Comment by michaelt

> I've seen numbers like 250W mechanical power for an average trained cyclist, so either my setup is rather inefficient, my measurements are off, or I'm going to find out that I'm nowhere near as strong as a real cyclist.

Cyclists' power output is sometimes reported as a 'power curve' - a chart with power on the vertical axis, and duration-of-that-power on the horizontal axis.

For example, a cyclist might be be able to produce 500W for 15 seconds; 350W for 1 minute; 270W for 10 minutes; 200W for 1 hour; and 150W for 5 hours.