Road Cycling

xdcx said:
With it being a wheel on trainer I will expect the two sources to be quite a bit out to be honest. It's worth doing, genuinely interested to see how a wheel on fairs compared to a PM but I do expect it to be quite badly out.
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Even switching from a Vortex to a direct-drive trainer I found my reported power dropped by 20%. It wasn't good for my ego.
 
Nope. Last day of quarantine for me today :)

No that I have any plans for outdoor riding at the weekend. 56 mile 70.3 pace indoor ride, followed by a gentle half marathon :)
 
xdcx said:
Weird. If your win10 machine has Bluetooth I would pair the trainer to that.
Make sure Garmin is indoor mode or has GPS disabled. Then pair the 4iii to that via ANT+

Do you have a cadence sensor as well on the crank? Or were you using the 4iii as your cadence sensor to Zwift but using the Tacx as power source on Zwift also? If 4iii was paired via ANT+ as cadence to Zwift but also paired to the Garmin as ANT+ then this might be the source of your problem. Pure guessing though, you maybe have another cadence sensor on the crank you paired to Zwift.

With it being a wheel on trainer I will expect the two sources to be quite a bit out to be honest. It's worth doing, genuinely interested to see how a wheel on fairs compared to a PM but I do expect it to be quite badly out.
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I've got a Bluetooth dongle on the pc that the turbo connects to. Definitely was Tacx vortex doing power and cadence.

My old Edge 510 only has Ant+ so the 4iiii would have been broadcasting power and cadence to the Garmin that way. I had it on indoor with GPS off too but it may well just have been my error. I had a field for average power but nothing displayed all ride. I must have started my ride at the end of the ride by the looks of it.

It's purely for an experiment really so not that fussed by it but it'll be interesting to see how much they are out at different efforts.
 
Roady said:
FTP tests are overrated! I've not completed one for over 12 months - after a series of blowing myself up on them in the spring, I just gave up. Last one I actually completed was October 2019. I did a couple of ramp tests instead and seemed a little on the low side, but was near to where I expected so just used those figures. As I'm not doing any real training based off it, it doesn't bother me. Might be worth trying if you have a longer/steady enough climb? Maybe a good Z3 ride out/long warm up, then start at 250W and increase by 25-30W every 60s until you blow (rather than starting quite low as the Zwift one does). So a 5-6 minute climb should be more than enough?
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That's the thing for me too... Even if I do one and have a figure I'll probably ignore it as I'm not training for anything.

I wouldn't mind a nice 20+ min climb but that ain't happening in the South East :D

5-6 mins. Best constant gradient thing is Box Hill. Super busy. I had wanted to go sub 5:30 but it's quite wind/traffic dependent and I've rarely been there on a good legs day this year. Early January this year was just under 400w for the 6 mins but I'd gauge that effort as lower than PR of 5:40ish last Summer. My fitness has certainly declined since then too.
 
xdcx said:
use your measured FTP figure for what it is actually for :)
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Yup, training, not for comparing! :rolleyes:

EDIT: My Vortex and Flux have both always done cadence. It's very much 'calculated' rather than actual. It used to 'stick' at a constant if you freewheeled, but 'they' fixed that. Used to stop me going into aero-tuck, but doesn't now.

Jonny ///M said:
He's just salty as he's sick of hearing about people using power and having aero skinsuits but they can't tell where the wind is from or are tactically retarded. He's won plenty of races without any stats, just eyeball rolling efforts to get across to breaks etc. How he describes going from being good in Scotland to going flat out just to stay in the bunch in a Premier calender in England is funny.
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300W is hard. No half measures lol.

Good to hear stories from guys like that, but they also need to understand how much things have changed these days. The level of riding has increased so far now that you need 'edges' like power and structured training to keep up. Busting out 300 mile rides through the winter in your cotton jersey on heavy steel bikes, while eating steaks and quaffing beers doesn't really work anymore.

xdcx said:
With it being a wheel on trainer I will expect the two sources to be quite a bit out to be honest. It's worth doing, genuinely interested to see how a wheel on fairs compared to a PM but I do expect it to be quite badly out.
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Haha yeah worth doing just to 'compare', but also be aware how different they show things in different scenarios. For me that was the most interesting. I can't do 1200W sprints anymore! ;)

resurgam said:
Even switching from a Vortex to a direct-drive trainer I found my reported power dropped by 20%. It wasn't good for my ego.
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Haha mine was something like that too, 15-20% on sustained power, but the shorter things went the further out the figures generally where. My 1200W sprints became barely 700W lol.

Adam-r said:
Was anoyone out last night? I had my 3rd puncture in 2 rides but I was close to home so called dial a ride :D
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Only my commutes and 1 with the tank. Really cold 'air' but not much wind, any tail/shelter felt far warmer than 'actual'.

