@dangeourbrain I don’t see much point in doing the TTT if there’s just two of us, let’s see if anyone else decides to enter today – but if no one does, definitely look for another event instead

Well that wasn’t slow ! Hung with lead B group for 7min30… then just hung round with the other wannabees and Cs lol. tough tough effrot.

Oops, missed the Lamb Chop start having set things up in typical late fashion, only to find the gaming pc in the lounge (which I don’t normally use to turbo, but I have the place to myself today) needs a Zwift update and I miss my 1014 start slot!

So did a gentle warmup around Richmond Flats instead, only using the Direto for power instead of the 4iiii, but 50/22 gear (~150-300W depending upong gradients) felt strangly tough, considering I’ve not done anything of note since Monday.

Dilemma now is do I finally do my first proper TT Tune-Up session of the week, or do I save my feable legs for the BC 16Km TT @1220 on Greatest London Flat?

I would offer to help boost numbers for the TTT if you’re still short, but I’ve no idea what my legs and lungs will make of a ~60min effort, my best 60mins in the last six weeks is ~248W (~3.15 W/Kg and I’m a B on Zwiftpower) and that was 5th June… I don’t think I have done a similar steady effort since.

Phil and Dangeour might be a couple of slots in my other team if you fancy?

7.40 start time

@kelvinshuffle sure, if we don’t have a team for tonight then thanks for the offer. Let me know what we need to do to enter/discord etc.

@dangeourbrain I don’t see much point in doing the TTT if there’s just two of us, let’s see if anyone else decides to enter today – but if no one does, definitely look for another event instead

would love to do it as have been really enjoying these, I cannot make it this week tho. 😭

I was planning on doing the TTT although i’ve not been feeling great since last week and power is not where it has been. I think lack of sleep due to insomniac baby and toddler is catching up with me. If there was a bigger group I was going to try and hide and get round as well as possible. If you guys want to take up kelvins offer thats fine by me i’ll just look for a race or something to get my Thursday fix of pain…the though of being on my own with you two watt monsters is daunting to say the least haha!!

Nice one Phil! Hope Brian can make it as well.

Need the Zwift Power Tag (WKG Vomit)

Pen D @ 7.43 with 10.5 minute delay – Sign up here

Discord here though not everyone uses it.

Also usually tend to do more structured turns, so 30 second turns based on surname alphabetical but will prob firm that up in the pen

You’d have been fine @ljarch, but as there’s still only three of us I’ve now entered with Kelvin’s team and pulled my entry from the 6.30 race.

Hope that’s OK

Thats absolutely fine Phil have a good un and hopefully be back to normal next week.

Nice one Phil, LJ you’re welcome to if you fancy it, the team is a couple of As and everyone else Bs.

This week it’s also ended up being a bit more of a “Climber” crew so not crazy watts wise if you wanna give a try…

OK, no TTT (for STW) tonight. Hopefully back to normal next week.

Good luck with the Vomit (!) team Phil and Brian. Thanks for hosting them Kelvin.

Thanks for the offer Kelvin bit late for me plus I think a morale boosting grit race might do me good psycologically haha!

I’m going to take the opportunity to do a shorter one thanks kelvin. I’ve a few bits to do this evening that a 7.30 start won’t work for.

Enjoy!

And don’t forget us Phil!

No worries Brian and see you in the pen Phil!

Well based on that performance I think you’ll be better without me.

Changed off the TT bike onto a normal because it was mass start so assumed my 30 year old school boy French was wrong.

Chased onto a draft that wasn’t there as despite mass start it turned out it was a TT afterall.

Don’t know if it was too soon after work so no warm up and I was full of hay-fever gunge but my legs fell off after about a minute and eight about then I remembered how much I dislike the lumpy London start.

Everytime I hit what felt a sensible, slightly above comfortable, race pace I’d end up blowing up and dropping way down to soft pedal. Struggled to hold 300 on the flat and whilst I was holding my own most of the way up box Hill I actually had to stop at one point to clear my throat – snot rockets are not allowed in the house!

Final numbers were higher than the 2wkg I expected but still a bit low, another 20 mins of that would have killed me this evening I think.

Thanks for that Phil, held it together quite nicely there, though the Titan Rollers the second time round were exasperating.

