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So after beiing injured(well stil have some piece of bone floating around in my right thigh musle) and beiing told to hold the high intensity work for quite a while. Doc cleared me to do some racing but take it steady don't bloody try to win the thing.
So we go to the local cyclosportive two weeks a go. Rolling wel make that crawling start with a brake check from the lead car at the foot of a 3k 7% climb. My lardy 83 kg ass got shelled out of the back from the lead group almost immediately but we got some figures from the machine 405 watts(that 4.9 a KG) for the 5' effort and 325(that 3.9) for 20'
Actually quite chuffed a s a s said I have been of the bike for three- four weeks and riding quite a bit with the handbrake on. The 5' effort is a PB since I have a power meter, definitely went quite a bit higher in the past but thats 15 years ago. 20' effort in comparision a bit weak but I backed of not to blow when I knew the lead group was gone after 10'. 262watts in the first hour including the descent back down into the valley.
The week after saw another race with three nice 20' effort climbs sadly conditions were bleak rain all night and on the start line and well 3 degrees thats at the bottom of the valley. When we crested the 2nd climb to access al was white very white. 20cm of fresh slush next to the road, 50 cm of powder a bit higher up the mountain. The roads went up a bit higher and started to get covered in snow. Powermeter was a lot smarter then we so it went in hibernation mode and just chucked out some rubbish data from time to time. It was as smart as many riders who balled before the start or on the route. Bonked nicely on the last climb to limp home just outside the top 10.
Going back at it tomorrow but the shorter climbs and a bit of lower back pain I am not expecting much of 20' data.
Any update from the OP? I've got my A race out of the way for this year and contemplating my own "Project 4" (75kg and 300W FTP). I'm about 82kg right now and need to do a test.
well i seem to be making some progress. another belt notch and hovering around 83kg and ive got up to 10k running without pain.
and just completed the cairngorm loop so my staying power is up. no idea whats going on with my power though.
Just throwing my hat in the metaphorical ring.
I finished a two month block of work in Manchester and Bury being the spiritual home of black pudding I ate a lot of hotel breakfasts, carb based lunches and dinners out. I was not in good shape!
First commute back 13.5mph, on a road bike over 25miles, not so much disappointing as actually embarrassing!
So rather than take any advice or follow any sort of structured plan I've thrown myself into commuting and just doing miles/hours on the bike as possible. An average week is now 3 commutes (5h20 on the single speed mountain bike), one techy night ride (12miles in 2 hours, a bit slow but I can't keep up in the fast group!) and Sunday club run (60miles at 16mph).
So far I've lost 1kg/week. But haven't paid much/any attention to diet so a lot of biscuits have been eaten.
Aim is to concentrate on loosing weight until Christmas, which will probably require increasing amounts of focus on diet. Hopefully by Christmas my BMI will be around 22 (conveniently 1kg/week) which seems average for pro cyclists so seems like a good target. I<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> might measure my power before then if I get a chance, but I'll worry more about increasing power once I've lost the weight.</span>
From previous experimenting with power, exercise and my general riding I'm definitely on the side of power+weight rather than power/weight so it'll be interesting to see what impact being lighter has.
hows this going for all.
I did an FTP test in august last year after i decided to drop the weight and get quick again .
I popped out a 245watt 20min ave @ 95kg. = 2.47w/Kg
I did an FTP test today after a winter of 80/20 split no specific power training/TT efforts other than those occuring during my duathlons and dropping to 82kg.
today did a 292w 20 min average @ 82KG = 3.38 w/Kg
time to do some specific speed/hill work sessions.
Not really in the hunt for 5W/Kg but I think 4 is achievable.
started training in a loose sense of the word about 2 years ago, before that I was just a road commuter (100 miles/week) having been a mountain biker in my teens.
At that time I was around 95kg and although I could hit some high power for short periods, I think FTP was probably around 260. = 2.7 W/Kg
By summer last year, after some helpful illness, I'd lost a load of weight and with some hard training over the spring I was down to 82kg and the FTP on a spin bike was between 300 and 310 over several weeks = 3.7 W/kg
Now, after loads of travel for work and much less time on the bike i'm 86kg and more like 290.
Some friends do fast laps of richmond park in the early morning and last year i was just about hanging on, but this year they are way too fast, which is disappointing.
Today, I tried my first wattbike ramp test and got a result of 370 minute max at a heart rate of 180 (i'm just about 40 so this is a good fit to the 220-age!).
I'm aiming to do a lot more over/under workouts and really need some more time on the bike. To that end, I've just bought my first turbo so need to decide between trainer road/ sufferfest and zwift and get on with it.
To throw my hat in the ring, I ride MTB, do own a roadie but doesnt see much use, have been doing some gym work to strengthen the legs and help get fitter, have had some spare evenings due to the weather and have headed to the gym to play on the watt bike.
Last night after reading lots of diff things on the internet I went down and did a 20min effort and a 5min effort and then some sprints over an hour. I think I am correct in saying the 20min effort counts as an FTP test? It also doesn't matter that has been done on a watt bike and indoors?
Hoping I can use this as a base to actually quantify if I am getting fitter. My figures werent anything to shout about and appear to be around 2.6 watts per kg
Keith, an FTP test will be the only thing that you do that session other than warm up and cool down, and you'll want to be rested before you do it. A 5 minute effort after an FTP test shouldn't be possible 😀
Part of the gains that you'll see in FTP testing is actually just from getting better at FTP tests, in the same vein as TTing it's learning about pacing to empty the tank and how much suffering/pain your body can tolerate while still performing.
