TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

Nice one Kryton. Only done the 8min test but I believe the Sustained Power plan begins with a 20min test so have that to look forward to in a couple of weeks.

@howsyourdad1 Yes, each weeks’ TSS increases until you get to the last one which is the recovery week. You can see the values in the right column when looking at the plans.

Just a thought – anyone interested in a new, unused Powertap GS built on Pacenti SL23 rim with Sapim CX-RAY spokes? I built it up then broke my spine, so won’t be needing such a thing for a while. I got the hub for a bargain £399, rim and spokes were about another 135. If anyone wants it for 400 then let me know. I hadn’t quite done a final true so should probably budget for that.

I’m hoping that I’ll at least be able to get the bike fixed / replaced by his insurance.

id at least hope you are going to claim for your injuries?

Haven’t really thought much yet – don’t know quite how clear cut the blame has to be for that. I’m in the CTC though, and they have some solicitors who will give free advice so we’ll be talking to them in the week I guess.

What session would you recommend after coming back from a rather long stretch of man Flu? Been about 5 weeks off the turbo, still full of lumunious green snot but starting to just about feel human again….if I go out i will be tempted to put my foot down a bit like always

DT78, coming back off a short stretch, I just did a free ride 90. Rode at z1 for about 10 mins, then pushed it up a bit to z2 for 50 mins or so, then towards the end of the session tried a couple of short sweetspot intervals. Decided that if any of it made my legs wobble a bit I’d just finish the session at z1. Thankfully was all good here.

If that doesn’t appeal you could just give something like Black a go.

DT78, After a long(ish) layoff I start back with something like homers nose to ease me back in. It’s an hour well below FTP and for me it as much about re-establishing a routine as it is about the actual content of the session.

Need some advice. I’m having some issues with the tyre slipping and now destroying the rubber on the tyre.

My kit is:

26″ hard tail running 1×10 36t and 11-36 cassette.
Tacx turbo tyre
Elite Volare Mag Force Elastogel

I have to run it on setting 4 (out of 5) to stop me from running out of gears.

Looked this morning and ive made a hell of a mess behind the turbo of blue rubber lol. It might have been the Joe Devel of sprints of 50% ftp to 150%.

Any suggestions? I have another slick road tyre i can try. The roller looks to be in the correct position to give the correct load for a 26″ tyre. So i’m not sure what else to do.

Is everyone using a road bike for this or a mtb with more/higher gears?

Guessing you’ve wound the roller on tightly to the tyre.

No problem with the Tacx tyre here. Does throw off a lot of blue dust initially but then seems to settle down.

Maybe it’s something to do with the gel roller and Tacx tyre? Might be worth trying a different tyre? Maybe the Elite turbo tyre might work better with the gel roller?

For those using the ipad app – is it possible to advance the position of the workout, so you can start 10 mins in, for example? Easily done on the laptop, but couldn’t figure out how to do it on the ipad, but maybe I’m missing something obvious?

There’s no tension adjustment for wheel contact unfortunately. Just eyelets to move the roller closer or further away from the pivot for different wheel sizes.

Good point on the tyre choice, with it being a gel roller a normal tyre might be ok. I’m going to degrease the roller/tyre in case there’s something on there.

Thinking about it again with the lower gearing/smaller wheel the wheel isn’t spinning that fast so should be less wear on a 26″slick tyre.

But doesn’t that mean more torque, so more likely to sporadically slip? Just a thought.

Did Mills tonight – jeesus H christ! Felt like giving up at the sixth effort but somehow managed to hang on to complete the workout.

Had a pretty ragged effort on one of the cx ones this evening – katahdin. Think the first commute back to work must have shocked the legs, had nowt left.

Yeah, Mills is a toughie. Did it the other week and had to shut my eyes and pray during a couple of the intervals. The 30 minute one is worse… 😮

Crikey. 48hrs after a 20 min FTP test and it was Stevens – 5x6m at 105% of my new FTP.

That was tough, I gutted out the 4th, but the 5th I was fading, I just couldn’t keep the leg speed despite positive vibes so I had to knock it down a gear for 90 seconds, before resuming, but I did force 1 min at 140% approx at the end to finish.

A weird thing has happened to me over the last six weeks, in that I don’t get aerobically challenged any more. What I mean is, I am sweating, and my HR is right up thier but above the waist I’m cruising the plans. Now its a case of can be legs hold out for the duration!

I’m assuming that means I’ve got fitter, and am just waiting for my muscle endurance to catch up!

I was finding interesting shifts in what’s the limiting factor too, but the other way round!

I’ve always had quite good lungs I think. Almost always, for me riding up hills it’s my muscles that are the limiting factor – I could suck in more air if I needed to, but my legs just couldn’t push harder. More recently I’ve found on e.g. FTP tests that my lungs limit me more – I’m breathing as hard as I can, but my muscles could have done more.

My assumption was that the sweet spot base leading up to this did quite a lot of muscular endurance work and that it was working. Interesting how these things work!

I walked about 20 metres today. I rock.

Well done Gray – hope your recovery goes well.

I did Marion today (now that sounds wrong!) but found it quite straightforward. Usually the longer threshold intervals kill me so it’s maybe time for an FTP test 😕

Anyone want a free month? I’ve just ‘earned’ one to give away.

With hindsight doing Keeler Needle as the first session back after a 2 week festive rest was a mistake.

Absolutely ruined now.

