[SubuSS]

So cyclists measure their capability in terms of FTP - essentially what power output they can maintain at full throttle for an hour.

This hugely depends on body weight / gender / training levels etc., body weight being a big deal since that’s what you’re transporting. So the other way folks measure output is W/kg of body weight.

A beginner adult male will be in the 100-200W zone, around 0.5-1.5 W/Kg. Usually anyone can train themselves into the 200-300 (3-4 W/Kg) zone which is the recreational pace - the groups of cyclists you see on the road. Beyond 300 ftp (150lb body weight) (4-5 W/kg) you’re reaching race pace. The ones you see on screen have upwards of 5-6 W/Kg FTP output. They obviously have other constraints around putting this output at the end of a 200km ride for 20 mins etc as well, which makes it extra hard.

Finally we come to the KW numbers - all these folks have two kinds of muscles (fast twitch and slow twitch). The sprinters are saddled with a higher proportion of the kind of fibers that can allow huge spurts of power - they put out about 1000-1500W for about 5-10s. These are probably what you’re thinking of. This is pretty much an end of ride (or a sprint section) empty your tanks effort.

Semi related tidbit: track cyclists are a middle kind of beasts here: they put 600-1000W for a couple of minutes but don’t have to worry about riding 200kms to get there.