guys. Feel free to add to the list in the comments!
European Pros:
Magnus Backstedt (94 kg)
Tom Boonen (82 kg)
Domestic Pros:
Tom Zirbel (88 kg)
Local Hardmen:
Bryan Vaughan (86kg)
The Unholy Rouleur
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Scott Thompson -- 59kg (ok maybe 60 right now). And you are absolutely correct. In fact, the power to weight only becomes a huge factor on a climb of more than 3-4 minutes. Even a big guy can turn himself inside out for 3 minutes. It's the 20+ minute climbs up mountains where power to weight really comes into play because everyone can only ride at threshold.
My frontal is the same as guys like Bill Cusmano who weigh 20+ pounds more and create 10%+ more absolute power at threshold.
So on the flats, I hide. Bernard told me that Tony Belota (was that his name) who was like 5'4" and 110 pounds (but a cat 1) always said that he simply tried to survive the paceline on Clara Barton on the 7AM ride so he could get to the foot of the hill (where he would wrip everyone's legs off)
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