What type of MTB are we talking? Enduro? XC? Downhill/Gravity? Probably most relevant for XC racing but then Enduro it’s largely important to understand how to manage the workload between stages, technically it’s not a timed part of the race but you still need to make your start times and regulate fatigue to ensure you can recover from the intensity of the downhill sections and go again.

Strictly speaking it’s 1 watt = joule of energy per second. From a cycling perspective how we get there is cadence multiplied by force through the pedal.

The rate at which energy is dissipated (used) per second, measured in joules. So a 60W light bulb uses (burns / dissipates etc) 60 joules for each second the bulb is energized.

@@natebriggs6368 so 1 joule dissipates one drop of water per second? Or how much water does 1 joule disaipates?

@@nelsonlopez879 the metric system isn't that powerful. "calorie, a unit of energy or heat variously defined. The calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat required at a pressure of 1 standard atmosphere to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1° Celsius." 1 Calorie (cal) = 4.184 Joules ... Typically when people mention calories they mean kcal and not cal though. However measuring cycling power in Watts is quite tricky. You can use following formula to get a power (P) generated by a torque (T) applied to a shaft that rotates at a rate of N rotations per minute (N_rpm) P [W] = T [Nm] * N_rpm [-]/ 9550 Measuring how fast you are moving your cranks is quite easy, however measuring the torque produced by your legs is more difficult. From what I have found and actually understood is use of strain gauge in the cranks which is capable of measuring the little structural deformations in the crank caused by your legs. Then through some magic of structural engineering you can work out what torque are your legs producing to produce those structural deformations and then you can finally calculate the Power. There are more methods, I saw some sensors measuring force applied directly in pedals which can be converted to torque (T = "crank length" * Force). And some methods of determining power are simply based on clever use of accelerometers afaik.

Wow 😳 😊​@@NJSportScience