Trying to get to 4w/kg

Plus new gp5000s on there which are supposedly quicker than the gp4000s that I’ve just taken off as the rear started to delaminate a bit and had gone rather flat on the top.

Will be interesting to see how the carbon gravel bike frame feels vs the previous alloy caad12 disc frame. It’s got a huge bb area and chainstays vs the caad so thinking perhaps it’s going to be stiffer (my previous boardman team carbon was stiffer I’d say too) but the handling will probably be a bit lazier into corners etc.

Lovely! GP5000’S are so nice they feel like cheating 🤣
I got my Diverge warranty replacement frame back today. Not sure if I prefer it to the original carbon colour but still, it’s got all new bearings, futureshock cartridge and a new rear calliper so should feel nicer again for a bit.

Ooo, that looks nice. I’m not a tanwall fan but on totally black colour bikes I think they work. Got some tanwall Billy Bonkers tyres on my black bmx for that reason!

I’m getting a craving for a power meter on the Dolan – torn between a 4iii left sided only one as I can get a good price on a left Ultegra arm with one already fitted – or those favaro assiomo uno pedals 🤔

I have a 4iiii on the MTB and it’s been great 👍🏻

Never tried any of the pedal systems.

@crosshair Yeah it takes me a couple of sessions before I can settle in to threshold efforts, I don’t use ERG though so it’s just a matter of pacing and finding that 👌 cadence.

VO2 after a couple of days on it is nuts though, given the idea is to accumulate time above 90% MHR it’s daft to go in without a decent days recovery.

Yeah, I actually feel sorry for Trainerroad if that’s the way people are tackling their plans 🤣

I definitely had a psychological breakthrough earlier in the first interval earlier when my mind came to terms with the fact that that intensity *was* sustainable. And my HR dropped for the next three.

This is the workout I did last night – was meant to do an hour but didn’t have time so did a 45 min alternative that had a slightly higher progression score instead. Decided I was managing the 319w intervals ok so started turning it up a bit towards the end to make it a bit harder. Last one was just over 400w and although it was hard I reckon I could have done a few more at that level.

I found in the new bike I seemed to be able to spin faster easier – wasn’t sure if it was because it was after work and I’d fuelled all day vs early morning workouts just on a banana or yoghurt. Also realised I changed crank size from 172.5mm to 170mm on this bike. Decided to go with cranks the same size as both mtbs 🤷‍♂️

Walking the dog this morning my legs do feel a little bit tired though so must have been a decent session.

Awesome, well done Joe 👍🏻 Are they 30/30’s?

I like to pick my last interval up a bit at the end too. A 30mph lap of Hillingdon is about 2mins so I always imagine the bell going and racing the final lap when I have 2 mins of a set to go.

You may find TR undershoots what you can do on those sorts of intervals. You want to be going as hard as you can but that you can sustain evenly for the entire set if that makes sense. But there is also merit in being conservative and having one eye on your next ride so I never used to bother cranking up a TR workout.

Friel calls it risk/reward. The reward of doing them all at 400w is obviously a bigger adaptation response. The risk is you aren’t recovered by your next workout ⚖️

30/30’s yes. I think turning it up towards the end worked ok – but I think if I turned it up from the start perhaps I might have struggled more towards the end. Guess it depends how much I turn it up though!

Tonight is probably a chill mtb with a mate who is quite a bit less fit than me so slightly tired legs shouldn’t be a drama. Tomorrow I’ll weight train or swim so the legs get a day of recovery before sweet spot on Friday.

I suspect my legs could take more than I throw at them fitness wise but equally I don’t want to break myself as it’s just mainly boosting fitness for mtb rather than racing.

I am eyeing up booking an enduro race near Plymouth in October though if Incan get it past the wife to vanish early doors and get back late.

I’m getting a craving for a power meter on the Dolan – torn between a 4iii left sided only one as I can get a good price on a left Ultegra arm with one already fitted – or those favaro assiomo uno pedals

I’ve got Faveros (on both sides) and very pleased with them – good battery life, pretty much fit and forget. Obviously in theory you can swap them between bikes, but it’s not something I’d want to be doing daily.

4iii on the road bike single sided don’t see the need for double sided. Also can easily swap to my winter bike as they are both Shimano. Never had an issue with it except on those rides the coin battery gives up it goes a bit screwy.

