Originally Posted by
PeteHski
4 W/kg appears to be my upper limit and I have never been able to break through that barrier in the last 5 years. So I guess Coggan was right about the average Joe! I never measured my power before I turned 50, so I think I could have been pushing well above 4 W/kg in my 20s and 30s. But that’s history now! I will turn 56 before Christmas.
FWIW, i think i have the worlds largest data set of power on a single rider (me). I started collecting power data when i was 24, and i'm now 54. I've raced every year since i was 14 y old, I've varied from awful to reasonable (scraped a cat 1 licence in my early 20s prior to getting a power meter, but i was definitely fitter after this but rode less races so didn't accumulate sufficient points to move up). Currently, i train ~15 hrs/week, 7 days/week, and manage 2 to 3 strength training sessions per week.
Having carefully calibrated my power meters with known certified masses of ~ 40kg i've been able to compare my power data over this time period. I'm the same mass as i was in my 20s (at least at the time of my best FTP values in my 20s, which for clarity was prior to the term FTP being invented). Anyway, with decent training over the last few years I've managed to surpass my FTP from my 20s by 5 W.
My 5-sec peak power is ~150 W better than in my 20s
my 60-sec peak power is about 30 W lower than in my 20s
my MAP/and VO2max is about the same
my FTP (this summer) was 5 W higher than my best in my 20s
(currently within 4% of my summer best values)