Tiger, I’ve got an 11-32 on mine and it’s really bloody annoying when you’re trying to do a workout that has cadence and power. Might be easier for you with your fancy pants turbo though!

My turbo bike is **** though, no front mech, no brakes, even the rear wheels broken  😀

I might need to use a fan heater in the garage tomorrow to warm myself instead of cool

And again tonight. First time I’ve raced back to back days on Zwift. Fancied racing up the hills at Richmond.

Took it relatively sensibly off the start and managed to sneak onto the back of the front group just before it dropped the stragglers after the first corner. Knew I wouldn’t hold on up Libby and formed a small group. Onto the 3rd and final lap had to put a decent effort in to catch back up to the best of what was left. Short recovery then making sure anyone who hadn’t got back on didn’t and trying to crack any of the other 4 before the hills started. It looked like I couldn’t beat 2 of them if we were together up the hills. Had a dig up the lower slopes of Libby and eventually got rid of 2 over the top.

Last roll of the dice as I got back on after the fast descent and put in a dig along to the final climb to see if either were still bluffing. They wern’t and couldn’t hold them close enough at the top and ended up rolling in.

I like that course for racing as it’s not just flat out for the entire length as the hills mess up the groups and there’s enoough chances to get back on if you have the power.

That sounds very very different to when i race that course 🙂

“Hung on… died…. lost the group….” I’d love one day to write something like yours 🙂

I think I lost CVR points but the website is so flakey I can’t get back to see.

I guess as there are less than half the racers classed as finishers I’m in the bottom half rather than in the top third and there were essentially not many people racing which reduces the points available massively. As Crosshair points out it’s a poor system currently.

The 2 I was with who beat me have been bumped for no HR monitor.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=45871

Hmmm, well after 10 weeks of the 10-12wk FTP builder training plan, last night’s FTP test reckons I have increased my power by 3w….

Bit cheesed off to be honest. I am definitely fitter, but I was concerned all the way through the training plan that it wasn’t pushing me enough to as much effect as possible. I even put my FTP up by 10w a few weeks in, because it was all too easy.

I had a bit of issue during the FTP test with power & cadence; I couldn’t get into a suitable gear. At the cadence I wanted to ride at, Zwift would ease the resistance off to below the power output I wanted to ride at. Every time I changed gear, it would increase resistance to such a level that for the cadence I wanted to maintain, the power output was too high. I guess it was doing this based on wheel speed? I persevered with the higher power output, but by about 8-9mins in I was really struggling so had to ease off & then had no ability to ramp the power up again.

I think I’ll just do some hard rides on Zwift & see if I can beat my FTP that way.

If after 12weeks I’d got 3w I’d be well peed off 😳

I’ve consistently found I can do a bigger 20min effort in a race think it’s the best way to get FTP

I’m doing the 4 week FTP booster & TBH some of the workouts have been the grimmest experiences i’ve ever had on a bike, i nearly fell off once!

My mate is doing the beginner FTP builder & they are pretty hard work for him, so maybe you should try increasing your FTP figure again.

Hold on Stumpy unless i’m completely wrong, during the FTP Test you’re in a free ride mode and ERG isn’t being used.  Surely if you’re on a smart trainer the resistance shouldn’t be changing? I know mine doesn’t do anything during those 20 minute free ride sessions.

During my 4wk booster for week 3 I changed the percentage of the workouts up to 110%, made it much tougher than the previous week and had to eventually bring it down to 105% ish for the remainder.

Going to jump on the CVR 3 lap greater London flat today. 16:00

Not necessarily for the CVR World Cup stuff, but just because the time and course suits what i was planning anyhow. As it’s a World Cup race i expect to finish last and be mostly a solo ride… but i’ll have a try and see what i can do. It’s a good 60 mins ride is 3 laps of that course, so will be a nice distance/workout.

I sacked off the 12 week one and jumped on Trainer Road. The Zwift workouts have very little information about them and didn’t seem like they were enough on their own. TR sessions are something else. After 6 weeks Base I was rather knackered and have had a poor start to the first 2 weeks of Build which I’ve since shelved until next week when I will go back and start it again. I’ve not stopped riding but for 2 weeks I’ve not been able to produce the higher powers reliably. Last 2 races back up that I’ve improved and that I’ve now recovered.
Just need to stop myself overdoing it this week before starting it again.

Oh and also the new TR Ramp Test FTP is almost pleasant in comparison to the other options and appears to be about right.

Hmmm, well after 10 weeks of the 10-12wk FTP builder training plan, last night’s FTP test reckons I have increased my power by 3w….

Bit cheesed off to be honest. I am definitely fitter, but I was concerned all the way through the training plan that it wasn’t pushing me enough to as much effect as possible. I even put my FTP up by 10w a few weeks in, because it was all too easy.