On the completely miniscule off chance you wanna watch it back Brian from WKG streamed it.

Thanks for the invite Kelvin, I enjoyed it!

Rode with the club and came a tad under my PB hour power on tired legs after two days of Z5 intervals, so I was pleased with that.  We had a two “electronicals” with Trainers so had to slow to allow people to catch, but individually came 25th-32nd in B.

Great team effort on Titans both times to stay together.

Surprised myself just before lunch, managing my first 300W 20mins in almost four months in the BC TT, after the major 2020 cycling stall brought on by long drawn out mild COVID-19 symptoms.

Ever the optimist, I left the turbo set up in the lounge, thinking I’d try something else after a break and some lunch…

Energy never materialised!

Testing the new vs the old trainer! Need your opinions.

So the new turbo has arrived and making the move from wheel on to direct drive and expecting the customary watt drop, which I’m keen to try and quantify.

Waiting on my new cassette to arrive so wondering about which of two options to consider.
First some context, my current FTP was set about six weeks ago from 95% of a twenty minute effort climbing the Alpe in a race at 50% trainer difficulty.

This Monday just gone got very close to matching that effort in another race up the Alpe, but feel a few watts short.

Do I….
1. Do two ramp tests over two days one on the old set up and one on the new despite not having done a ramp test for in absolutely ages.

2. Wait for another race up the Alpe (I’ve raced up the Alpe every Sunday since lockdown started), set the trainer difficulty the same and compare that?

I spose I could do both as well… but by day three of doing that feels like I might be shattered…

Do a TT 20min effort anywhere on the new turbo, either in an organised event, or simply do a free ride on a fairly consistent gradient course, such as Tempus Fugit.

Not sure if it’s just a foible of my current set up or just how my fitness breaks down but find it much easier to put the watts out climbing than on a flat TT

@kelvinshuffle trainer difficulty is a red herring here – the drivo and the flow have different specs, and whatever the specs say I’d expect a wheel on trainer from one manufacturer and a direct drive from another to implement grades differently anyway.

I’d ride a little to get the trainer difficulty where you like it, and then do whatever ride(s) you trust to give comparable data. Sunday (or any other day!) alpe would make most sense I think.

It would be interesting to compare the differences I guess – sounds like you know the Alpe like the back of your hand so just do that next Sunday?

Are you on a training block tho? I’ve sort of forgotten about ftp since starting zwift, as racing and zwiftpower is all parameterised around W/Kg. But obv you need a reference if you’re doing structured training.

Saying that our local TT district just revised its covid guidance today such that club stuff can go ahead, so may need to pay ftp some more attention.

Cool no not sounding like we’ve got lots of advocates for lots of ramp tests which is probably cool!

Not in a training block as such, in one of those “race too many days a week” periods that Zwift can suck you into.

I’m not super worried about the FTP as a number more its consequences elsewhere, should I be dropping a race cat? Should I be reconsidering if I can handle the TTTs etc.

There’s an easy approach of ride what you’d normally ride and see if it’s too difficult.

I think if it’s too far out it’ll become apparent fairly quickly but I’d rather know what sort of difference we’re looking at and we re-adjust my expectations rather than having a vague “well it’s different” feeling for a while.

Cool no not sounding like we’ve got lots of advocates for lots of ramp tests which is probably cool!

Well I suppose someone has to suggest doing something hateful and dress it up like they know best so I’ll bite :

Do a 20 minute ramp test 5 times a day for 5 days on your wheel on, repeat with the wheel off one.

This will boost your [insert beauty product level of nonsense sciencey sounding word] and the work load will ensure both trainers make your legs feel like strawberry jelly just looking at them. By the time you’re back to normal you’ll have forgotten what the wheel on one felt like other than awful so it’ll be perfect.

You taking on coaching clients at the moment?

You taking on coaching clients at the moment?

I hope you’re being sarcastic because I wouldn’t part with the change in my pocket for that rubbish.

You taking on coaching clients at the moment?

Regrettably it turns out my mail order degree from the university of Lerik [Azerbaijan] isn’t covered by European qualification equivalence, or rather it is but its equivalent to the ingredients list on a pack of corn flakes,so I’ve had to stop taking on clients for the time being. I have bought one from the university oh herverd though so should be up and running again soon.

