Power/Weight Thread

6 weeks of lurgy? That can't be right pal. Is it anything specific or are you just feeling "off" for that length of time?
Anything over the 14 days of it not buggering off completely and I would be getting myself to the docs.

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches is the food of kings.
 
How is everyone doing profile wise now that it is time to sharpen up for the season?

I've now got a 5w/kg 60mins which I would have never believed achievable prior to Xmas.
First 5x5 session of the year and 5.5 raising to 5.6w/kg for the 5th interval. I'm already at the watts I was doing when TT fit back in 2017 April/May time.

Hope everyone else has seen some nice gains themselves and looking forward to getting stuck into some TT's/races? :)
 
Sounding good all round guys! Even if not knowing you are up/down power wise, regardless, everyone knows what they are going to work on.

@SoliD - Good luck at weekend pal. Really looking forward to see how you get on. Hopefully you get your TT season off to a much better start than me!! :p
 
SoliD said:
Saturday didn't exactly go to plan and I hit 281w average (288 Np) for 23:39.Bit disappointing but first ride on the tt bike since February... Then went out and smashed my club ride Sunday and then this morning hit the same power fasted for the same time on the road bike then followed it up with another 14:39 at 290w... Oh well. Shall come back strong in the summer after some rest and recovery.
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First one back on TT bike. Don't take it as a negative mate. We are in same boat here both having disappointing rides for the first one back but it's how you use that as fuel to your fire for the rest of the year.
Enjoy the holidaying and come back fresh and ready to roll :)
 
CP20 last night = 342w @ 60KG.
That's the same power I nearly died doing in October to come 8th in the Scottish hill climb. Except the HC was only for 13 mins and was a lovely hill, not on a turbo in me garage.
Previous best CP20 on a trainer was 321w. Found 20w down the back of the couch somewhere but I actually went a gear harder and emptied myself the last 2 minutes rather than hanging on.... so reckon 345w is there :)
 
JEZ 8553 said:
Cheers. Power numbers creeping up over the years but not sure how much further i can go. The constant training and then battling finding the time to recover really creates a wedge in spending quality family time and just time enjoying not being at work. Its like an Arms race in the amateur scene, 350 + FTP's are common place in many riders now 2nd cat and above, many 1st and Elite riders have WT pro rider numbers its getting obscene !! I struggle to compete against 20 year old's who can spend 2 months off season in Calpe and are able to spend post race sleeping on the couch looked after by mum...as opposed to me having to cut the grass and go out for park walks with my 5 and 1 year old. The constant feeling of fatigue really starts becoming a wear, especially when results aren't showing for the hard work, you spend so much time worrying about how you are performing that everything else becomes secondary...its almost like an addiction !!

Sometimes I really just want to let it all go, clear my race calender and just enjoy the bike...but then i realise i wont be able to ride with my mates (its inevitable that friends become the people you spend most of your off time with...training partners) and its hard to accept the hard work to get to the current level of fitness will be lost...without doing the harder work to get it back again.

Warning to all...don't chase numbers, chase enjoyment ;)
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Top quality post. Hits home with me in so many ways.
Glad to have you in the forum Jez, keep visiting :)
 
JEZ 8553 said:
A lot of the lower cat races are crash fests, especially on bike circuits. Road races tend to be different and its rare to see crashes in Regional A and especially Nat B's where the races are fast and strung out a lot of the time making it safer. In my experience its only the lower 3/4 cat races that tend to result in big bunch finishes. Reg A's and especially Nat B's are won 9/10 times by breaks or solo riders (from a break) and that's in the Eastern region where courses are rolling at best with a 3 min climb (at race pace) longest at best (though you do it 8-12 times). Avoidance of crashes can also be minimised by being near the front for technical sections that can cause snagging in the bunch and keeping far right going through feed zones if not taking a bottle (last weeks Eastern Reg Champs only crash was in the feed zone caused by a rogue bottle) and sprinting for a top 10 not 25th place in bunch finishes.

In terms of the 'best' rider this will usually be determined by sheer strength and astuteness with a solo win or following enough attacks to be in the winning move and beating the rest of the break while still working to keep it away. Sheer luck may mean you follow the correct wheel when the winning move goes but a lot of the time this is determined by who has the legs to go with it as these moves normally happen at key points in the race where only a few are strong enough to make the move and the bunch sits up and lets it go (from sheer need to recover). Tactical prowess also helps by knowing when to invest your efforts and not flog yourself wasting energy trying to get away at the wrong time or follow bad wheels. All in all there's far more to winning road races than big FTP's, even in sprints positioning isn't about just manoeuvring or luck, you need to be fighting at the front, following attacks from within the last few km's from those wanting to avoid a bunch gallop and STILL having the legs to do a big sprint kick at the end all without getting swamped and dumped to mid pack.
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I think it differs across the country to be honest. 3/4's up here aren't crash fest but they are sketch fests.... riders doing mental stuff and totally ignoring basic rules is common place along side the brake jabbing and endless twitchyness of the bunch from it all. I hate it. Your part about 3/4 being majority bunch finish is nowhere near accurate for up here either. I can barely tell you a race of recent years that has been a complete bunch. Always 2-8 guys up road with massive gap as everyone else has seen too much TdF on the telly and think s they are riding like WT teams and can't possible do anything other than soft pedal as random lad A in the same jersey managed to get up the road. The races end up being insanely negative due to this from the breaks forming early.