I had a bit of issue during the FTP test with power & cadence; I couldn’t get into a suitable gear. At the cadence I wanted to ride at, Zwift would ease the resistance off to below the power output I wanted to ride at. Every time I changed gear, it would increase resistance to such a level that for the cadence I wanted to maintain, the power output was too high. I guess it was doing this based on wheel speed? I persevered with the higher power output, but by about 8-9mins in I was really struggling so had to ease off & then had no ability to ramp the power up again.

I think I’ll just do some hard rides on Zwift & see if I can beat my FTP that way.

First, it sounds like your ftp test was screwed up both for pacing and maybe trainer settings, so I wouldn’t set any store by those figures. And someone’s already said, you should be riding in slope mode for the actual test. If it’s a question of the gearing and cadence no being quite right, you may be able to alter the level setting of the trainer. I found with a nine-speed 11-32 cassette some of the gaps in ratios made it hard to get an optimum for me balance. Next time I’m going to use my road bike with 11-speed, closer-ratio gears.

I haven’t done the Zwift FTP stuff, but training specifically to improve FTP doesn’t necessarily have to be brutal. That’s kind of the point, particularly if you’re using sweet spot stuff to minimise the damage. You should also consider that there’s far more to riding than just FTP, but that’s the metric that Zwift training stuff seems to highlight. Likewise the in-game fixation on w/kg.

I’ve consistently found I can do a bigger 20min effort in a race think it’s the best way to get FTP

Except that it’s not an aim in itself and a lot of formalised FTP tests include a five minute VO2 Max effort to take your anaerobic system out of the 20-minute FTP effort. If all you ever did was train for 20-minute sustained efforts, your FTP would go up, but it wouldn’t necessarily make you faster in a riding situation, unless it was a 20-minute sustained effort – a TT maybe or a longish hill climb.

So yes, but your race numbers may not strictly speaking relate to a formalised FTP test. Or something like that.

ps: anyone who thinks FTP testing is unpleasant should have a crack at the new Sufferfest 4DP Full Frontal test, which is genuinely nasty – two seven-second sprints, a five-minute flat-out effort, short rest, 20-minute effort, short rest, one-minute all-in effort. And die…

I did the 2 laps of london loop in the mgcc race this morning. It was a savage pace throughout with the first box hill climb done in 7:07 and second one done in 7:24. I ended up with 5th place as it was a very strong group today as we all pushed each other to the limit. Have to say that we were all pretty evenly matched which made it a war of attrition rather than tactical. I ended up with avg watts of 284w (3.5w/kg) and a PR of london loop of 22:04.

Did a TT race last night on the full Richmond course for no other reason than it was at a time that worked for me. Went off hard, felt pretty good and so thought I might be able to hold 350w for 30 minutes…turns out I was very, very wrong. 12 minutes in I died and just about held 290w for the final 18 mins or so. FTP went up over 300w for the first time ever so that’s good I guess.

Going to have a crack at the WBR 1 lap race at 19:40 tonight i think if anyone else is around.

I’m feeling a little incompetent now !

I’m doing the 4 week FTP booster & TBH some of the workouts have been the grimmest experiences i’ve ever had on a bike, i nearly fell off once!
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My mate is doing the beginner FTP builder & they are pretty hard work for him, so maybe you should try increasing your FTP figure again.

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Well, this is on of the things I didn’t really know about going into the 10Wk session. I used to do structured training plans for running & always seemed to be pushing harder than I was during this FTP builder plan. I upped the wattage by 10w (roughly 5%) a few weeks in because it didn’t feel hard enough. But, I didn’t want to go massively outside the prescribed value, as I did an FTP test prior to the plan starting and figured that the plan using that value to gauge my efforts would give me the best result.

Hold on Stumpy unless i’m completely wrong, during the FTP Test you’re in a free ride mode and ERG isn’t being used.  Surely if you’re on a smart trainer the resistance shouldn’t be changing? I know mine doesn’t do anything during those 20 minute free ride sessions.

Erm, I am not sure how the resistance is set during the FTP test. It wasn’t changing for the gradients, but it must set a certain resistance (perhaps based on your current FTP?) to give you something to push against? Dunno? It just felt that in 1 gear it felt too easy & I was having to pedal too quickly to increase my power, but changing just one gear made it massively harder & riding at my preferred cadence was too much effort. With hindsight, I wonder if I should have stayed in the easier gear & gradually ramped up my cadence? Dunno.

And someone’s already said, you should be riding in slope mode for the actual test. If it’s a question of the gearing and cadence no being quite right, you may be able to alter the level setting of the trainer. I found with a nine-speed 11-32 cassette some of the gaps in ratios made it hard to get an optimum for me balance. Next time I’m going to use my road bike with 11-speed, closer-ratio gears.

