Which Cycling Discipline Is Hardest? Road Cycling vs Indoor Cycling vs MTB vs Track vs BMX

Who is the strongest cyclist in the world right now? It would be very easy just to say Tadej

Pogaccia, he is the obvious choice, but if you somehow managed to get all the respective cycling

champions in one room all together, who would actually come out on top? Well, for a bit of fun

we've been trawling through power numbers to see who is the ultimate all-round champion of cycling

A few months ago, I was in Abu Dhabi watching the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships

that were hosted on my whoosh. And as well as some tactical masterclasses, I was absolutely in

awe of some of the mind-boggling power numbers. And it got me thinking, discipline-specific tactics

and teams aside, how would cyclists from different fields stack up? Well, to find out, I've been on

the hunt for champions that don't mind sharing their power numbers with varied success. So let's

dive into the numbers. Well, obviously representing road cycling, we have current world champion

Tadej Pogacar. He's well known for his climbing prowess, long range attacks, and is often touted

to be the best cyclist of all time. He weighs in at 66 kilos, although this can fluctuate during

the race season, and he stands at 1.76 meters tall. Representing esports, we have the goat of

indoor cycling Jason Osborne. Not only has he won the cycling eSports World Champs three times

he also has an Olympic medal in rowing and for a while he was teammates on the road with

Matteo van der Poel. He stands at 1.7m tall and weighs in at 70kg. And right, before anyone pipes

up in the comments about the trustworthiness of indoor training data all of this data has come directly from the world champs where they ride on Elite Justo 2 trainers with a wired connection and that has been tested for at

least 200 hours and calibrated by a tiny tiny tiny 0.01% so just because you cheat when you're

online racing there's no questions about the legitimacy of these numbers. Moving on to the

Velodrome and we have Sprint star Harry Lovresen. He has 5 Olympic golds, 14 European track titles

and 20 World Championship titles, making him the most successful track cyclist at World Championships

of all time. The former BMX rider is nicknamed The Beast and according to his Wikipedia page

he weighs 92 kilos and is 1.81 metres tall. And then representing mountain bikers everywhere

is going to be up-and-coming star Charlie Aldridge, current British national champ at both cross

country and short track, second in the European champs and currently ranked fifth in the world

He stands at 1.84 metres tall and is 78 kilos. Now I also wanted to include a BMX champ as well

but we got blanked by Arthur Pillard, the current world champion, but former junior European champion

Ross Cullen was very useful and he did let us in on his current sprint PB. So we'll start there

shall we? So, from his MyRoosh racing data, we can see that over the past few years, Jason Osborne

has maxed out at 1171 watts for a 5 second effort. Exact numbers for Pogaccia are scarce, but most sources predict a maximum 5 second power

of between 1100 and 1300 watts. Compared to the other three though these two endurance champions are absolutely blown out of the water Charlie Altridge mountain bike demands and bigger frame allow him to put out a staggering 1 watts for 5 seconds

But Harry LeVrasen has been measured putting out a staggering maximum wattage of 2,146 watts

That might not be all too surprising when you look at the size of his thighs

However, you might be surprised to hear that top-level BMX riders regularly see those kinds

of power numbers. Ross Cullen's 6 second power PB is 2380 watts. Obviously though, not all watts

are created equal. Some riders will have massive torque, others will hit that power at a really

high cadence, and some will still be able to produce it after six hours in the mountains

which for some of the riders mentioned probably couldn't think of anything worse

1-minute power and the endurance athletes are once again outdone by the bigger riders

Charlie Aldridge reckons his 1-minute power PB is 915 watts, around 200 higher than Pogaccia

or Jason Osborne. At 20 minutes though, Pogaccia and indoor world champ Osborne pull it back

Despite being around 10 kilos lighter than Aldridge, their famous endurance not only gives

them a higher power to weight, but also an edge in terms of raw numbers too

And then for one hour, wait until you hear this number. Jason Osborne has registered an

FTP of 466 watts. Now, I'm quite a capable amateur cyclist-ish. I don't think I could

hold that for more than a few minutes That is absolutely bonkers numbers Aldridge comes in with a figure of 430 watts and Pogaccia well that number is hotly debated We know that it at least 415 watts

and many people reckon it's closer to 7 watts per kilo in his Tour de France form

So, who is the strongest? Well, it's safe to say that I wouldn't like to go up against any of them

but as far as numbers are concerned, I think that our indoor champ is probably the most surprising

But could he beat Pogaccia? Well, for a few years, he was in the World Tour peloton

but Osborne has been very open about saying that the environment just didn't suit him

And he wasn't able to reach the same potential that he did on his way to Olympic rowing medals

and with his e-sports titles. And I think that's the interesting point

because I think it highlights that however strong you are, you have to train for your personal goals

It's no good training a really high FTP if you want to be a track sprinter, or vice versa

It's no good just training your sprint if you want to be quick up some hills

But most of all, there is far more to any cycling discipline than just watts

There's tactics, there's skill, there's in some cases, there's teams to contend with too

And the reason that these athletes are the best in the business is because they have absolutely nailed what their disciplines require from them

So if you're targeting a big event this year, make sure that you focus on more than just watts

If you want to get stronger on the bike and you don't know where to start or want some really time efficient training

then I'd recommend checking out MyWoosh. It's completely free and has a whole host of workouts, sessions, races and community rides to get you fighting fit

Let me know how your numbers stack up against the pros in the comments below and we'll see you next time