Anything I have ever done where it is E1234 has been head a shoulders better to ride. Even though standard is insanely higher I go better and result better because it's smooth and not sketchy despite more speed and being harder in every way physically.
All that being said, going back to your points in earlier post. The standards in the UK even at 3 and 4 is mental when you think about it. Dudes are strong right he way through. In the past 3 years even it is really noticeable in general terms. Boggo races full of 4's are averaging 40kmh these days....

I think the easiest way to determine it is that the BEST rider on the day literally is the guy that wins. You can't say the best rider didn't win because if he was the best then he would have won! Weather, course profile, length, fatigue level could swing who happens to be the best rider in every case themselves. So when you combine all of these things then the best rider can only be the guy that wins it on that very day. The guy that is stronger in all of his training for 3 months before the race than the guy that wins is NOT the better rider..... if he was, he would have won.
 
I've done 5.25w/kg for a 10 up here and didn't even break 21 :p :p
I'd like to do a sub 20:30 up here this year but in all honesty, other than a ridiculous floaty conditions, I don't know how I can achieve it.
 
Thanks @Jonny ///M
I was 62.4kg that morning I think and it was 314w avg but 318w NP.

I'm still 8 watts down 20min wise this year but I'm 20w up over an hour.... and that's with very little base miles and mostly just smashing zwift races all winter. In theory it makes absolutely no sense to me at all but reckon it must be due to that mini base period of 2 months I done in middle of summer when I got made redundant.
 
SoliD said:
Beast mode. How you finding training currently @xdcx with no racing on the horizon. I'm expecting a busy cx season this year with everyone trying to make up for their lack of summer racing.
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I think you are right that CX will be ridiculous this year. Good from a numbers/participation level but with that comes the negative of it being full of absolute choppers wanting to play on their bikes. Like you see on the early spring (or more so late winter) road races where you can't even get a ride because they're all chomping at the bit.

I'm honestly just riding Zwift and that is it. My girlfriend still recovering from c-section, 2.5 year old is perma here as no child minder or grandparents allowed to have him plus the 3 week old means 2/3/4 hour rides are never going to be allowed. So 90mins is all I am getting so just doing as much SS and higher end stuff as possible as it is better than nothing and keeps me sane.

At this point, I am just churning away with no hope for anything race wise until HC season in October now. I'd like to hope that come August and September we can get some 10's/25's and maybe even a road race or two in before winter starts to come again. Be horrific if there is nothing at all this year!
 
62KG just now and done my best ever 20min in a Zwift TT yesterday.
Had a day off completely on Wednesday. Got very little sleep Weds>Thurs as the wee boy got his 8 week injections so wasn't best pleased. But then manage this. I honestly do not understand the way my body works most of the time.

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@UTmaniac - There was a lad finished ahead of me. 61KG and done 6.2 avg. But he's been removed from any Zwift event he has ever done. Definitely sketchy but I was ending myself trying to catch him so I shouldn't complain. I finished ahead of Bevan as well, he is currently ranked 6th in the world on Zwift rankings and has won some big big community races recently!

Your fitness will come bounding back. It may not feel like it initially but it will come back in fair lumps sooner rather than later. I'm glad you only had a mild bout of that **** and are on the recovery from it properly buddy.

@SoliD - Yeah after these years doing this to ourselves it sometimes still makes no utter sense what so ever. It's quite frustrating but equally what keeps a certain mystery as you say. If we all knew how to get 100% out of ourselves at any given time it would be rather boring. The chase of form is a great thing.

Was talking to my mate about it last week. In the midst of big base block I done last year I could jump on the bike feeling fresh, ready for a big structured session, and end up bailing it after 1 effort..... then other days I could have done 3 hour rides both days before and jump on the bike for another 4 hours feeling like utter rubbish. Barely even the motivation to get on the saddle then 4 hours later come home having averaged 34kmh and going like buggery. NO SENSE! I've almost given up and just put way less thought process or effort into understanding aspects of training/myself now. Take it as it comes.
 
One More Solo said:
I've not got numbers to compare for the shorter durations, but at the National 50 I held 266w for 1:47 which is 4w shy of what I was doing for a 25 last year, so this year has gone well! Going to get some aero testing over winter and hopefully build on that for next year.
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Who/where are you going to do aero testing?
 
My best ever peak power (so 1s) was 1033w.
I done the below at the end of a hard ride the other week. Unplanned effort out of a corner just because I felt alright.
Done my previous peak power for 5s and 100w more onto my peak power PB.
I've since done a 1175w peak as well.

No sprint training or anything. That's just from racing Zwift all winter..... I can barely get over 900w on my new 2018 Wahoo Kickr and the form/technique is insanely different so to be able to do that outside out of the blue has blown my mind a bit.
I'm climbing like **** and my 20min is nowhere near decent but it's nice to see something has got a bit better!

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