Presumably slope mode is set-up by entering the FTP test? You don’t have to do anything to get it working like that?

Just been looking around this a bit online. It appears a lot of other people had the same issue, or not enough resistance or too much resistance. I did find an interesting comment on a Zwift knowledge base question.

ADDED INFO FROM LINDSAY:

Hello everyone –

We added a feature a while ago to help with exactly this situation. While on a controllable trainer, you can adjust the baseline resistance up or down during the FTP section of the test (or any other ‘free ride’ block) using the + and – keys on your keyboard, or the resistance buttons on the Action page of the Zwift Mobile Link app.

here: https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203510923-FTP-Test

But, looking around there seems to be very little information about this & I generally don’t use Mobile Link when running Zwift. So, potentially I could have twiddled my +/- keys on the keyboard to adjust the resistance & got a better result. I might try again in a week.

CVR world cup… 3 laps greater London flat. Wasn’t sure whether i was a C or D based on their catagories, so entered C as it had the most riders in it.

Set out with a plan for this race, no more than 400w off the line, sit in whatever group that ended up as. It was from about 31st-45th in the C cat it seems.

The race wasn’t that exciting, quite cagey, some sitting, some waiting. 1.5 laps in, 3 guys go off the front, i tried, honestly… but i couldn’t get there, i had to sit and let them go. We’d caught and passed some guys by this stage so it was now about 29th to 36th in our group. The 3 ahead had spllit into a 2-1 but the 1 was putting out about 3.4w/kg at the time so he was holding us at about 30s.

Into the final lap i made a few kicks, just 500w for 20s each time, just softening the bunch and we dropped another… Onto the flyover i was in a decent position, the HR was over 170, but that’s OK…. 2 kicked but we held them on the false flat. Down towards the finish and we were a bunch of 7…. Into the straight, 1 guy went REALLY early.. i got all excited and went after him… 550m ! oh…. crap… too early.. i died, recovered, sprinted, died… held…. I think i got 3rd in the group.

God knows what that all means overall but was a cracking race 🙂

Weeksy i was a bit disappointed with your performance today as you had Kim Little in your race and i was expecting you to turn him over. Kim won the zwift UK champs on saturday but you are STW and should have rightly put him in his place 😀

In my defence, the A group had a 4minute head start on our group

Finally got round to doing the ftp test again.  Managed to raise it up to 245 which i’m happy with after doing the 4wk booster, was previously 214.  Think that puts me around 3w/kg.  Probably could have increased the watts a bit more towards the end but was fully ko’d by the end of it which is how i think it should be.

Let training resume for the next one!

Excellent work and improvements!

Right had a go on the Dorito in a proper race… WBR Flat @ 18:35 as a D

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I think we can safely say my old dumb turbo was a bit ‘cheaty’ my legs were still heavy but I worked hard and was going nowhere!!

It really lets you know when you drop the draft

Power down, w/kg down but it was all good. (although Sprint times are faster and max power is up) but it’s soooooo much better

At least we I now know its accurate 🙂

Onwards and upwards…

oh and in Zwiftpower I got a little red w/kg which I assume is bad but I can’t see what more I can do, wore a HR and have a calibrated smart turbo that does power.

Edit (I think I exceeded the D limit, oh well, I now know not to hang onto D)

Tiger – i think you will see more improvement in your fitness now you are on a smart turbo. I am sure you have now realised just how much easier it is on a dumb trainer. I was shocked at first how much effort was required when you suddenly get resistance changes. I think at this point is where the zwift addiction really kicks in.

AFAIK the little red flag just highlights the maximum value of each parameter in that race/section. So basically you had the highest w/kg of anyone in your group in that race. I have had red for highest heart rate and for being the most lardy before now! I don’t think it is a problem other than if it keeps happening you may get bumped up to the C Group next time.

Anyone else suffer with being FREEZING after Zwifting ? When i’m finished, obviously i’m roasting, within a few mins i end up with hands made of ice cubes that i can’t get warm for about 2 hours afterwards. Obviously it’s proper cold at the moment, but even in more warm temps i still end up freezing after riding on Zwift…. I’m not aware of feeling like this after outdoor rides though.

yep – my feet are the worst though.  What I tend to do now is as soon as I have stopped pedalling in anger I switch the fan off (it is on a cheapo remote) and put my fleece back on.

