On this edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast we chat about weight - bike weight and rider weight - and find out from our cycling coach Devlin Eyden how much of a difference weight really makes in our cycling performance.  He points out the difference between big, heavy, muscular individuals and individuals that are carrying a little bit of excess body fat and shares with us what makes a more efficient cyclist.

Transcript

David Katz: It’s time for another edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast with myself, Mr Active, David Katz and our resident expert, Devlin Eyden, when it comes to anything cycling.

Recently in the last couple of weeks we had a podcast about the weight of your bike and how much of a difference that can make, but Devlin, how much of a difference does a riders weight really make? I know whenever we work down at the joBerg2c they’ve got the Buffalo Category for the guys who are over 90kg, so 90kg or 60kg, there must be a huge difference?

Weight plays a big part in your cycling performance

Devlin Eyden: There is indeed. As you mentioned, touching on the bike weight in one of our previous podcasts, I suppose at the end of the day, weight, whether it’s you or whether it’s the bike, we start having to move that weight in a momentum up a hill or over a distance. Whether it is the bike or the rider, weight is always going to make a difference. I think from a rider weight point of view, you need to just realise as well, are we talking weight in terms of big, heavy, muscular individuals or are we talking individuals that are carrying a little bit of excess body fat and are overweight.

Either way, you still need to, as I mentioned, move that inertia and get a momentum going. From a more muscular individual we tend to find obviously your Power will tend to be a little bit higher as well, your Power output, it will help when it comes to your Power to weight ratio as we’ve mentioned before, where generally someone who is a little bit more overweight and hasn’t necessarily got enough of the training behind them, will then start to struggle a little bit more because then they’ve got more weight and not necessarily as much Power in the legs, so then their Power to weight ratio is making it a lot more difficult.

As a cyclist, again, we have touched on it in the past from a point of view, road cycling for instance, so whether you’re a climber or a sprinter, sprinters being more heavier set individuals, more muscular, more heavy, whereas your climbers seem to be your leaner, lighter weight individuals.

Move on your bike with as little effort as possible

That will go quite simply from a mountain bike point of view as well, but it’s important there that the [inaudible 0.05.55] is taking away the muscular development and the size of the rider from that point of view, carrying excess body fat and being overweight in cycling is of very little benefit and it basically comes down to, if you are a lightweight rider and you go and put another 20-30kg pack on your back and you feel what it’s going to do to your riding then, basically the whole idea is you want to try and be as lean as possible as a cyclist and be able to, efficiently be able to move our weight around with as little effort as possible.

DK: One of the big reasons why we all do exercise, is to keep our weight in check. Devlin Eyden, thank you very much for another fantastic answer here on the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast.

If you would like to find out more about Devlin Eyden’s coaching, his personal coaching and how he can help you, go to coachparry.com and click through on the coaching tab.

Thanks very much for joining myself, Mr Active, David Katz and Devlin Eyden, we’ll catch up with you again next time.