Power to weight ratio

In his now infamous book The Secret Race, Tyler Hamilton describes a conversation he had with a doctor who told him “to win the Tour de France you need to be very, very fit, and very skinny”.

I’m not, clearly, trying to follow in Froome and Wiggo's footsteps and win the Tour, however this quote does succinctly encapsulate that cycling performance is entirely relative to one’s power to weight ratio; the fitter and lighter you (and your bike) are, the faster you will go.

Improving my fitness and losing some weight were my original aims for dusting off my bike last Spring, and cycling really has made a huge difference to my well-being. It has become a truly virtuous circle; the more weight I’ve lost the quicker I’ve got on my bike, and the more cycling I’ve done the more weight I’ve lost.

With apologies for the toe nails

And now (coupled with a rather dramatic improvement to my diet) I’ve reached my target weight. At 11st 7lbs (73kg), I’ve lost a full four stones, 25kg. With weight making such a difference to cycling performance, cyclists are obsessed with trimming a few grams here or a few grams there from their equipment, yet my whole bike weights less than 10kg, so I’ve lost the equivalent of two and a half bikes from my body weight!

I don’t plan to lose any more. In fact I’ll probably end up around the 12 stone mark after the Ride100 is finished. Either way, the very crude body mass index (BMI) suggests that I’m now a healthy weight for my age and height.



The key thing for me is healthy weight. My weight loss has been relaviely dramatic (and very expensive, as I’ve had to buy an entire new wardrobe!), yet I’ve been suprised by the number of worried comments I’ve attracted, from family members to well-meaning colleagues. I’m far from underweight, with no intention to lose any more, yet it feels like almost like a reflection of how generally overwight the country has become that by just being a healthy weight I’m starting to appear worryingly thin to some. It’s all very novel for me.

One long-term positive for my family and I from me losing this weight is that I’ve improved my chances of avoiding a range of illnesses, including heart disease. Exercise and good diet are championed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), and the money we’re raising will help fund both their research and their communication and education activities. You can sponsor us for our efforts in the Ride100, to benefit the BHF, here.

And next Sunday, I hope all this work will enable me to set a reasonable pace through the Surrey Hills. Not that it will be easy, of course. Three time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond captured this perfectly in his famous truism about cycling; “It never gets easier. You just go faster”.