Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Weeksy, you can use ERG mode to test it. Set it up one way, do an advanced spin down then use the Wahoo App (don't even need Zwift open) to set ERG mode to 200w.
Ride for five minutes. (It won't matter what gear you use- the Turbo will adjust the resistance for you)

Then set it up the other way, do an advanced spin down and ride ERG mode at 200w again.

That should offer you some insight. If it feels the same, then it's not a tyre/wheel/bike issue.

Weeksy, you can use ERG mode to test it. Set it up one way, do an advanced spin down then use the Wahoo App (don't even need Zwift open) to set ERG mode to 200w.
Ride for five minutes. (It won't matter what gear you use- the Turbo will adjust the resistance for you)

Then set it up the other way, do an advanced spin down and ride ERG mode at 200w again.

That should offer you some insight. If it feels the same, then it's not a tyre/wheel/bike issue.

I've never used erg mode. I tried it when troubleshooting Snap issues, but my trainer wasn't registering.

When I think back, my previous efforts on parkwood were down on the Isaac, but only by 10-15w on the race distances, currently I'm 40-45 down on them. So a decent chunk of it is down to me I think.
I'll try it over weekend.

Here’s a physiological question some of you bright sparks might be able to answer.

Where is your power generated? I get that anaerobic fitness will let you sustain output for longer, but is pure power mostly down to the size of your leg muscles?

nathb, yes, those are the points I am chasing. I mainly ride in the daytime when there are less points around, and less to lose. The results from today have been captured by zwiftpower and will be revealed when it is up and running again, so I may gain a couple more points.

Yeah muggo - power is muscular (legs, arse, core a bit) but sustained power needs cardiovascular fitness

Weeksy, you can use ERG mode to test it. Set it up one way, do an advanced spin down then use the Wahoo App (don't even need Zwift open) to set ERG mode to 200w.
Ride for five minutes. (It won't matter what gear you use- the Turbo will adjust the resistance for you)

Then set it up the other way, do an advanced spin down and ride ERG mode at 200w again.

That should offer you some insight

I was thinking the same too. Plan will be 5 mins at 200w and 5 at 250w assuming I can change on the fly.
Then rest for 15 min to get to resting hr and repeat it.

See what results I get.

Cheers scaredy. Just wondering if I can increase power rather than have to cut back on the Stella and pies 😀

mate, have you any idea what's in stella and pies? pretty much PURE ENERGY, that's what. Now power is energy / time, so what you need is to practice getting them down quick, rather than dabbling at it in some leisurely loser fashion

Believe me I’m a ****ing expert when it comes to Stella and pie consumption 8)

[b]So do people move their FTP's down over the winter months[/b], or just leave it with their summer bests? I think mine has dropped by 24w along with gaining 3kg!! This is in line with recent races and what strava is telling me.

I'll a little begrudged doing an FTP test as I think it's a waste of time/potential race as I'm not training for anything specifically at the moment??

My FTP isn't of significance as I don't use the training progs.

I have done one ftp test this year and that will be it as i dont expect it to change by very much at all as i tend to do the same amount of cycling in both summer and winter and my weight is pretty stable. Oh yeah forgot to mention ftp test is vomit inducing so in no hurry to do another one, may be thats the real reason i wont be changing mine

I much prefer a race to a test. I pick a TT "race" and find out that way; no drafting so it's "pure" but also something to look at as well as having a bit of motivation/competition

You can judge it but TR calls for one every few weeks. They don't get easier but pacing gets simpler.
I've got a few weeks grace yet I think 🙂

Weeksy, you can use ERG mode to test it. Set it up one way, do an advanced spin down then use the Wahoo App (don't even need Zwift open) to set ERG mode to 200w.

I must be missing something, I can't manage this!

I did a cracking woodland MTB ride today. Just getting lost as much as possible, it was epic.

I got a 3rd overall on a segment, I wasn't actually trying!

Can't manage it how?
You need to get your cadence going beforehand ideally and then switch it on and as long as you keep your cadence steady, it will adjust the brake to maintain 200w.

Slowing down your pedalling too much will cause it to overcompensate and the resistance can bring you to a halt. At 70rpm +, it should work fine?