TR V02 I don’t turn the power up at the end I just increase the RPM trying to keep it above 120. More recently I’ve stopped doing this. Get the specific work done and walk away as Crosshair says.
I do TR ones outside as well on a shallow hill at the end of the road. 5x 30 30 gets me to the top. Power is typically 10 to 15% higher than I do on the turbo for no other reason than I don’t have ERG holding it back but it is sustainable through the hour. Did my first one of the year on Sunday after being ill.
Trying not to use the turbo anymore this year unless the weather is really bad.

I just stuck 165 cranks on the TT bike that I train on @joebristol – they’re recommended for anyone running an aero-belly in that particular discipline. Position-wise very promising, but plain power I am not sure. Did a sweet spot session that felt way hard but might have just been a bad day.

But a lot of folks get good results from shortening the cranks.

@joebristol You could try switching ERG off and going hard early…will get the HR up earlier and you’re hopefully spending more time >90%

Obviously you’ll need to pace it well which will be a bit of trial and error, power will likely fade towards the end of the set but so long as you don’t drop right off HR should remain high.

@haze I haven’t tried the turbo at all outside of using erg – I keep thinking about having a go on Zwift in which case racing I’d have to use the gears. I imagine it needs more discipline than erg mode to stay in power zones on TR…

It does, takes a little bit of trial and error…once you have a gear and cadence that gets you in the right area then it’s pretty straightforward to replicate.

It’s all a trade off. On the one hand, not using ERG is (maybe) more flexible. On the other, when you are used to seeing crisp graph lines, an au-naturel workout looks like a shambles 🤣 That can be tough to deal with mentally.
Although 30/30’s are a good candidate for no-ERG anyhow.

ERG is one of the things TR has done insanely well and when I had a Zoom call with Jonathan Lee once (don’t ask why 🤣) he said it was pleasing I had noticed (how good their ERG is) as they have worked really hard at fine tuning the experience for every trainer.

Zwift ERG isn’t as good but will let you float above or below a little. I had it set at 320w last night but was able to average as high as 342w for one of the intervals without it continuously correcting me, it just kind of resigned itself to giving me that resistance in that particular gear 🤣

Good for some things, not so much for others…I find it a little subjective tbh and always do my Z1/Z2 in ERG (whilst keeping an eye on HR)

Threshold stuff I like to pace, give you a good feel for your threshold and how long you can actually hold it for.

Actually do my shorter VO2 stuff in ERG but make the first few reps hard to spike my HR, then reduce to ride out the set. Longer efforts (3 on, 3 off etc) I lean more towards ERG off to avoid the death spiral should my cadence drop!

Yeah that is the trouble. I did gradually downshift through the entire cassette at one point last night to keep my cadence up and was like strewth, better stand up and sprint to get enough momentum back in the flywheel to shift up again 🤣

Weather and roads are minging today so I’m probably gonna head round the Pretzel route on Zwift. It’s usually about 2h45 in zone 2.

Dumb trainer and powermeter here so no ERG (use Trainerroad). I don’t find it an issue – you can smooth the power data by selecting it to average over a short defined period.

Up to 3.45w/kg this morning…..

Weather and roads are minging today so I’m probably gonna head round the Pretzel route on Zwift. It’s usually about 2h45 in zone 2.

Plodded around the route at basically Z1. I need the volume in my legs but also wanted to recover from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow. Friel mentions in his book how you sometimes need to mix conflicting objectives into one ride during build as there’s not enough days in the week for everything 🤣
I did the epic KOM at 206w and the reverse epic KOM at 230w but everything else was just tapping along at low HR.I haven’t done one since Zwift ‘routes’ were a thing so it was good to tick it off.

Back to Vo2 tomorrow! Prob shoot for 4x4min @ 380w and adjust once I see how painful/achievable the first one is.
If I can find a slot in the weather I’ll head out on the gravel bike and do them. Possibly commute over to a hill and do them as the ones nearby are mostly sub 3mins.

How do you keep your mind interested on that long a Zwift ride at low intensity? Fair shout – sounds like some almost zone 2 endurance whilst also recovering.

I did a blip off road round the local trail centre bits – no real hills and with a less fit / slower mate. Had a good chat and social but then I did a bit of sprinting from corner to corner – I haven’t ridden the hardtail so much recently as I’ve really being enjoying the Sentinel since I coil shock / cascade linked it. Front end nailed grip wise with a 2.6” Magic Mary but the 2.6” Forekaster on the rear (bit worn at that) was all over the place drifting. Ace fun.

