The Wattage Thread

[okgo]

Decent numbers, surprisingly slow 10 time from them - I think you may have mentioned that earlier in the thread though?

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wemorgan said:

Just being nosy, but are you talking about 10km or 10miles, or something else? Cheers.

10 miles.

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I would pay no attention to it at all. As my coach says - pedal in the way that produces most power. Your situation sounds super normal to me.

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WAs this a reliability sportive?

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Sandersports said:

Yes it was.... Junction jumping to not loose time, overtaking cars on hills , echelons over the white lines and some typical , it was horrific and does my head , i used a good 5 watts every few mins shouting at other riders to stop riding like DICKS ! I forget just how racey riders get this time of year .

haha - wait till June, they'll have given up then when they realize they will never be any good.

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Sandersports said:

Next thing you know i will be doing TT's !!!

A few TT's have started offering a lantern rouge prize actually

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RGambo said:

First Race of the year last weekend, the EC cycles 10 on the R10/22a. It was a bit cold to say the least (around 1degree) but it was calm and mostly dry. I managed to get the legs warmed up properly and post a 20:48, which ended up being good enough for the win! well joint win. I've never tied on time before and it had to be yesterday! there were a couple of guys who should have beaten me, but I think they had some issues.. But over all I'm over the moon to start the year with a win.

here's the ride if anybody is interested. https://www.strava.com/activities/509987386

Edited by RGambo on Monday 7th March 16:10

Good effort, a win is a win !!

I've tied on time in both the National 25 and the National 10 last year!

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Races seem to have got harder, so make sure you do some hard intervals!

I did a 2hr45 2/3 cat race the other day, averaged 300w with 350NP - quite a bit considering I thought, I mean most of the break were 1st cat level riders but still. We had 4 minutes on the bunch by the end

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Ponk said:

Where are you racing chaps?

I had a moment of madness and got an entry for the Jock Wadley seeing as they are short a team or three. The course is less than 2 miles from my house so at least I've got a short ride home after getting dropped. Come on the early break!

Gone with vaguely local ones, SERRL and Surrey League. Nice to be racing against people with jobs again to be honest.

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Sandersports said:

Why you not on the Paceline Training camp .. They will be talking about you !!

It would be unfair on them


@pulsatingstar - yes, we only went hard until they gave up, which wasn't long. Our last lap was embarrassingly slow also, but was a fun race.

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Who is that?

Not many with those numbers out there, although its becoming more common at the elite UK level as the sport evolves and the scene gets stronger, lots of strong boys in the big UK teams now.

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lukefreeman said:

Top ten for National hillclimb last year, that'll give it away ;-)

Looks pretty thin, I would think that number is probably a bit high, he was beaten by people with far lower numbers than that in the HC who are similar build.

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Good stuff Yonex!

I did a TT on Saturday, fairly standard watts as an avg at 386, but on the next one I'm going to go out at 400 and see what happens on the return, I have a feeling I've been going too easy on the way out, I did 440W for the last 3 mins of that TT which is far too much to be doing at the end of what should be a nearly all out effort, so hopefully I can get over the mental barrier of averaging 400W, its so hard to get it into my head that I can probably do it, sometimes I wish it was not a round number!

I did 425W for ten mins on the roadbike the other day that was hard but not 100% flatout, so I think I've got it in me to be doing 400 on roadbike without too much stress, so should be possible on TT.

Legs are feeling pretty good at the minute, two hours yesterday at 305W avg felt pretty ok, I've started doing a load of core stability yoga moves to try and stop me getting back ache for when I am really pushing on on the road bike. Did a race the other day and my legs felt good but my back became the limiter when I was in a 2 up move near the end, so hoping that changes. FTP now set at 380W for roadbike,

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Haha, I was pissed as I'd beaten Tops by 22 seconds in December, but I know John has sorted his position out and always did decent numbers, so was always going to end up going quick, he'll be right into the top ten at the nationals I think this year.

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It just doesn't matter that much. What difference will it make if it's 310 or 320. For your goal I don't really get why you're so closely tracking it to be honest. I'd want to be carrying some weight, you're going to burn a LOT of calories - little extra means nothing. Especially given all the stuff on your bike surely?

What they're saying is that to get an honest result in a test you'll need to be fresh which will require a small taper which is a waste of training time to even do it more than a couple of times per quarter really.

Also losing lean mass means not a lot given the low demands on muscle for cycling. What is the issue with doing this of the mass is not important to riding the bike?

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Fair enough - James is making sure his neck can take it more than his legs, certainly told me its not the usual cycling event!

I suppose if you test in the same state each time its meaningful, but its hard to manage fatigue to that level of accuracy IMO.

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E65Ross said:

Just out of question okgo - how often do you FTP test? And do you do training cycles, in general (eg 3-4 weeks on, 1 week recovery)? I guess it largely depends on upcoming races etc... But in general?

During recovery weeks, do you keep the intensity the same but dial down the frequency, or down the intensity as well? Looking at trainerroad plans, and remembering back to my running days, I'm thinking of roughly halving my TSS for recovery weeks, but still doing one intense session, but rather than making it something like 2 hours 170tss, make it 1 hour 85-90tss or so...

I don't, we look at NP from races, I don't think testing would be for me, I could never motivate for it and I see it serves little purpose when I ride hard often in road races anyway, easy to draw out the trends. 1/2% that you mention could be powermeter error, too small to be meaningful IMO. Yes, there are harder weeks and easier ones, never recovery weeks though. I don't generally do any rides at under Z2 NP as I only usually have about ten hours to play with.

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Teebs said:

Would 0.94 intensity on a 3 hour solo ride suggest a FTP setting is too low?

Didn't feel stupidly hard

Possibly, though very much depends on the type of ride etc.

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I meant as in, solo, group, sprints, etc.

Its easy to generate a huge NP and therefore IF with certain types of riding, but as said it would have felt tough either way.

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If you mean as a peak figure, then yes, standing up would help HUGELY and no 1048 isn't anything interesting in normal circumstances, but doing it seated is pretty decent, so you'll probably have much more to give when you're putting your full weight into it