What does a pro cyclist FTP look like?

FTP is the acronym for Functional Threshold Power. In theory, this is the maximum power that you can sustain for an hour’s riding. Once you know this number, it’s then used to set your training zones and help you gauge your riding efforts. If you are new to the metric, our guide to FTP in cycling explains how testing and training zones work before we get into professional rider figures here.

FTP can only be measured using a power meter (or a turbo trainer that reports power), it’s not something that you can use a heart rate monitor for. Because it comes from a power meter reading, the FTP is measured in watts.

What is FTP cycling?

There are a few different ways to calculate your FTP. The classic one involves riding for 20 minutes and multiplying the average power by 0.95. This saves riders from having to devote an hour’s time to the test and gives accurate numbers.

More recently, the Ramp Test has found favour. With this test, the wattage to sustain gets harder and harder across a set of intervals. Once you can’t sustain the required wattage, you’ve maxed out and it’s time to do some maths. Luckily, there are calculators out there to do it for you. A good cycling workout app can also run these tests for you automatically and track your FTP progress over time, which makes training much easier and more structured. 

For pros, knowing this number helps them to work out what effort they can sustain on long climbs. The running joke of Team Sky/Ineos looking at their power numbers all the time during the Tour de France comes from knowing their FTP number. It’s also great for time trials where an individual effort needs to be sustained over a set distance.

Photo Credit: Getty

How should we read professional FTP figures in 2026?

The rider figures below record a particular point in each cyclist’s career. Their dates matter: a number published in 2020 remains useful historical information, but it should not be treated as that rider’s current threshold or the limit of what today’s best professionals can produce.

Since those figures were collected, race analysis has given us more examples of exceptional sustained climbing performances. These help explain how the demands at the front of professional cycling have developed. They also require some care, because an estimated power output on a climb measures something different from a reported FTP.

FTP is a training benchmark for sustained effort. A climbing estimate describes a particular performance over a stated duration, sometimes after several hours of racing. Comparing them means considering the length of the effort, altitude, accumulated fatigue and how the number was obtained.

How Pogačar’s climbing performances have progressed

Tadej Pogačar’s performances on Passo di Ganda provide a useful comparison. Lanterne Rouge estimated his output at 6.34 W/kg during the 2023 Il Lombardia ascent, completed in 23 minutes 8 seconds. In 2025, its estimate was 7.22 W/kg over 21 minutes 22 seconds.

That is a substantial change in both ascent time and estimated power on the same climb. It illustrates how much stronger a decisive race performance can become within a relatively short period. However, the figures do not establish that Pogačar has an FTP of 7.22 W/kg, nor that his threshold improved by the same proportion.

These are modelled climbing figures, using assumptions about the rider and conditions rather than a published power-meter file. The faster ascent is clear; assigning every second gained to a change in physiological capacity would require more information.

Photo Credit: Getty

Newer benchmarks in women’s cycling

The women’s data also benefits from context beyond the original FTP tables. Isabella Holmgren’s 2025 Tour de l’Avenir Femmes performances provide a striking example of the level emerging from the under-23 ranks.

Her final mountain time-trial on La Rosière was estimated at 5.30 W/kg for 29 minutes, rising to 5.61 W/kg in the analysis’s altitude-adjusted model. Those two figures describe the same performance under different assumptions. They are not two separate measurements, and neither should be entered into a table as her confirmed FTP.

The analysis placed that effort close to an elite benchmark set by Demi Vollering at Villars-sur-Ollon in 2024. That makes it useful evidence of the quality coming through women’s cycling. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that the entire women’s peloton has raised its threshold by a particular amount since 2020.

For a reader in 2026, the historical tables and these newer examples therefore serve different purposes. The tables preserve reported figures from earlier seasons; the race estimates show what leading riders and emerging talents have subsequently produced in specific competitive situations.

What these numbers mean for your own riding

A professional’s headline power figure is most useful when its context is included. Producing a strong effort when fresh, repeating it across a stage race and delivering it after hours of racing are different demands. FTP helps describe a rider’s capabilities, but it cannot explain all of those differences on its own.

For your own training, consistent comparisons are more useful than chasing a professional’s estimated number. Our guide to setting realistic cycling training goals explains how to choose measures that fit your riding. If time is limited, getting faster on three rides a week offers a practical way to structure that work.

Fuelling belongs in the same conversation. Before interpreting a weaker late-ride effort as a lack of fitness, consider whether you have supported the work properly. Our guide to fuelling your rides covers the basics.

What FTP chart can I use to compare myself to pro cyclists?

Thanks to the tiered power FTP cycling chart provided by Andrew Coggan, we can see the sorts of numbers required to be at certain levels.

This chart requires riders to have completed efforts at the listed interval times. The average watts of those efforts are then divided by the rider’s weight to give a w/kg figure.

So for instance, my FTP at the moment is 326, and I weighed 83kg when I set it. My figure for the FT column is therefore 3.92. This puts me in the middle-upper range of the Good tier. As you can see, I’m a long way off being able to turn pro!

For British riders looking at this chart, Cat 5 is an American introductory racing category and can be interpreted as an extension of Cat 4.

This is only one way of reading this chart and whilst people obsess about where their FTP fits on it actually we should look across the board.

Where a rider’s w/kg sits for each interval helps to create a rider’s power profile. It’s possible for a strong sprinter to have reached Cat 1 without a FTP Cat 1 FTP value on this chart because their 5-second interval value is so high. The same applies to puncheurs who might have high 1-minute or 5-minute values but a lower FTP.

My own values on this chart are low 5s, middling 1m, high 5m and a middling-high FTP. This puts my power profile cycling somewhere between the pursuiter and time-triallist rider profiles.

The original post on power profiling on TrainingPeaks can be found here.

What might the FTP a professional cyclist has?

I’m going to add a caveat here. Some of these figures have been ‘reverse engineered’ from other data, some come directly from actual data, and some count slightly as hearsay.

A lot comes directly from what riders have entered into their own Strava accounts. This applies to the weight figure too, in most cases. What I can’t guarantee is when the FTP figure was updated or when the weight figure was updated. I can’t even be sure if they were updated at the same time. What I can guarantee is that someone with access to the rider’s Strava account has entered the figures.

I thought about listing the tables by w/kg but decided to list them by outright FTP numbers instead. It’s time to give the rouleurs with high power some credit!

FTPs are often closely guarded secrets for top riders. So, just like the salaries listed here, take the numbers with a pinch of salt, but this is a decent guide nonetheless. For someone like Mathieu van der Poel, FTP is only half the story. His ability to go deep into the red repeatedly is what makes him a star rider. I would love to see the FTP of someone like Filippo Ganna or Wout van Aert, but unfortunately, I haven’t found it yet.

FTP of men pro cyclists

Photo Credit: Getty

FTP of women pro cyclists