The Wattage Thread

[SoliD]

okgo said:

Think James was the quickest of your club?

Managed 370W for 49.35 which was a power pb by about 10w and netted me a time I shouldn't really moan about given the ste weather, still managed to get beaten by Dewey, but I have a few things to change which should get me close.

Yeah James quickest out of him and Gary, then won our local league event the next morning. They both said weather was horrendous on Saturday and didn't enjoy it.

[okgo]

I think he probably thought he might be closer given he's been near to winning on there before. Weather wasn't fantastic tbh.

[E65Ross]

It's dawned upon me just how much harder I'll have to work to get the same sort of TSS per week now!

I suppose the idea is to make my rides the same intensity factor, and thus put in 5% more power throughout.... And have to do more miles to get the same TSS.

Interesting that over a 4.25 hour steady ride of the same power, something which was around 210 TSS would then be under 200 TSS at the same power... Doesn't sound like much but that's either having to put in more power for longer (well, duh!) or do extra miles..... Better to do more power as it's a bit more speed I'm after rather than outright endurance.

[944fan]

Finally got my power meter set up. Did the Sufferfest Rubber Glove FTP Test last night. FTP came out at 241. Still a fast bd though so my W/Kg is pretty dismal.

I bought the power meter 2nd hand, its a G3 powertap. It came with the CycleOps Joule GPS. My god what a ste piece of crap. Think they should stick to making power meters and leave the computers to Garmin et al.

I have heard Aldi are selling cheap Garmins, anyone know if they support HR and Power via BT/ANT+?

[Magic919]

Aldi do the Garmin 200 as far as I know. You want 500 upwards for power meter support.

[E65Ross]

944fan said:

Finally got my power meter set up. Did the Sufferfest Rubber Glove FTP Test last night. FTP came out at 241. Still a fast bd though so my W/Kg is pretty dismal.

I bought the power meter 2nd hand, its a G3 powertap. It came with the CycleOps Joule GPS. My god what a ste piece of crap. Think they should stick to making power meters and leave the computers to Garmin et al.

I have heard Aldi are selling cheap Garmins, anyone know if they support HR and Power via BT/ANT+?

You got the exact same 20 minute test result as me

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3605480-...

0.95x241 comes out at JUST under 229W, trainerroad suggested FTP of 228, training peaks said 229....so I've gone with 229 now.

I did a long session this morning and notice the difference. 4x15mins 95-99% FTP and also some VO2 and anerobic bits after that. excluding the warm up/down I had an IF of 0.935 over 1 hour 44mins....total for today was 171TSS, and I worked out that would have been around 183TSS or so under my last FTP setting!

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3615669-...

I do feel more tired than usual after 170TSS

Let more training commence!

[944fan]

E65Ross said:

You got the exact same 20 minute test result as me

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3605480-...

0.95x241 comes out at JUST under 229W, trainerroad suggested FTP of 228, training peaks said 229....so I've gone with 229 now.

I did a long session this morning and notice the difference. 4x15mins 95-99% FTP and also some VO2 and anerobic bits after that. excluding the warm up/down I had an IF of 0.935 over 1 hour 44mins....total for today was 171TSS, and I worked out that would have been around 183TSS or so under my last FTP setting!

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3615669-...

I do feel more tired than usual after 170TSS

Let more training commence!

I had already multiplied by 0.95 to get 241.

I haven't got my head around the TSS, IF, NP metrics etc. Got a long ride this weekend which is just zone 2 so will be keeping in power zone 2 rather than HR zone 2.

[E65Ross]

944fan said:

I had already multiplied by 0.95 to get 241.

I haven't got my head around the TSS, IF, NP metrics etc. Got a long ride this weekend which is just zone 2 so will be keeping in power zone 2 rather than HR zone 2.

ah....I'm a weakling

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/normali...

All the metrics are relatively simply.....putting it all very simply TSS is basically how much a ride takes it out of you. 100 TSS is equivalent to a 1 hour ride at 100% FTP. You will find a that a 3 hour ride in Z2 will obviously bring less TSS per hour than a hard interval session....but, in theory, a 150TSS endurance ride (eg 180 minutes) will take about as long to recover as a 150TSS ride which may only be 100 minutes long. TSS is calculated by getting the IF and squaring it (eg IF factor of 0.8 squared = 0.64) then multiplying it by 100 to give the TSS per hour (64, in this case)....so a 2 hour ride at 0.8IF gives 128 TSS.

