Originally Posted by
wgscott
Some of those are just morons like me with a dumb trainer.
The W/kg is an attempt to normalize for body size differences. If I weigh in at twice your weight, it takes me twice as much power to climb the same hill as you do (in the same amount of time).
For similar (high) levels of athletic training, W/kg scales at less than the first power of mass, while (as you say) climbing work scales linearly with mass, so smaller athletes are advantaged in climbing.
Otto