Not sure what I’m doing tomorrow – maybe a back and biceps weight session before back on the turbo on Friday

Awesome, sounds fun 😀

So yesterday, I wanted to tick off a route badge. (Sounds cheesy but it’s surprisingly motivating).
I set off and just let my avatar follow the course. (I guess it’s like the difference outdoors of riding blindly off down the street or programming a route into your Garmin. You kind of feel obliged to follow it).

Then I had a 90min podcast on I wanted to listen to.

After about an hour, I was bored but not uncomfy so I lied to myself that I would get off at x minutes or at y miles a couple of times (and then you just keep going) 😀
By that time, I was so far around the 45 mile/4500’ loop that it seemed silly to quit and have to do all that first bit again another time.

Another thing that helped was doing a couple of centuries on there. Now anything under 5hrs feels easy 😀

Finally- I don’t think this ride would have been any less “boring” outside 🤣 Sometimes you just have to commit to the work.

It’s kind of back to the ‘ride slower to ride faster’ thing isn’t it. Maybe it should be ‘ride more boringly to ride more excitingly’ 🤣🤣

Oooo, down to 75.6kg this morning. Don’t know if perhaps I’m a little de-hydrated or whether that’s genuine. Not too far off my target of 75kgs though. Just need to find 45w per kg extra now 🫣

Hey that’s great news ⚖️ 💪🏻 😃

Found a gap in the rain so went out to try the Diverge. I missed it 🤩 It’s so chunky and comfy and stops properly and GRX shifts lovely and big tyres make so much sense on our awful roads.

Turns out it wasn’t a gap in the rain at all- I got soaked twice 🤣

Anyway, I did my 4×4 Vo2’s as hill reps. Up Whitchurch hill twice, then Pangbourne hill and then finally up Streatley Hill. (Ironically my pb’s up those hills were from a very similar workout in 2017 when I was training using Friels Book 🤣).

It was one of those rare good-legs days and I ended up hitting 430, 398, 398 and 407 (but those two in the middle would be 400 if I’d pressed lap at 4.00 not 4.01 🤣)

Even better, I feel amazing. Despite the rain I wanted to carry on riding!! Next task is to recover up for Saturday though so I resisted and went home.

If someone had told me I’d feel this good today when I was getting off the turbo yesterday- I’d have punched them in the mouth 🤣🤣

The weather is awful at the moment – got properly soaked last night too. For road I’ve just bought a better cost that I need to try out and see if it’s as breathable as it claims whilst still being waterproof – Gorewear Active something or other. Need to fill / bleed brakes before that though.

I can imagine bigger tyres and a forgiving frame are a game changer – there’s one descent off Lansdown Hill (between Bristol and Bath) that is scarred and rutted even though it’s a main road – felt like I had to really back off down it on the caad12 as it jarred through the front. Hopefully the GXC will make lighter work of it.

Sounds like you smashed your numbers out the park – strong work 💪

Oh cool! I don’t have much good waterproof gear. I like my Gabba but it’s too hot from about now onwards.

It’s interesting looking at the other guys from Saturday’s ride on my Strava feed since then. Everyone was fairly equally smashed by the end it seemed and yet some have done some impressive high intensity in the meantime.
I’ll be curious to see how they fair next weekend, as I definitely needed the easy time to absorb Saturday’s training stress, so my guess is that I’ll improve relative to them but let’s see!

Another one went pop tonight 🤣 He left an admission on his Strava that he had over exerted himself after his FIFTH fast Zwift group ride or Race since Saturday 💡🤣
(And they were padded out with pace partner warmups too 🤯 )

Unlike on the internet, I keep my coaching opinions to myself IRL but sometimes I feel baffled by what people do given the huge wealth of information available online.