Once I finished having a tidy up it is straight indoors from the garage to remove all the wet clothes and accept that my feet are going to remain cold for the next 3 hours even after a hot shower.  Zwifting between 6:30 and 7:30 this morning, still cold now.

yeah weeksy – even when riding I’ve had a warm fan on me as well as one of the 2 cold one for the last few “outings”, at least for the first 15 minutes

I also often wear winter boots or else toe covers on my ordinary shoes

I wear one of those mesh vests too – sod that sweaty shirt clinging to you after a session, standing in a garage at below-zero temps

Tiger – i think you will see more improvement in your fitness now you are on a smart turbo

I’m just happy I now have some ‘stats’ I can can aim to improve that I know are real.

After yesterday which was my first proper go on it gave me an estimated FTP of 261w this I know I can improve as my legs were still shot from the weekend, I’m currently 91kg so my aims are over the next 3 months to get that to over 300w and to drop my weight to below 75kg

So 2.9 w/kg is current

if i drop the chub and keep the power @ 75kg this becomes 3.5 w/kg

& if I can up the power and drop the chub (golden ticket) 300w & 75kg = 3.8 w/kg

Lets see how we get on, I’ll be sure to bore you all with progress 🙂 (or lack of it)

(also – must not Zwift today, must rest, must…..)

I run zwift through an Apple TV, does anyone know how to get the power and heart rate graph up on screen? I know it’s a ‘G’ on the keyboard if I was running it on my computer, but and a Apple TV  I have no idea?

any ideas ?

As per DM52 really.  I have oil filled rad which I put on a couple of hours before on days like today set to 10 degrees.  If I have a break in interval / before the cool down I turn it off, and stick a fleece on when done.

But you’re then washing 2 tops each day ? If i put a fleece on it will be sopping wet.

I dump 2-3kg in sweat on a Zwift ride.

Do you ‘save up’ your wet riding kit for a big wash then?  Mine is straight in to the machine on a quick wash along with the towel I have used on my bars and the cloth to wipe up the puddles and clean the bike with.

Kryton’s oil rad idea may well be installed in my setup. I already have an oil rad in the garage so I just need to plug it in and maybe put it below the fan so slightly warmer air is circulated.

Do you ‘save up’ your wet riding kit for a big wash then?

Yup, i have a laundry bag in the garage, that get 4-5 days slop in it, then all lobbed in together. I admit, getting it all out sopping wet isn’t very nice at all 😀

Well, that was frustrating in a simple ‘lots of people was faster than me’ kind of way!

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=45215

It was a quick one, that with nowhere to hide. The eventual winner is proper fast, he kept going off the front and seeing who went with him, then coming back to the group. In the end people stopped chasing him and he went clear with about 8k to go, just as everyone was starting to do the cat and mouse that you do when a sprint is coming.  Before anyone had really noticed he was 22 seconds up the road pushing 6w/kg.

For some reason, I think it’s his Zwift profile pic, i’ve got an irrational dislike of the guy so figured that, even if I destroyed my chances of a decent finish I’d like to try and pull him back in so went as hard as I could to drag him back. I got him down to 12 seconds and had about 5 people with me. One guy managed to bridge the gap but I think he’s mates with the winner who dropped back to let him get on.  It was definitely interesting to be in a race where teams were working together to a degree, even it was just to keep the pace as high as possible to negate the sprinters).  Good ride anyway and almost bang on my FTP, down to 77KG on the button this morning as well 😀

lots of people was faster than me

That seems a bit harsh on yourself !

not sure that this is the best place for a PSA but did everyone see that Evans are offering discounts on some Tacx trainers today ? (no idea how competitive the prices really are though)

When it’s cold I notice that although I’m hot and sweaty once warmed up my skin is still gold to the touch. Yesterday I used a fan heater for the first 15, then breathing in the hot air wasn’t pleasant so went to no fan. Put softshell back on as went back in the house as soon as possible.

I also wore knee warmers as was worried about my knees is cycling in sub zero temps.

^^ with the cold I find a fan heater is really effective in a garage, it’s pointing at my feet as they really suffer in the cold and it warms the whole place up in <5 mins (just remember to turn it off, yeah?)

After a ride I tend to just collapse on the bars then give the fan 2-3 mins blowing the warmish air while i’m cooling down then i’m mostly dry after another 5 mins of CD, certainly enough to put my manky turbo hoodie on then it’s wet bibs off and trackie trousers on for another 5 mins CD.

I normally get 2-3 sessions out of the hoodie and trousers, as long as I don’t get too close to the Mrs while i’m wearing them 😀

Scaled – most of the people you were racing with today were all the big hitters. A Webb who was just ahead of you was in the sprint finish for the uk champs on saturday. I raced against him once and nearly beat him after properly turning myself inside out, turns out he was on a recovery ride after a big race!!! I dont bother racing him anymore but he is a chatty fella on there so you can have a bit of banter with him.

Scaled – most of the people you were racing with today were all the big hitters

..and one was called ‘Dick Feather’ which made me chuckle….

Dick Feather and the big hitters… what a great band name