A Watt Bike assessment includes an analysis of your pedal stroke efficiency as well as a fitness test to to determine your heart rate and power training zones.

Pedal Efficiency Assessment

A single pedal revolution involves a downstroke-power phase and an upstroke-recovery phase with each leg. The downstroke phase delivers most of the force that generates forward momentum whilst the upstroke phase unloads the weight of the leg on the pedal and keeps the cranks rotating. A relaxed flowing style is more economical and maximises energy use, and by mastering good pedalling technique, you will become a more energy efficient, and therefore a faster cyclist. 

One of the unique features of the Wattbike is the ability to monitor your pedalling technique as you ride. This is shown as a graph on the Wattbike performance computer in which we are able to perform a detailed analysis of your pedal stroke and easily see where you are applying and losing force throughout your pedal stroke.

The key measures we use to assess your technique are:

• The symmetry between the workload distributed between your left and right leg
• The angle at which your left and right leg generate the greatest force
• Your ability to apply power through the full pedal stroke.

In the below example the cyclist is losing their pedal momentum on the transition phase of the pedal stroke. This figure of eight shape is often seen in beginner cyclists or in people who are new to using cycing shoes. With some focussed work on improving technqiue, they should see some significant improvements fairly quickly.

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In this next example the force curve appears more of a peanut shape. Whilst there is still room for improvement here, the athlete is maintaining some momentum between pedal strokes and is therefore avoiding complete loss of power between leg drives.

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Strong cyclists are often able to produce a force curve that resembles the below example. Here the athlete is maintaining excellent pedal momentum between leg drives and is therefore effectively transferring the power through from one pedal stroke to the next. This is a really energy efficient technique as the absence of any dead spots means that power is being applied to the pedals throughout the full range of the pedal stroke.

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Fitness Assessment

The fitness test that we will take you through will depend upon your history of cycling and current fitness levels. It will also depend upon what information your coach feels is most valuable to obtain. Below are some of the tests that we frequently undertake:

The ramp test is used to establish your minute maximum power (MMP). As the name suggests, this test is incremental and therefore gets progressively tougher throughout.

Cost and duration: Watt bike pedal efficiency, power assessment & report - £50 (60 minutes)

To book a watt bike assessment contact: coach@triathloncoaching.uk.com