Although maybe the same could be said of me and the weight loss side of the equation 🤣🤣

indoor ftp, ftp higher when cycling uphill, don’t care not bothered, watts is watts 😂

did an hour Tuesday Z2 when I didn’t think I’d squeeze anything in that day, then Wednesday everything seemed to catch up with me, did the school run and thought, I’ll have an hour, get up, do some jobs and do a couple of hours while watching Dwars door Vlaanderen, slept from 930-2pm, so that buggered that, took it as a sign to rest, slept well last night and did uni today, felt fresh this evening so thought I’d have a smash up the Epic KOM on Zwift, not done anything over Z2 since March 2nd I don’t think, weighed in at 80kg flat in my indoor riding kit, so happy with that, all time low Zwift weight

did 24:53, average power of 289w (293w for 20 minutes, so FTP from 263w > 279w)

and thats with nearly 90% of my yearly riding in Z1/Z2 after 6 months off, bonkers

Ye-ha that’s fantastic @dirtyrider 👏🏻
Well done! 😃

It’s exactly what DrISM says will happen innit- get the slow twitch mitochondria functioning well enough and they’ll trough as much lactate as you can feed them when you turn up the gas 💪🏻

I’m almost looking forward to post ToC on June when I can get back to the Z2 🥲 🤣

Ugggh not much inspiration coming from the sky is there!
Not sure what group rides are heading out tomorrow but I’m not going to have a smash-up this week. The Sunday group are doing a century-ride so I plan on having a volume weekend instead.
Probably take the diverge on the gravel tyres tomorrow and hopefully get 3-3.5hrs in and then stick the road wheels on for Sunday and do the century on that (as it has all the SWAT storage for co2 and pump and tubes and lots of bottle and food etc) 😀

You’re a sucker for punishment going out for a long road ride in the current weather – fair play!

Turboing tonight after work then rest day tomorrow as I’m off drinking all day at the football 🥴

Yep. Weather crap.
Had a 90km ride last week planned & sacked it off for getting the mega-pretzel ticked off, on Zwift. A good 4 hour ride, but would have rather been outside.
Desperate to get some more miles in on my new Camino before the dirty reiver.

I will try to get out this weekend, come rain (or shine – yeah, right).
Tempted to get an ass savers Win Wing mudguard for the Reiver. Looks like something you can fit & forget for much of the winter.

Not sure what group rides are heading out tomorrow but I’m not going to have a smash-up this week

No idea what’s happening tomorrow a planned trip to IOW seems to have been binned…I might head out for a couple of hours to get the legs moving again…off to Mallorca on Monday 😄😄

Oooo lovely, that’ll be nice ☀️
Yes, I had thought I might go to the IoW as have never been.
If we all had any sense we’d start with a 9:30 coffee and set off when the massive rain cloud clears Newbs at 10:15 🤣

If we all had any sense

Counts me out!!

Bottled it today. I am having a shift around of bikes so I put my race bike onto Turbo duties and then wanted to test it out.
The weather was wet beyond the forecast cut off point so I’m pleased I made the right decision- I haven’t mentally recovered from that 5h 2/3rds solo MTB ride in the rain the other Saturday 🤣

I found a nice 68mile group ride and joined the C’s (to align my Z2 with the pace) and I ended up averaging 210w for 2h40. With my warm up ride, that made another 3hrs in the bank.

At the end, another guy read my mind and decided to try a breakaway. It wasn’t a race but he said he was going to see how long he could stay out in front. I decided to have a go instead and once I had a gap, it took 360w to do 25mph which probably isn’t far off!
What’s inflationary about the group speed itself (Vrs real life) is that *nobody* ever seems to actually have to do those 360w on the front. Just rolling past the lead rider generates the draft that then sucks everybody along. Still, it helps the imaginary mileage tally go up quicker 🤣

Then the original Harry guy who suggested it had a crack and got a better gap with a few miles left so I decided to try and bridge. That was insanely painful and to eventually get on his wheel took a minute at 475w at which point we both sat up and got caught soon after 🤣

I am feeling pretty trashed now but need to get an early night for the group century tomorrow.
It should be fun other than the 04:45 alarm 😭

You’re a banana 🍌!

A minute at 475w at the end of that ride lol – sucker for punishment – but at least you dodged the rain riding inside!

Makes my 1 hour sweet spot (with 5 seconds tags of 400w+ randomly thrown in by the workout) seem a bit of a poor effort.

I was thinking of doing the 1.5 hour threshold session today but I drank quite a lot yesterday in hospitality at the football match I went to and went out for beers after as well. Stomach doesn’t feel like it would take to cardio well so I think I’m going to do a decent leg weight training session instead.

Maybe barbell back squats / goblet squats / reverse lunges / Bulgarian split squats / jumping squats / calf raises or something like that.