The Wattage Thread

Author
Discussion

okgo

Original Poster:

39,209 posts

204 months

Tuesday 7th November 2017
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Correct.

I'd actually recommend not dicking about with a test and just riding as usual for a few weeks as you would to buildup a log of data first.

ED209

5,848 posts

250 months

Monday 13th November 2017
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Had a quick blast on Swift this morning as I was time short did 45 mins. Was just a ride not a test but I put a decent effort in and it calculated that I have a new FTP of 231w up from 212W. I use a tacx neo so i assume its reasonably accurate?

Is this any good though?

E65Ross

35,672 posts

218 months

Monday 13th November 2017
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ED209 said:
Had a quick blast on Swift this morning as I was time short did 45 mins. Was just a ride not a test but I put a decent effort in and it calculated that I have a new FTP of 231w up from 212W. I use a tacx neo so i assume its reasonably accurate?

Is this any good though?
Should be accurate, yes. Is it any good? It's all relative. I used to be interested in what others were doing but now just focus on my own numbers etc. It's a figure you can work with and work to improve smile

okgo

Original Poster:

39,209 posts

204 months

Friday 4th December 2020
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Thought with loads of chat about watts in various threads maybe worth a bump, especially given lots of people now have powermeters, in fact on my strava I'd say it's quite rare for people not to have them now!

I've been mostly indoors in recent times, and not long after my last post here in 2017 I took basically 18 months out, so went right back to my 'zero' so to speak. Having never really done that in the previous 8 or so years it was quite a shock to the system to suddenly find a couple of laps of Richmond Park with mates a real struggle.

Went from circa 80kg to just over 90kg in 2018, and from around 380W FTP to 270W. A recipe for going very slowly up any kind of gradient as it turned out!

Didn't take ages to get back into some form of shape, and enjoyed dropping back to 3rd cat for a few races too hehe

Often only doing around 4-6 hours a week now mostly indoors, not actually really tested myself recently, but would be interested to see how far off the mark I am on the lower volume, but far more efficient Zwift vs commuting.

Looking back at some posters, Gruffy for example, lots of progress over the last 2-3 years!

addey

1,095 posts

173 months

Friday 4th December 2020
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Interesting seeing what I wrote a couple of years ago

addey said:
I'm in a pretty similar position to you Gruffy. I've got knee issues that stopped me riding back in 2008 but I've gradually got back into cycling over the last 18 months. The problem has never quite fully gone away and I feel its holding me back a bit so I'm also planning to embark on a bit of a conditioning routine this winter. Like okgo I was always always telling people on cycling forums not to waste their time doing weights; cycling is an endurance sport, the forces are low etc. etc. so I'm being a bit of a hypocrite now! laugh

My vastus medialis on my left leg is definitely underdeveloped, and possibly not firing properly so I'll be focussing on that. Maybe we should actually start a conditioning thread to compare exercises.....

ETA: I'll be doing mostly bodyweight exercises, maybe some deadlifts and squats with a bit of weight


Edited by addey on Thursday 5th October 21:19
I never did get round to doing much in the way of strength and conditioning laugh Have done a lot more riding since and although I'm fitter I still get a few niggles from my left knee. The really interesting thing though is that I've just upgraded my powermeter and now have left/right balance info. I was obviously expecting that this would show up the weakness on my left side (not just knee but my ankle is a bit rubbish too) but amazingly I'm consistently seeing a 53/47 bias with my left side being 'stronger'! I know these sort of 'imbalances' don't mean much in the grand scheme of things but it was certainly surprising to see that I don't have the weakness that I thought I had. Maybe I need to do some strength and conditioning this winter to try and balance it up biggrinwink