Power/Weight Thread

[Roady]

Username - Roady
Age - 34 (35 in 29 days)
Height - 5' 7"
Weight - 85kg (when data is from, closer to 82kg now)
W/KG -
Coggan Rating -
FTP (60min) - 206 (TR)
Gear - 810, GSC10, Kurt Kinetic Road Machine II
Info - All info from Trainerroad (FTP info from Feb '15 and I've done a lot of riding since then). I'll probably do another FTP in a month/6 weeks to compare (long overdue one!).

 

[Thomas. PLease.]

I installed GoldenCheetah at 18:00.... 22:35, 60mins past my bed time and I am still sitting her fiddling about with it. Goodbye life.

Anyone else endlessly tinkering with this software?

Yeah, I use GC a lot, just to compliment all the other tracking a lot. Really powerful piece of software, if not the most user friendly. Really like the aerobic and anaerobic tracking month by month charts.

 

[xdcx]

Roady - I have added you on the main post now. I just put your age as 34, weight as 85KG as those were true for your test. So it will be a wee smile on your face when you do another and can get it updated with lower weight and higher power


Thomas - I am now a converted full time user of GC. It is awesome. I took the time to do a lot of reading on Coggan Acute/Chronic fatigure calculations and the TSB is now my new friend! Mine was at -78 last week, which convinced me, yeah, I do need a little rest and recovery time. So I would recommend GC to anyone, it's a learning curve, but if you are into your stats and training you will grow to love it.


Everyone else - The Coggan power categorisation chart we are using and as linked above, I noticed I and all of us have been basing our category off the 60min FTP reading, that chart is based on 20min FT so I have updated all of our W/KG to 20mins and categories based on that to make it a bit easier and make a bit more sense. Actual FTP for in the thread will still be based off of 60mins (measured or estimated form 20min test) but the W/KG and Coggan category are based off the 20min readings

So you'll see on the main stats list, a wee upgrade for you all in terms of W/KG and category

 

[FrenchTart]

May as well give you my old test data as I'm not sure when I'm going to get round to re-weighing or testing :/

*Username - FrenchTart
Age - 33
*Height - 6'1
*Weight - 80.6KG
W/KG - 4.13
Coggan Rating - Bottom of cat 2/top of cat 3
*FTP (60min) - 315 (using 20 min test)
20min - 333
5min - 377
1min - 494
5sec - 761

All based on TR stats (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine).

Having read your latest post I've changed my w/kg to match my 20 min power rather than FTP but in the OP you've not updated most people's w/kg to do the same

Why the move to 20 minute power rather than FTP for the w/kg and Coggan btw? I never knew the chart was based on 20 minute power rather than FTP (but that's probably just me not knowing anything rather than you being wrong).

 

[xdcx]

I have updated them all I believe? What one's have I missed? Everyone who has given a 20min and a weight should be done on the list, let me know if I missed anyone on it and I will slap myself and update! haha.

The Coggan categorisation chart we are using is based on 5s,1min,5min,20min(FT) - So just done it this way to tie in with that really. I would prefer a chart with the 60min FTP categorisations but all the Coggan one's I see from a quick look are the same as the one I link in the first post. Happy to change all this how people see best by the way, I just thought this way tied in and made more sense with the chart but I am happy when everyone else is

 

[FrenchTart]

Ah, I'm more than happy to use a figure that puts me higher up the chart, don't get me wrong I just always assumed it was FTP.

I'll double-check the stats above now. I thought I saw some that were inconsistent but now you've mentioned it I'm guessing it's just that they didn't provide their 20 minute power.

 

[xdcx]

Ah, I'm more than happy to use a figure that puts me higher up the chart, don't get me wrong I just always assumed it was FTP.

I'll double-check the stats above now. I thought I saw some that were inconsistent but now you've mentioned it I'm guessing it's just that they didn't provide their 20 minute power.

My OCD is awful. Don't do this to me man!

 

[FrenchTart]

Lol, sorry It's too early in the morning for my brain to work properly clearly.

 

[Shamrock]

I'm considering pulling the trigger on a Stages that's on sale for under £500. Does anyone have experience with one?

 

[BennyC]

I'll get some details up soon once I have some more reliable/accurate figures

Really want to get myself to a proper watt bike to do an FTP test on

Edit: score, two gyms in town have them

 

[xdcx]

I'm considering pulling the trigger on a Stages that's on sale for under £500. Does anyone have experience with one?