In simple terms, I go in the wahoo fitness app and can't get it to retailer a speed or power. If I start a workout, the only thing it register is the time ticking up. I removed device and added as a ble device, then removed and added as ant+, nothing.

If I then end the workout it shows my power and speed but nothing live.

However even if I could, I don't know how you're getting the power setting either.

Essentially, I'm missing everything lol.

Ah lol!!

Ok, just create a Zwift custom workout with one block at your chosen wattage and then check the ERG button 🙂

I tried that, but, it appears I'm a bit daft. Ran out of time though as I was heading out. Will try again.

You can do it in the Wahoo app. Start a workout then swipe to this screen:

[img] [/img]

and select the Erg tab 🙂

Swipe? Ooooh. Maybe that's my issue. No swiping. Lol

My FTP has just gone up 41w, I assume that happens every week if I train consistently 😆

Niiice!

My man Reg did 112 miles today on Zwift 😮

Not sure I ever going to bother getting my 100 mile achievement badge?

He gave me a kudos today actually.

Today's ride as always showed how much better trails are than zwifting. But in the reverse, it showed how important Zwift is for my speed!

So much testosterone flying around this morning, with about 10 riders flying off the front.

How a bunch of adult men can't read and follow simple instructions is beyond me... anyway 31 riders started 10? kept together and finished together, bar the usual 2km final sprint.

Was good for the legs anda fellow STW'er was in the bunch too!

Testosterone was pretty damn low in my garage.

Did a workout (the wringer) that I've largely managed before but couldn't make the last 2 efforts (it's 12 repeats of something very like 2xFTP for 30 seconds, repeated every 2 minutes or so).

Going to do a few more of them - I like to think that it'll help my racing, esp when the bastards all rag it up the hills

The wringer was one of the workouts I used to do fairly regularly. That and Jon’s mix. I was told I wasn’t to do them anymore when the kids are home as the language was atrocious.
Amazing how quick 30 seconds feels when it’s a rest and how long it feels when you’re going for it.

Are those workouts on trainerroad or zwift?

They're Zwift ones.

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/

I may have to try a few of them, they sound evil enough to have peaked my interest.

Well that was an exceptionally interesting race for me, well at least i thought so.

After yesterdays longish MTB ride i thought "i can't see how i'm performing so badly on Zwift, i feel strong and fast"

So i jumped on the 4:30PM WBR 4 lap race. However, to put things to bed in my head, i used the Isaac, set the pressure, set it with a Spindown test, then jumped on.... tiny warm up as i only jumped on with 2 mins to spare.

Off we went... Legs felt good, HR felt good, after the first 1/2 warm up lap we'd split C into 2 major groups, our group was the lead group and 12s ahead of group 2... we were 11 riders in C and 5-7 B's i think, so quite a decent group.

In many ways, the next 3 laps were massively boring from a race report perspective, i kept my HR at about 161 average on the laps, but interesting up Horesguards hill i was 2nd/3rd quickest of the group, easily sticking in 4.3-4.5w/kg up it, with a couple of feathers, even more than that... But coming to the top in P2 usually. I was consciously letting other lead and sitting in for the majority of the laps. I lost ground by the hairpin somehow as my avatar lost momentum soft pedalling out of it and i was suddenly 2s down on my bunch, but a quick burst i caught them again and sat in. With 1/2 a lap to go, we'd dropped 1 guy, so we were a group of 9 now for the lead. One fell burst off the bunch with 3km to go, i let him go, which turned out to be a mistake as in the end he won C by about 9s ! Damn.. But i thought the pack would pull him back in.... In the last 1km i grabbed an Aero PU and went hard.... but only ended up dragging 3-4 other with me ! Damn again ! I battled but ended up 5th in the group.

After DQs etc and 1 B rider in our bunch, i ended up 2nd !

My power was 276w average... now that's not quite my best ever.... but it's certainly not far away and i was deliberately hiding for many parts... but it's pretty much shown me that i've actually NOT lost form. BOOM !

