Weight to fitness ratio

[VamP]

Vamp I said retain not increase. Lots of people lose weight by shedding muscle mass almost as fast as they shed fat.

Dur. Must curb tendency to speed read. You are correct of course.

 

[Camrider]

I've gone from 105kg to 76kg in the last 13 months, and my average road speed on day rides has improved by 30% from around 15kph to 21kph, I can also ride longer at that sort of speed (averaged 21.3 on a 200km audax on Saturday).

So in my experience shedding a load of lard makes a big difference in speed. It also vastly improves recovery time and I'm no longer left gasping for breath on long climbs.

 

[VamP]

Im 2 stone lighter than what I was 18 months ago lot leaner as well but ive always been fit IMO - I would say the 2 stone lighter has enabled me to go further with less fatigue its also allowed me to climb hills where before I would of had to stop half way but apart from that its only improved my commute time by 3 -5 minutes pretty neglidgable in terms of bike improvement but massivly significant in terms of wheight loss - perhaps you could conclude that by losing 15 percent of your body wheight only results in around 5 percent in terms of cycling ability. We all know that the more miles you put in on a bike will mean the more you improve but there is only so far you can go with the weight loss to improve your bike ability. Only this weekend I seen a giant of a bloke fly up a 25 percent graident albeit 50 meters or so but from an almost standing stop thats some going I reckon he was in the region of 14 - 15 stone.

It depends on your discipline of course. In my sport of cyclocross a 10% weight reduction correlates closely to about a 10% improvement in average lap speed, which is a similar correlation to that reported by runners.

Time triallists OTOH will expect to see a much smaller correlation.