I've just done my first ftp test since getting my Direto trainer. Probably not that accurate being a first attempt at it but somewhere to start. I got an ftp of 182 watts which possibly means I didn't push hard enough consistently enough as I've averaged slightly higher on sessions of just over an hour. Anyway that gives me 3.3W per kg and I'd like to see how close to 4 I can get. As you can guess from those figures the losing weight option isn't really one I can take so it's going to be just trying to increase power while maintaining weight. Threads like this really help with the motivation and it was partly this thread that made me finally get a smart trainer. After a couple of months use I already think it's the best cycling upgrade I've ever made. I looked at all my bikes and what might make them better and concluded that the best value for money was to upgrade the engine!
Dipping a toe in myself as I've started a structured plan for the first time ever with a view to the 2019/2020 CX season.
Did a ramp test with a professional coach on a smart trainer of some sort, yielded an FTP of 287W which I was quite proud of, had always thought I'd be lucky to achieve 250W. I'll treat it with a pinch of salt for now, more importantly it helped me work out my heart rate zones and these seem to be working for me.
Am 85kg, so 3.3W/kg. This also sounds high based on my own perception, I'm lucky to be fighting for mid-pack in the Senior category in Scottish CX, albeit some of that could be down to poor strategy/tapering/warm-up etc.
Not sure how to lose weight, I've twice made a decent fist of calorie control (i.e. 3-4 weeks of a 500kCal deficit/week) and it's made precisely naff all difference to my weight, 85kg going in, 85kg coming out. Given that both times I eventually cracked for want of beer and crisps I decided anything more strict just wasn't worth the misery. Plus when I look in the mirror I don't genuinely see much flab to shift! What's the official body fat test called, pinch test or something?
Two sets of intervals a week, 4x8 and 30/15s (3 sets 10) and 4-6hrs Z2 depending on whether I can fit a weekend ride in . Only one week in so interested to see where this will go, injured and overtrained probably! 😉
For those using trainers, there are many reports of people being unable to reach their true FTP indoors, although the reasons are unclear. Possibly something to do with overheating or simply psychology, but for me when I had a power tap I could never get close to my true FTP indoors even when enduring twice the discomfort I would have on road.
But not everyone experiences this effect, so who knows.
I can certainly top my maximum HR outdoors while racing by 10 bpm when compared to an indoors trainer. So output must be higher overall IRL
I really struggle with efforts above threshold on trainer - I've recently been doing 60 seconds on/off x6 and typically averaging around 350w outdoors, top end of Z5
Same workout on the Kickr and I'm shipping around 25w, towards the bottom end of Z5
Interestingly enough FTP tests outdoors and indoors correlate quite well!
It's well known that many folks require an indoor and outdoor ftp number, as the 2 don't often align. Reasons given are overheating, motivation, and how the force through the pedalling stroke is different on a trainer due to inertia. The latter of these is lessened the better the turbo you have.
From efforts indoors and out I estimate my indoor ftp to be about 10% lower than outdoors, using power reading from same stages device.
The other point is that depending on the indoor turbo, the power readings may be quite a bit out. I have a flux and I can see it shows considerably different (lower) power outputs than the stages I have on the bike I use on it. Other trainers I've had read considerably over the stages however.
So..If you only have a trainer and no power meter the ftp you think you have may be out by a significant margin!
I think I am correct in saying the 20min effort counts as an FTP test?
Sort of not. People keep quoting 20-minute numbers taken from rides, races etc, but that's not quite how ftp works, that's just a 20-minute effort time.
First, with dedicated ftp testing, they're usually preceded by some short, hard efforts so your anaerobic system doesn't prop up your aerobic output, which is what ftp aims to measure.
Second, the theory of ftp is that it's your average power output over 60 minutes. Actually riding for 60 minute is super dull and really hard, so ftp measured over 20 minutes, but at 95% of your 20 minute power output.
I'm not sure how Zwift calculates ftp from rides because, if you think about it, a 20-minute ride segment could include a bunch of over threshold efforts interspersed with stuff just below threshold. If you were someone with disproportionately high MAP or five-minute power and good recovery, I suppose, in theory, you could actually inflate your ftp as a result. But that's not much help to you as what you're trying to measure is that steady state for an hour figure.
As far as the outdoor v indoor figures go. It's always seemed to me that it doesn't really matter. You just use the one that relates to your normal training: if you ride indoors use your indoor ftp, if outdoors, use the outdoor one.
Finally ftp is all very well, but if you think about it, it's just one aspect of your fitness. Someone who can make repeated hard efforts above threshold and recover and repeat could have the same ftp as you on paper, but in the theoretical real world can kick your butt by simply dragging you repeatedly into the red until you can't recover.
Anyway...
Of course, FTP matters for doing FTP training. Otherwise the only thing that matters is your lap time!
Finally ftp is all very well, but if you think about it, it’s just one aspect of your fitness. Someone who can make repeated hard efforts above threshold and recover and repeat could have the same ftp as you on paper, but in the theoretical real world can kick your butt by simply dragging you repeatedly into the red until you can’t recover.
This is 100% spot on. Unless you are putting in long alpine efforts on climbs, or riding a tt, then your ftp is a good gauge of fitness but nothing more. I found this out the hard way last 'mtb race' I did. I'm fine at sitting at threshold for an hr, but within 5 min I was in the red and cooked for the rest of the lap.
Having a power meter is useful for knowing at what power you combust however, so on the road it makes judging efforts far easier. I don't have one for the mtb, but even if I did I think the nature of most mtb rides means power, or at least ftp, is irrelevant.
I'm in on this.
I'd like to get back to 4w/kg once my knee is sorted. Hopefully riding by the end of September & I'd like to hit 4 by Spring next year. The last time I managed it I was about 70kg & 280w. Before my injury I was at 250w & 71.5kg..