I guess without a specific event to nail it down it’ll be hard to define which is better.

You could always do the FTP build stuff then throw in some shorter, sharper stuff as well I guess. I suspect a coach would ask you to think about your strengths and weaknesses then build a programme to address them. If you’re fine with sustained sub-threshold efforts already, but struggle with, say, short, sharp technical kick climbs, you might want to look at working specifically on those. On the other hand, boosting your FTP is going to mean you can put out more power sub-threshold… anyway, I guess this is why coaches exist.

Shame no-one seems to do ‘fit for trails’ programmes. Everything’s very race focussed.

Believe the research shows that training at or just under threshold with adequate recovery has a beneficial effect on your FTP.

You’ll find that the research shows that most training methods with adequate recovery have a beneficial effect on FTP

Most of the recent research i’ve looked at has shown polarised training to be the most beneficial (short hard efforts above FTP and longer sessions a long way below FTP)

Whether or not its the best way to train may be up for debate, but I think most riders (doing 4-8hrs/wk) will find typical FTP builder (sweetspot/ftp) based plans a pretty efficient way to spend the winter months.

Yeah, FTP building is a great place to start really as it lifts all your zones. Anything above threshold is quite prone to ‘use it or lose it’ which is why plans that utilise Vo2 max intervals are handy if you need to keep hold of some top end.

The flip side is, short, hard stuff is quick to improve and equally quick to plateau so if you are training a long way in advance then the time may be better spent working on endurance this time of year as the intensity also increases fatigue.

In the TR podcast episode from the Riprow thread, Lee McCormack talks about spirals of learning in relation to bike skills whereby you work on specific skills in turn- constantly ramping up the level.
Well, really, that’s the same as the theory behind Friel (TR plans are blatantly ripped off from Friel with Coach Chads twist) and any other periodised training plan.
By going Base, Build, Speciality, rest, Base, Build, Specialty, rest etc etc you should continually spiral your fitness upwards.

The trouble with trying to keep your entire game sharp all the time is that you never really maximise your potential so everything blends into a dull beige of performance with random peaks that may or may not coincide with a ride you care about.

One of my mates wants to try zwift out using my set up, he wants to do a race rather than going for pootle. He could use my credentials but that might not be best as he is 124kg and barely a cat D. Will he be able to race if i set him up with an account and take advantage of the free trial period?

Yep, nothing is out of bounds 🙂

Yes.

Bloody Nora! I just got an email from Zwift saying the monthly membership is going up to £12.99 effective today. That’s a hell of a jump.

Existing members will carry on paying the £8/month for the next year. Lucky I just upgraded my membership from the trial yesterday!

Just about to post that:

In order to continue to make Zwift bigger, better and more beautiful, we are updating our membership price to £12.99 per month, effective today. As a way of saying thank you, however, to the awesome Zwifters who helped us get here, your pricing will not change for one year. If you happen to suspend your membership during this period and come back, you can still enjoy your current pricing level.

Yes! Just got the email. If times got hard, I’d probably ditch Strava Premium before I sacked off Zwift but Zwift would be before Trainerroad at that price that’s for sure!!!

Fifeandy is going to have a seizure!

I thought of FifeAndy actually with Eric Minns comment about the Myan ruins.
The only reason they built it where they did is because that hill was the quietest bit of road on Zwift 😆

#nothrillsinthehills

£12.99 does seem excessive – I can see people dropping in for the winter and cancelling for the summer.

Ouch, that’s one hell of an increase…

I’d pay double that and still be more than happy. It’s like having a gym at home with mates 24×7, you’d pay a lot more, plus travel time etc.

Except there are options for less money. At the same price as the others, Zwift was good value. At more than half as much, again it does look a little greedy.

Trainerroad is flawlessly executed too- it’s really plush to use whereas it’s always a little uncertain what’s going to happen when I click on the Zwift icon 😆

Bold move. Not sure I’ll renew at the higher price.

The way I see it is this;
Not many companies around today give you twelve months notice of a price increase, and allow you to pause the subscription (so could save months).

Secondly they have now got twelve months to convince us that and extra £5 a month is worth it, only time will tell…

Personally I’ll be renewing at £12.99 a month unless something else that’s better comes along, but I’m not sure what that could be…

I’ll be ditching Strava premium first but it’s a big increase. Do you get 2 months free Zwift every year as a strava premium subscriber or is that just first year?

Secondly they have now got twelve months to convince me that and extra £5 a month is worth it, only time will tell…

Quite, they’ll need to deliver the goods!

That said, what competition is their with a similar alternative.