Shadowness said:
followed by a gentle half marathon :)
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'gentle'! :o
 
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Roady said:
Yup, training, not for comparing! :rolleyes:

EDIT: My Vortex and Flux have both always done cadence. It's very much 'calculated' rather than actual. It used to 'stick' at a constant if you freewheeled, but 'they' fixed that. Used to stop me going into aero-tuck, but doesn't now.

300W is hard. No half measures lol.

Good to hear stories from guys like that, but they also need to understand how much things have changed these days. The level of riding has increased so far now that you need 'edges' like power and structured training to keep up. Busting out 300 mile rides through the winter in your cotton jersey on heavy steel bikes, while eating steaks and quaffing beers doesn't really work anymore.
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I'll get up the A80 potentially on the 8th December and give it a whirl outside.

He isn't against power as such but just of the opinion that you can sell yourself short. If you tell yourself your FTP is 300w for an hour or you can go 400w for 6 minutes on a climb but suddenly someone attacks and you have to do 450w for 6 minutes you will tell yourself you can't do it rather than just dig deep and smash it. It sort of happened to me in a race with my HR monitor on, hadn't really used it much and I look down and see 202Bpm and was like holy ****. It distracted me from concentrating on the race in front of me - now a few hundred yards in front :D

Positioning can save sooooooooo much wastage energy too, I'm fully aware that the back roundabout of the A80 is deadly so I take myself off the front and freewheel to the back to go slowly round it. The next section is pretty much a sprint to get back on the bunch. The opposite roundabout is safer so I tend stay top five so I can glue myself to the strongest guys wheel for when he decides to line it out without having to do a big effort and blow up.
 
Roady said:
Just keep things ticking away at the moment mate, build that base up again solid. Don't try to burst out 100km rides when doing 2 (or 3) 20 or 30km spread over a few days will help you spread the fatigue, lower the strain and just knock you back less. Also maintaining that regular weekly 'total miles' will help with reducing the accumulated fatigue while doing it, while still building good power. I think what I'm trying to say it - don't push yourself too much/hard and end up getting ill again knocking yourself back further. Build an upward curve, avoiding any rapid spiral down if/when you do get ill. It's that time of year when it always happens to us, so prepare/shield yourself a little for it.
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Yeah, sensible advice, hopefully with a few more smaller rides under my belt this month and might be able to try a final 100Km before the year ends... It would be nice to have some sort of feeling of progress over 2019, a sixth 100Km for this year would shockingly improve on last year's low tally!

As regards FTP tests, I rarely bother with them now and just simply do one of the frequent 16Km+ Tempus Fugit TTs on Zwift with a bit of a negative split effort.
 
xdcx said:
How can your trainer do cadence? I didn't know any trainers actually done cadence?
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I actually thought this the other day as my tacx neo 2 does cadence. But I've no idea how! It is accurate though compared to power when I had my garmins on the turbo.

Got some new cheap HRM the other day and seems to be working a treat. Think that must be my 6th garmin die over the years. Out of warranty now though unfortunately.

My legs felt toast last night, just couldn't get going, not sure if it was the cold or what, perplexed as last week was recovery and up until then my legs had felt really good. Hoping they'll wake up as I've got a proper cx race on Sunday and we're back to racing an hour... Just single bike so hopefully no issues.
 
Any thoughts on some tubeless 32mm road/gravel tyres? I’m tempted by some panaracer gravel kings but thought I’d ask. 4 punctures in 2 rides. I’m getting some chicken soup in them!
 
My kickr v5 struggles with cadence on any downhills/negative gradient. Always reads higher than it should do. The remainder of the time it's very accurate. It's as a result of not being able to compensate for the lack of inertia you would have that you still get from the flywheel weight I guess. Never bothers me as I run my 1030 alongside my phone plus it's on the climbs it matters more.
 
2oC this morning, but dragged myself from the warmth of my bed to clock up 40 miles. I layered up nicely (4 on top, 2 below) and it was fine, aside my fingers and a little bit my toes. Any tips for these? I had overshoes on, which helped. I should have tried the 'tin foil over the toes' tip I saw on GCN. I've put some glove liners on my Xmas list, I guess they will help.

**EDIT** What's the opinion of mittens rather than gloves? Someone I rode with today had mittens and seemed fine. I have these gloves, maybe I should get these mittens?
 
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Hands and feet are totally individual, some people just don’t have an issue whereas others suffer badly. I’m in the second category. Of all the gloves I’ve tried, the Rapha winter (softshell style) and deep winter gloves are the best for me. The lobster style gloves are a good idea but give up too much dexterity for me.

For feet, the only things I’ve found that really work are my Northwave full winter boots but they’re clunky and uncomfortable compared to normal shoes.
 
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