NP is just the amount of effort you've put in....it's dependant on how variable a ride is, and the average power. An interval session may be 1min 130%/1min 50% which would give an average power of 90%, but because it's so variable, it has a higher NP as doing that is harder than riding consistently at 90%, this means it will have a higher TSS level. This obviously means NP is directly related to IF.....as IF is simply NP divided by your FTP setting.

Hope that makes some sort of sense

Edited by E65Ross on Wednesday 20th April 12:08

[944fan]

E65Ross said:

ah....I'm a weakling

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/normali...

All the metrics are relatively simply.....putting it all very simply TSS is basically how much a ride takes it out of you. 100 TSS is equivalent to a 1 hour ride at 100% FTP. You will find a that a 3 hour ride in Z2 will obviously bring less TSS per hour than a hard interval session....but, in theory, a 150TSS endurance ride (eg 180 minutes) will take about as long to recover as a 150TSS ride which may only be 100 minutes long. TSS is calculated by getting the IF and squaring it (eg IF factor of 0.8 squared = 0.64) then multiplying it by 100 to give the TSS per hour (64, in this case)....so a 2 hour ride at 0.8IF gives 128 TSS.

NP is just the amount of effort you've put in....it's dependant on how variable a ride is, and the average power. An interval session may be 1min 130%/1min 50% which would give an average power of 90%, but because it's so variable, it has a higher NP as doing that is harder than riding consistently at 90%, this means it will have a higher TSS level. This obviously means NP is directly related to IF.....as IF is simply NP divided by your FTP setting.

Hope that makes some sort of sense

Edited by E65Ross on Wednesday 20th April 12:08

I weigh 110Kg though :-)

Thanks for the info, lots more data to look at and obesses over. Love it.

The are some Garmin 910XTs going on ebay for 130 notes so might get one of them. Currently have one Garmin for pool swimming, one for lake and running, and need one for bike with power and that seems to do all and more.

[Ponk]

My blog is racing related but I figured some of you might be interested in the wattage. Particularly 4th cat vs 3rd.

https://off-the-back.com

[okgo]

Box ticked - 404w for 21 min last night

[Ponk]

Speechless. That's huge.

I must step up my TT game this season. 2016 will be the year of the 300w 10!

[E65Ross]

Ponk said:

My blog is racing related but I figured some of you might be interested in the wattage. Particularly 4th cat vs 3rd.

https://off-the-back.com

That's interesting that. Obviously tactics etc play a role but a NP of 240W or so for an hour suggests to me I SHOULD be able to keep up.... My FTP is now 229W but bear in mind I'm under 54kgs....means I'll need fewer watts for a given speed. Though coming to the sprints I'll have no hope, I think I should be able to at least hang in there.....

Haven't read it all but will do so later, appreciate you putting that up, it makes for interesting reading.

[944fan]

E65Ross said:

My FTP is now 229W but bear in mind I'm under 54kgs....means I'll need fewer watts for a given speed.

Your power to weight ratio is double mine. Need to lose some serious weight and up the old power a bit :-(

[fromage]

I think you would be surprised if you ride in a bunch well how little power you actually need, it's also your ability to do multiple hard efforts and recover from them. In my first ever 2/3 road race I got around on 186 watts and still managed 8th.

[Ponk]

fromage said:

I think you would be surprised if you ride in a bunch well how little power you actually need, it's also your ability to do multiple hard efforts and recovery from them. In my first ever 2/3 road race I got around on 186 watts and still managed 8th.

Definitely this, but on a flat circuit it's your watts that matter not your weight. You'll need to put out less power than me to get round for example (75 kg) but you'll probably find the repeated hard efforts tough going. Nothing that can't be trained through. :-)

[lukefreeman]

Did 300w for 42 minutes and stepped it to 350w for the last 3 minutes.

Next time is 300w for an hour, with no stepping up, then I'll start going shorter with more watts.

Would like to do my first 10 in 20:xx

[lukefreeman]

okgo said:

Box ticked - 404w for 21 min last night

Clinton only hit 394 the other day for 20 minutes, good going.

[okgo]

Clinton is not very big and quite aero though vs me who is not that small, though still pretty aero. But yeh I should be able to get closer to him this year than last. He's been hitting decent numbers indoors, but not outdoors, I think there is something up with that personally, but we'll see.

[Granfondo]

944fan said:

E65Ross said:

My FTP is now 229W but bear in mind I'm under 54kgs....means I'll need fewer watts for a given speed.

Your power to weight ratio is double mine. Need to lose some serious weight and up the old power a bit :-(

On the hills the power to weight will count but on the flat Ross will struggle against the higher output guys.

Edited by Granfondo on Saturday 30th April 11:14