WKRC

What do we mean by power and strength

What do we mean by the terms power and strength. Probably something different from someone with an engineering/science back ground.

To help clear up misunderstanding when we casually mention these term here goes.

For strength read Force which is measured in Newtons and is the effort applied. So, if using a high gear on the bike the force reqired to get the pedals round and travel distance X will be higher than if you use a lower gear to achieve. Here the same work has been done. Work done = force x distance moved and in the foregoing example the distance moved is the sum of the No of revs of the cranks and the circumference .
Power is work done in unit time.

So then, we often say someone is powerful when we might mean strong, they are strong as they can churn a big gear. I think you can now see the strong riders in the club but they may not be generating any more power than spinners so riders of equal weight riding the same time in a TT could have achieved the necessary power output (same in all cases) by being ‘strong’ and applying high force but lowish revs or or spinning but not being so strong

Ed.