SDK has one. Hopefully he can give you some handy advice Is it on eBay you see the meter for <£500? If so, I spied them also and was ready to pull the trigger but then a friend of mine happened to be selling a set of Garmin Vector for a superb price so couldn't say no. Otherwise I would have went Ultegra crank with the stages on eBay.

 

[Shamrock]

Evans Cycles actually. They are doing the SRAM Rival GXP version for £480. I'm fairly sure my TT bike has a GXP BB!

 

[xdcx]

Evans Cycles actually. They are doing the SRAM Rival GXP version for £480. I'm fairly sure my TT bike has a GXP BB!

That's a good price! Someone might have a 10% for Evans on here you can have if they don't need it which will bring it down ever more. Stages are very popular, lots of people use them. Do some Googling and hope SDK can give you some info to help make up your mind

 

[kiteloopy]

Username - Thomas. PLease.
1min - 704w
5sec - 1145w

ppppppfftt....only 1145w....do you even cycle Tom?

Where's your podium photo from last weekend?

 

[Thomas. PLease.]

ppppppfftt....only 1145w....do you even cycle Tom?

Where's your podium photo from last weekend?

hahah, the cheek! Thing is 5s doesn't show my sprint strength, can maintain over 1000w for getting on for 20s I'll have you know!

Still haven't found the podium photo, there was someone taking pictures but not seen one yet, will email them see if they can find one for us.

Nice to catch up with you, hope your sort your injury soon

Did a bit of a write up on the blog for anyone interested.

https://thomaswhatley.wordpress.com/

 

[Shamrock]

Ok so my Stages is fitted, calibrated and working as far as I can tell.

Having tried it out on today's commute (not the best place I know) I feel like I need advice on how to train effectively with power! What garmin power fields do you prefer to display? Say I have an FTP of X watts, am I supposed to just try and keep it around X regardless of wind and gradient?

Today, in heavy London traffic, it just jumped around and didn't seem to correlate at all with what my legs were doing. Compared to cadence it seems really hard to keep it consistent! I was looking at 3s average.

Cheers!

 

[xdcx]

Ok so my Stages is fitted, calibrated and working as far as I can tell.

Having tried it out on today's commute (not the best place I know) I feel like I need advice on how to train effectively with power! What garmin power fields do you prefer to display? Say I have an FTP of X watts, am I supposed to just try and keep it around X regardless of wind and gradient?

Today, in heavy London traffic, it just jumped around and didn't seem to correlate at all with what my legs were doing. Compared to cadence it seems really hard to keep it consistent! I was looking at 3s average.

Cheers!

Ahh, glad you got it man.

Honestly the best thing to do is use it on your rides for a while and consistently upload your data to strava as normal. Just use it and ride as you did and gather some data before worrying about training with power. Until you do this and have a good basis of your zones and getting used to reading as you ride, it won't be beneficial.

The 3s average is the display you want to use. That is what I use. On my main screen I have power 3s, cadence, HR, distance covered.

I have an FTP specific profile also, on that screen I have power 3s, cadence, HR, Lap avg power and a normal lap timer. I use this for FTP tests and interval sessions.

Once you get used to riding with power, and you have your power zones sorted on Strava (or get Golden Cheetah I recommend) you will soon make more sense of it all in your head and you will be able to correlate that to performance wise on the bike. The random watt figure jumping up and down like a yo-yo you see now is very very common when people start using power, don't worry about it.

Once you establish all this, you will be able to do for example, say 250w for 5mins, then 3mins at 300w etc. You will get to the point where your body and brain knows what those effort levels feel like to you, but not until you have all the initial data in place and get used to using it.

Sorry for the essay, hope it helps and feel free to ask away. Exactly why I created this thread

 

[Shamrock]

Cheers, that's exactly the advice I'm looking for. Although, I need to get used to using it fast, it will be deployed in a competitive TT a week on Sunday!

56 mile bike leg of the Staffordshire 70.3 team relay.

 

[Berger]

I use 3 second average too, the main thing is in London you will be on/off the power a lot due to traffic, road layout etc.

If you did a ten mile TT then it should remain steady apart from at the turn around point.

 

[SoliD]

I use 3 second average too, the main thing is in London you will be on/off the power a lot due to traffic, road layout etc.

If you did a ten mile TT then it should remain steady apart from at the turn around point.

Good luck with that

I can't get my power anywhere near constant unless I'm climbing a nice constant gradient, just little elevation changes knock it up down etc.