I hope you’re being sarcastic because I wouldn’t part with the change in my pocket for that rubbish.

Fortunately you wouldn’t have to, my shonky advice, like all the best things in life, is free.

My guess is that you will find your power numbers are 10-20% lower on the Drivo, compared to the Flow, so at worst your 20min power will be “re-calibrated” to ~270W, just under 4.5W/Kg.

If A+ is 4.5+, you might become a non-alien A. 😉

Yeah that’s the ball park I’m working on.

It’s silly isn’t it I’ll be exactly the same fitness no matter what I’m measuring it on but hard not to get sucked into where you’re at relative to everyone else rather than relative to yourself!

It’s silly isn’t it I’ll be exactly the same fitness no matter what I’m measuring it on but hard not to get sucked into where you’re at relative to everyone else rather than relative to yourself!

Oddly the change in numbers would annoy me almost entirely on the comparison with my self front. Knowing last week that number up in the left of my screen was 15% higher would seriously piss me off because my whole method of judging how I’m doing would be screwed.

Being beaten by folks I was passing last week wouldn’t really bother me. Though I suspect that’s more to do with my lack of consistency and years of real life experience of being beaten by old-blokes-on-single-speeds-built-sometime-before-I-was-born having destroyed any expectations of success driven by anything more than fluke.

Perhaps it was due to my miserly numbers but I didn’t notice any difference in my power particularly when I swapped between the flow and Kickr core a couple of months ago. What I did notice was the massively improved responsivness and feel. It no longer felt like riding in treacle. In races putting the power down produces a quicker response on screen and not the lag of the flow. Obviously all setups are slightly different but thats been my experience since making the switch. If I did loose power then I’d be happy to take it just for the improved experience and “enjoyment”…oh and no longer worrying about waking the kids due to the din of the wheel on.

It’s been long known that anything with a wheel on number is a rough estimate at most.

You should concentrate on the fact that you have now shrunk the error bars either side of your measurement into a manageable known quantity.

Too many variables in wheel on trainers to get any kind of accuracy across set ups. – temperature , tire friction , frictional heat , frictional losses , tire pressure etc etc.

That’s all been taken away barring temperature.

Wheel on power trainer is barely any better than zwift power when comparing across devices the only thing it’s a good comparison to is it’s self.

Using a 4iiii and a kickr wheel on trainer and also the elite rollers with power meter built in. We got as far away as 15% from the crank number on the trainer’s.

My crank and kickr core are almost high on aligned except when the 4iiii throws in a random 0

Friday TT here along with Terry D, who must have thought I was ignoring him but I was doing a calibration spindown.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=940627

Reasonable effort with 270w average. Done a fair bit this week so happy with result

Here’s me. …

Was jumping in between meetings never really planned but working from the garage with the bike next to me.

Not warmed up so Poorly paced from me. Went straight to FTP and just watched it tail off.

That 2nd tour ride was tough…very fast! I was around 1000 place until the first lap KOM then I shed places…that hill goes on! Saw Forge and TallPaul ahead of me then I went backwards. 2nd lap was slower and was chatting with Robbo who was nearby.
Around 1 hour 12 for 2 laps which isn’t bad.

Be good for STW rides, I’m going to do it again but a slower pace to enjoy it haha

Really enjoyed that. Was a good challenging pace. Paced the 2 climbs well (within 1w average). It is a tough climb though – just because it goes flat in each corner so you have to change gear a lot and can’t get a rhythm. Will be good to see the pros on it tomoz.

My guess is that you will find your power numbers are 10-20% lower on the Drivo, compared to the Flow, so at worst your 20min power will be “re-calibrated” to ~270W, just under 4.5W/Kg.

If A+ is 4.5+, you might become a non-alien A. 😉

Well two ramp tests and another race up the Alpe later and the results are in, short version is dropped by 10%.

n0b0dy0ftheg0at wasn’t far out 279w on 95% of best 20 minutes which is 4.4w/kg which all told I’m pretty happy with, shouldn’t mean I need to drop down in racing cat and it’s near enough that trying to get to a realistic 300+ feels like a motivating longer term goal to work towards.

Interestingly on both the new and old set-up was lower on ramp test vs 95% of twenty minute effort. Any one else noticed differences in score between testing approaches?