Whether it's the tyre or the bike, i'm guessing at the moment it's more the bike... but a bit of both. However, it means many of my results lately have been a bit bogus and not a true representation of where my training is... Which is actually what i hoped and felt would be the case.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=13383

I'll sleep better tonight.

Ahhh man, I was in that race too, had no idea you were.

I ended up in the second group, didn't want to push too hard as I was feeling a bit pukey after eating 10 fish fingers about 15 mins prior to starting. Like you said, it was pretty uneventful. We managed to reel in a few guys, but mostly we stayed together for the whole race then as we crossed the roundabout before the finish straight I started to ramp up, aiming to hit hit about 500w for the last 500m or so, but a few of the guys managed to cling on and then just out powered me for the last 20m or so. I should have gone slightly later, I just couldn't keep it going. Looks like I'm 8th after DQs etc. Not too bad really, I'm pleased as I'm definitely not a flat ground kind of rider.

I saw you buddy, we joined the pen around the same time.

You seemed to be doing a fair bit of work on the front of your group that's for sure.

Whether it's the tyre or the bike, i'm guessing at the moment it's more the bike... but a bit of both.

I'm curious. Why do you think just changing your bike on the turbo would produce markedly different power? Is one of your bikes set up incredibly badly or something? Seat height miles out maybe? Or is there something like a binding brake robbing power between your legs and the roller? Just intrigued.

The Parkwood is a trail 29er, so totally different riding position, when on it, the feeling of drive/power is massively better, you just pedal and the power goes up. It's almost as though on the Isaac you get free power, maybe the riding position means you use other muscles a bit more?
I'll test it with the continued gp4000 wheel in the Parkwood in the next few days, I think it will end in the middle of both in terms of power/performance.

Do you need to do some sort of calibration every time you swap tyres? Just curious having gone from a battered roller-based trainer to a wheel-off Kickr, which eliminates the whole tyre thing completely. Anyway, I guess if it works and them's the numbers, then them's the numbers 🙂

I do one each time I swap bikes or tyres yes. I'd done half a dozen Spindowns in last 6 weeks along with swapping the Snap as other one was faulty.

I think that being down on the drops seems to make me engage my arse muscles better, gving more power (in fact, when I shoved my TT frame on there that was even more marked - I can't sustain it for very long so I guess that "shows" it's muscular, but the power for given perceived effort definitely goes UP for me when I'm head-down)

Course, might also be psychological and I just don't pedal as hard when I'm sat up

SO who's playing and when this week ?

Im tempted with a WBR 4 lap flat... but that's mostly because Muggo is playing at 5:05pm today it seems and he kicked my arse last week... i'm tempted to try for revenge 😉

We'll see how the legs feel for the rest of the day. 4 laps of Watopia Flat is physically quite tough for me at the pointy end of C, even if i used the Isaac. It's about 1hour dead for me best, techincally 59:22 for a race i finsihed 2nd to an STWer 🙂

Might do the KISS 8pm races this week on Tues and Thurs.

On the cramp front: testing out a new product this week, will report back if it works.

Depending on how all this crap with my car pans out, I might have to *gulp* commute by bike this week, which will mean I probably won't fancy dragging my sorry arse onto the turbo.

May ride tonight though, as I've managed to scrounge a lift. That said, nothing is tickling my fancy late on.

Use your commute as a warm up 🙂

I just did the WBR flat race and it was a disaster. BIGFOOT was in the race so i thought i might be able to hang on to him for a while, errr no was the answer. My legs went from underneath me after just 6 miles which wasnt even a lap, i just had no legs or fight in me so ended up plodding around on my own and it was torture, i had to freewheel any little downhill i could just for a rest. Unusually as well i went through a full 750ml bottle of water where as normally i would only have 150ml at the most so i guess i wasnt hydrated or fuelled enough, i will never know and tomorrow is another day so i will try then.
I finished 4th but thats only because it was a small field, i was 4 minutes slower than last week on the same course! Bigfoot looked like he was there at the death even though he had a national TT yesterday!

IT's strange isn't it how you can go from hero to 0 over a couple of days, one day you're flying, then 2-3 days later you're dying a thousand deaths looking at your power drop and your HR that won't respond....