Did homers nose yesterday, actually felt better after the session than before, opened up the airways, will have a go at one of the longer aerobic sessions. Still full of snot though. Been over 6 weeks of cold nasties.

8 min test for me yesterday, re-starting swwet spot base two after a couple of weeks of no turbo work (real world riding though 🙂 ) increased ftp from 305 to 307 so no difference at all really! I did race on Sunday so wasn’t maximally rested, I might start ramping up the effort a couple of percent to cater for this. Mont Albert for me this evening.

A weird thing has happened to me over the last six weeks, in that I don’t get aerobically challenged any more. What I mean is, I am sweating, and my HR is right up thier but above the waist I’m cruising the plans. Now its a case of can be legs hold out for the duration!

Gearing/cadence? Lower cadence tends to tax the legs, higher cadence the cv system. So maybe up the cadence a bit for the power and it might be more even?

Some 8 min intervals on the road for me yesterday. First time on the TT bike since last race in September 😥 Having promised myself I’d not have such a long break. Power a fair bit down on the turbo, HR high, but could have been a lot worse!

Still full of snot though.

Was pouring out of my nose on yesterday’s ride. Had a dangly snot beard at the end of each interval!

After a rest week and a week where I managed to do all 12 hours of training out on the trails last night was supposed to be back on the turbo.

Got home all ready and primed for the session but I had to fit a turbo tyre first. Tyre and tube fitted but when I went to inflate, I realised i’d pinched and punctured the tube. No spare tube, no repair kit so what did I do????

Thats right, I threw the whole contents of the pram out, sulked for 2 hours and ate a full bag of cheeseballs…. 😯

Thats right, I threw the whole contents of the pram out, sulked for 2 hours and ate a full bag of cheeseballs….

A turbo sulk 🙂

If I have to abandon a session (mechanical, legs not working, kids not sleeping, etc.) I’ll be in a foul mood 👿 Usually the ice cream that gets it.

Did you go on the Phil P ride on the weekend? Going to try and get out on one of them if it becomes a regular thing. Can’t do this weekend unfortunately.

Did you go on the Phil P ride on the weekend? Going to try and get out on one of them if it becomes a regular thing. Can’t do this weekend unfortunately.

I did indeed…it was actually organised by a local lad and then all the big hitters turned up. I knew I was in for a tough ride when my NP was only 20w lower than my FTP after an hour and we still had about 2 and a half hours to go haha!

I made the stupid mistake of not taking any food with me too….3 and a half hours at that pace with those guys on a bottle of water didnt really work. I bonked big style on the way home

Ah yes, just seen it on Strava. If Phil P reckons it’s a quick pace then we’re all in trouble!

Ha, yeah….it started quick and didn’t get any slower at all

Lamarck tonight – that had me sweating buckets. Pretty even efforts: the first three were 2 Watts over target and the last one under.

That’s the last serious session of Sweet Spot Base Mid Vol 2, it’s a steady session tomorrow night, proper riding at the weekend and then the recovery week next week before moving on to the Sustained Power Build plan, not sure whether to do the medium or high volume.

Fellow turboists… I’m after a decent stand that can replace the front wheel on a turbo bike? I guess something like an adjustable height pole with an axel at the top to stick a QR through would do the job. Anyone know of such a thing?

Fellow turboists… I’m after a decent stand that can replace the front wheel on a turbo bike?

There’s a few variation on this sort of thing available

Tacx support stand

Cyclops version

I’ve only ever seen ones that are designed to be added to the frame of rollers, but it wouldn’t take much effort to screw the stand onto a couple of bits of 2×4 and you’ve got a freestanding version. Could be a think of beauty or functionally agricultural depending on the level of effort you want to put in.

I did wonder about having a wide base. Bike still rocks a bit in the turbo and wondering if it’d be better to have a narrow base that didn’t fight against this action.

I did wonder about having a wide base. Bike still rocks a bit in the turbo and wondering if it’d be better to have a narrow base that didn’t fight against this action.

Interesting… Off the top of my head, how about mounting one of the frame mentioned above on something like skateboard trucks. Or Simpler still mount it to a piece of board with a central rib on the underside to allow for side to side movement with elastomers/door stoppers/something squishy on the corners to limit and cushion the movement.

[edit] But this does seem like a time consuming and complex way to simulate the sort of movement you’d get from having a wheel in place, What’s the reason that you don’t want to use a wheel?

Getting complicated! 🙂

May pop down b&q and see if they have anything that can be bodged. Just a pole with a rounded rubber base and an axel at the top would probably do the job.

May pop down b&q and see if they have anything that can be bodged to do the job.

Pictures needed once the bodge is complete.

Wow Juneau hurt.

Just finished Jane Bald. Leg strength stuff . Really hard pace I thought considering it’s supposed to be the start of a rest week.

Quick question , I’ve converted my MTB back to 2 x 10 so was using the 38 tooth at the front (instead of previous 32) Could this have anything to do with why I found it so hard ?

Wow Juneau hurt.

You’re back then 🙂

Looks a good session that for this time of year.

Yep back to the turbo, on antibiotics. Chest is okay so I tried homers nose, and mount gosford as gentle intros (quite liked the drills on gosford) then as legs were feeling okay I thought I’d push it a little with Juneau whilst still keeping it below FTP. 3rd 20min interval hurt.

Plan to start sweet spot base next week fingers crossed. Don’t really want to do an FTP test to see how much I’ve lost from illness. Strav as estimate is 30w 🙁