Originally Posted by
ofajen
So, I wonder about this. At the end of most of my rides, I come back up a sequence of hills, and at least on the last and steepest bit, I pedal hard enough that my rear lifts up out of the saddle. I’m pushing a 42/16 up something close to 20% grade at 10 to 12 mph for maybe 10 seconds and probably doing something like 1000 Watts or maybe a tad more. I have my hands pulling back on the bar tops so that I don’t push myself backwards off the bike. So I think in that case the pedal force is about body weight, since it pushes me off the saddle?
Otto
You can put the equivalent, or more, of your body weight in to the pedals, but you're not going to sustain it very long. You can do the math, with your weight and crankarm length, and get a ballpark power and cadence plot where you're maxing out your body weight. 1000w could certainly do it at the right cadence.