Power/Weight Thread

touch said:
Not sure. I'm physically recovered and ready to ride but cant get my head into it at the moment. Hopefully be out at the chaingang on thursday.

There's 2 options for getting a race licence:
-Provisional licence (comes free with any britishcycling membership). Lets you enter races but you dont score any points. You'll be a 4th cat and cant move up when using a provisional licence.

-Full licence. Costs extra on top of membership - and you need the silver or gold membership to buy one. Lets you enter races and score points.

Tbh, you'd probably be fine with a provisional this season. Usually it's 10 points for winning a race and 15 points required to move up from cat 4 to 3 and starting this late in the season means you're probably unlikely to score enough points anyway. (if you had a full licence your points would be reset to 0 for next season anyway).
It would be frustrating if you did get a provisional and then get a couple of good results which would have scored you enough points if you had a full licence.

You dont need to be a member of a club to enter a race but it would be helpful. We'll probably have 3-4 going through to that race who can help let you know what you should be doing.
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Thanks very much for the info! That helps me a lot. Looks about £100 /year for membership silver and a race license. However, license is half price July onwards, so that very well might be a shout, just take the plunge but be as well leaving it 3 weeks and getting it 50% cheaper for remainder of the season?

I am out every night as you know and all weekend, so just give me a shout any time at all if you just want to get out for an easy one and get your head into it again. Tomorrow weather wise looks horrendous :mad: Let me see how the week pans out, I very well may come to chain gang, I'm like you with the club rides, can't get my head into it! Purely because I am stubborn and love finishing work at 4 and being out training at 4:40 everyday, OCD routine I need to snap out of it.
 
I think even if stats wise I should be competitve at CAT4, experience of racing is just as important as said power figures so I just need to get involved and get that experience and see where I fair.

July 1st onwards is 50% off full race license. Silver membership with a race license is therefore £59 which I think is OK. So just going to wait until July 1st and then get my membership and license :)
 
6.5 degree's, flooded road and torrential rain. January weather = not ideal for a wee FTP test, neither was it ideal the day after a 100k ride. Rule #5 smeared on big time and reckon feeling like an absolute hard man in that weather made me push harder like some sort of wild beast..... yeah. GRRRRR.

20mins @ 282w
60.30kg on the scales before it
4.67w/kg
 
Shamrock said:
Wow, that's a big increase isn't it? Congrats.

I'm considering doing an FTP test now I've got a PM. Do you think doing a 60min session on the turbo with my normal tyre will cause considerable wear? I really can't be bothered to put the turbo tyre on for a single session! Such faff.
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I have went from 254 about 7 weeks ago to 262 a fortnight ago and then 282 yesterday so it is coming along nicely :cool:

I have used my turbo twice in the past couple weeks both for 60 mins at a time, it has left a small flat spot round the tyre but I am still running it outside and it is totally fine, it's not destroyed the tyre as I feared it would haha. I would say just do a 20min test outside though, I think a test outside on road surface, weather, temperature and in the situation you cycle in is a far more relative test than indoors on a turbo. Do you have a flattish OK surfaced road area you could get a good solid 20 min without junctions/traffic lights etc?
 
Shamrock said:
Ugh, so weak and slow! Either I was much fitter last year or my FTP from the watt bike was grossly exaggerated. I always seem to go out too strong on these TT efforts and then fade before half way. Got to work on that.

So do I take 95% of the weighted average or actual average as an FTP figure?
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:( The main thing is to learn from these efforts though man, next time you do it go out more conservatively and build it up. The last 5 mins are going to hurt, I mean properly hurt and you should be digging really deep 18-20mins and if any fading is going on, it damn sure better be at 19:55 onwards when your legs have literally became flabby bits of jelly flopping about underneath you! :)

For the FTP figure, whatever power figure you averaged for that 20min "lap" is your FTP. Forget the weighted or normalized averages on that 20mins.

EDIT - oops, I just hit quote and replied not seeing the thread was onto a new page, I will leave the above anyway I guess. Don't let it get you down Shamrock, use it as fuel for your training, you can get back to previous form and you can't compare them side by side identically given the circumstances anyway?
 
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Thomas. PLease. said:
If only, FTP is power you can hold for an hour, not for 20 minutes. 20 minute is just used as a testing proxy, as not many people are actually able to go all out for an hour in a non race situation.

The common test is 95% of 20 minute power = FTP. But personally I think this inflates FTP too much for all but the fittest of cyclists.
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Yeah sorry. I am in the habit of refering to 20min as FTP like an idiot, CP is what I should be refer to 20mins as. Like you say 20min is a base line to then estimate 60mins to establish FTP. I think the paid version of Strava or GoldenCheetah would be better to use to give you an estimated curve from the 20min tests. Do you know what formula Strava uses to establish 60mins on their curve? Is it 95%?
 