WBR 1 lapper for me today….responding to an STWer on chat

[b]WHAT ??!![/b]

And, yeah, agreed – they’ll need to deliver something good to justify that hike, esp now that numbers seem so high. I think they may be driving a whole load of seasonal users

Lol Blader sent me a ride on, so I said hello.

I was currently in solo mode, holding the guy behind and we were not catching the guys in front.

KISS race in 15, anyone joining?

lol Weeksy, sorry to disappoint but no seizure.
Blatant money grab to cash in on growing popularity.
Lets hope no more server explosions like last years GCN ride as it becomes increasingly harder to tolerate things like that at what is now quite a premium price.

You should set up a FB live stream Nath. Really enjoyed watching Jesoers race earlier.

beej – Member
£12.99 does seem excessive – I can see people dropping in for the winter and cancelling for the summer.

+1.

I retained my subscription over the summer even though I barely used it. I figured I was happy to support them, given the price.

I can see me being a ‘winter only’ user at £13 a month.

Increase might have gone better if it were not on the back of a major outage yesterday 🙄

I just bonked so badly in that race, my worst ever finishing position and expecting a huge hit on the CVR points front. Actually struggled to get off the bike and just had to lay down on the garage floor. No matter what I did I couldn’t get passed 250w.

I used to bonking but that was the worst one I’ve ever experienced! Clearly long hours at work, commuting and racing have had a detrimental effect on me.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=14946

Wow, you are human after all!

Full bonk on 42km race – signed up for 120km race.

You need to set up on Twitch and stream so we can all watch as your glycogen starved muscles give up one by one and you slide sideways off bike still clipped in.

GWS Nath, sounds like a bit of rest might be needed.

I’m shattered when I commute into London on a motorbike. Kudos for Zwift racing after cycling to work!!

I did the 19:20 WBR 1 lap race and after the dust had settled finished 7th of 9 in the C group in my first full race finish. Didn’t go off too mad at the start this time and got into a group of 2 Cs and a B practically the whole lap. Just couldn’t sprint at the finish and they went away from me in the last 200m.

At least I have a starting point now and am getting feel for pacing myself and how much power I can sustain. Just need to up my FTP! 😀

On the price increase front I am a brand new member and £8 seemed pretty reasonable to me. I would have probably paid the £12.99 if that had been the price so I’m not too unhappy that I luckily signed up yesterday and have a year’s grace. A 62% price hike does seem a big jump though.

@weeksy – haha I’m flattered you thought I wasn’t human? 😆

@fifeandy – not really, I’ll have a fuel plan in place by then, including caffeine etc

@joe – pretty much all my races are after commuting mate, use the commute as a warm up. Unfortunately I’m not very good at stick to sub Z2 🙁

Bottom line is I’ve radically changed my diet, I’m under a ridiculous amount of mental stress from work and I’ve just been touring London to get past a diversion. I’m not too worried just yet. Definitely don’t want to experience that again though!!

I saw the price increase email as I got my bike out of the car to go ride in the woods and just skim read it and thought I’m definitely binning it at that price as it seemed an excessive increase, but as I was riding round I realised how much that subscription has done for me (comments like you must be on an ebike 😀 ).
I will see how much I am using it through summer 2018 and if it’s similar to this year I will become a seasonal subscriber once it goes up to £12.99 for me.

I agree muggo it’s been brilliant for me as well. Far cheaper than a gym subscription especially as I am on it 3 or 4 times a week and I never want to do spin classes ever again!

This has got me stumped, but okay:

http://www.cycligentrankings.com/vcr/client/result/14946/41530/2017r11/all/elite/1/0/0/1/1

P.s. Edmund is a professional cyclist – I’ve ridden with him before around Richmond Park.

LOL 5 points more than Tim who finished a long way ahead of you. !Weird system, i keep telling you that.

I guess it’s just about position relative to prediction and there were enough big hitters with more points than you??

Trying to do the 12 week FTP thing starting from week 3. On the face of it a lot of the sessions look very easy when looking on whatsonzwift but day 3 6 reps of about 70% of FTP which I can relatively happily sit in at bottom end of z2 had a nasty sting where the smart trainer ramped up the RPM to 115 on reps 4 and 5 and 130 at the end of the last rep. It was leaving me dredding the final 3 minutes which I guess is the idea even if it wasn’t because it was a full effort sprint.

Fighting and battling the desire to race today… It’s Richmond which is the flattest of the flats… Decent field in at the 11.30am 4 lapper with WBR… But i have to admit, the legs are saying NO !

Yeah exactly, sorry I’m not confused as to why I got 5 points. I’m more stumped that it isn’t -100 points, but there’s a hell of a lot of people with negative points below me!

Cartwrights allocation of points would have gone to Edmund who’s only done a handful of races.