I am amending the power profile list to show 60min = FTP and 20min = CP.

My actual best power average over 60mins was from a bunch session on Thursday last week and was 232w. If I take my 282w for 20mins and *0.95/60 I get 267w - Doing the same with 93% would result in 262w so lets just say based on the common math used my CP is 282w and my FTP is 260w. I know for fact I can do 282w for 20mins but that 60min figure would be very, very difficult.

Strava once you have a good data set doesn't predict up, it uses previous actual averaged data from rides for the curve but Golden Cheetah does take all data over recent times and predict you. So if we base my previous week in GC in which I done a genuine test of 60min=232w and 20min=282w - It is predicting on my curve that I have an FTP of 261w. So we can establish certainly GC is operating in the realms of what you are saying Thomas to calculate this :) Am I making sense or are you guys not even bothered? haha.
 
:)

I 100% recommend GC. If you have any questions at all about the usage (I know it is very daunting at first) please ask away, happy to help.

I been meaning to do these guides from the ground up but I have just not had the time to dedicate to it unfortunately.
 
GSVBagpuss said:
Are you sure about the 100% bit? I read that it has a good chance of helping, but it's not a absolute given?
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I guess I can re-phrase that it 100% worked for me!
It is massive in running/track so I am not surprised to hear of pro teams using it, but like Touch says, it is rotten! Although I have developed a taste for it and don't mind it now.

From my personal experience of using it a lot over the past few years, I only ever benefit from it when doing sessions or racing when over threshold and requiring a large amount of time over threshold. For easy and steady exercising it makes no difference for me, but maximal it works well, and I don't mean a little difference, it is an exceptional difference and noticeable.
 
I have experimented a lot over past 2 years more so with running but recently with cycling and it has remained working best if I do the following (using the 500ml Beet-It carton):
- few mouthfuls before bed the night before.
- few mouthfuls lunchtime on day of.
- 1/4 carton 2 hours before the ride.

If you want the grim details and I can't scientifically explain this, but the times it has really been majorly beneficial and noticeable for me using the above is after the hard session or race, everything coming out the other end is proper purple. I have done the above before then ended up not training or something has happened and I've not done what I planned and everything coming out the other end was not purple. Like my body had not processed it or "used" it or something? Dunno if that makes any sense, I seriously dunno but there must be something to that. Lovely :)
 
GSVBagpuss said:
Embarrassing FTP test - didn't want to post it but the only way is up!
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Added you to the list man. One of the main reasons for this thread was so people could post their stats and as they progress and improve they could update them and everyone can see that progression. So don't feel embarassed what so ever, use this as your base andnext time you do a test and see an improvement you'll feel great about it and getting to update your profile :cool:
 
The other night I was doing a session of 4x4mins in Z5 on the flats/slight undulation. Keeping in Z5 for that 4mins was tough work and I managed of course, but then the next part of session was a 10min climb in Z5. To keep in that Z5 band on a climb was so much more consistent, not saying it was easier to maintain that power but I averaged 16watts more on the climb and for over double the time of the 4min efforts on the flat. I BY FAR can manage a power band a lot better on climbs than I can on the flat even if the end goal of the session is the same, but I am 100% a climber :)
 
I absolutely love my Garmin Vectors. I have used them every single ride, they have done over 3k miles in rain, hail and shine with never giving me any concern or hassle at all. I only replaced the batteries for the very first time on Sunday night!!
 
touch said:
730w.
Also from today's ride. A gentle pace with 1 flat-out sprint up a hill and 1 flat-out sprint at the end.
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Nice! You are definitely going strong just now, can tell by how big a gear you push and how steady and comfy you are on the bike :cool: Oh also, I pushed 4 figures finally on Thursday night, 1005w :p I have pushed over 240watts for 60min now (again at APR) and that puts me at a true 4w/kg for 60mins now!

I'll update you and Thomas on first page :cool:

Edit - Also added 1sec to everyone. Feel free to post them up and I will add them.
 
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DanF said:
Username - DanF....

Do we just take the 1, 5 second data etc from Strava?
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Have added you to the list Dan :)
Can just be taken from your power curve on Strava if you have premium.

Thomas. PLease. said:
Nice effort. I managed a new pb of 355w for just over 15mins this week which I was pretty happy with. Hopefully I can get over 350w for 20mins in the not too distant.

Been doing a fair bit of sweet spot work over the last two weeks which I think is really helping.
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Top work Thomas. Cannot be far off 350w for the 20mins now which looking at your profile will be bringing you right up around 4w/kg for your FTP around 328-330w. Nice ;)
 
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