Road Cycling

Wow the gym was absolutely rammed Last night. I barely managed to find a place to lock up my bike and there was all but two lockers available in the changing room WTF!!!

i was expecting that last week but last week was not busy?
 
Vonhelmet said:
Back on the bike to ride to work at last. Only my fifth ride of the year, pathetic. Hopefully things will pick up from now on, assuming the weather improves.

The drying room was absolutely rammed. I'm guessing it's all the "New Year, New Me" lot, so we'll see how long they persevere!
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I've not noticed that effect much this year. I only really notice an increase when it becoes harder to find a space to lock your bike up, or I have to lock it on another rack than my usual space.
 
I'll have to keep an eye on the gear. If the same clothes stay on the same hangers in the same place for days on end then I'll just bunch it all up at the end of the rails :p
 
Vonhelmet said:
I'll have to keep an eye on the gear. If the same clothes stay on the same hangers in the same place for days on end then I'll just bunch it all up at the end of the rails :p
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Or do what I do and just take it out of the dryer and dump it all in a pile on the side! I don't feel guilty about it either, some people leave stuff in there for DAYS!
 
I have been dreading January at the gym as they only have 2 WattBikes.... Every day when I go in and hear a WattBike whirring away around the corner I get the build up of rage starting. Thankfully it has only ever been one person on them thus far and nobody has dared steal MY WattBike during lunch time.

Just keep your eyes on the news for gym rage fad fatty gym user murder in Scotland though.
 
Well not long finished my first ride with a power meter (https://www.strava.com/activities/834927926).

I know it's a bit early to make sense of it, as I have nothing to compare it to, but it was still really useful to see how I coped over such a long ride. For example, 175-200W seemed to be my sweet spot for an average pace, but I really faded near the end (didn't eat enough), and it was interesting to see how I could barely stick to the same power (in fact I could barely reach triple figures at times lol!)

I can see how it will be a really useful pacing tool too, as it was useful to see my power on longer climbs, and trying to stick to a comfortable level.

I'm mainly using 3 second smoothing, I was surprised at how much this jumps around, let alone the normal instant power reading!

Really pleased so far, and I guess it's one of those tools where the more you ride, the more useful it'll be.

Bring on another ride tomorrow! My legs are feeling it too, so no FTP test for the moment lol!
 
Shamrock said:
You should do an FTP now, not wait until you are fresh and rested!
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I thought the whole point was to be fully fit to get the best possible result? ie. the maximum performance you could possibly give?

I'll be ok for another long ride tomorrow, but not what is essentially a 20 time trial!
 
Shadowness said:
Well not long finished my first ride with a power meter (https://www.strava.com/activities/834927926).

I know it's a bit early to make sense of it, as I have nothing to compare it to, but it was still really useful to see how I coped over such a long ride. For example, 175-200W seemed to be my sweet spot for an average pace, but I really faded near the end (didn't eat enough), and it was interesting to see how I could barely stick to the same power (in fact I could barely reach triple figures at times lol!)

I can see how it will be a really useful pacing tool too, as it was useful to see my power on longer climbs, and trying to stick to a comfortable level.

I'm mainly using 3 second smoothing, I was surprised at how much this jumps around, let alone the normal instant power reading!

Really pleased so far, and I guess it's one of those tools where the more you ride, the more useful it'll be.

Bring on another ride tomorrow! My legs are feeling it too, so no FTP test for the moment lol!
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Just keep riding and gathering the data and don't worry about the 3s average seeming to move around a lot, you will get used to that and forget it ever even baffled you.
Once the numbers become second nature to you and you realise exactly how much you are exerting yourself throughout the watt ranges it will become even more useful.... Your linked ride is pretty good going actually, well done. Your average power from 1hr - 3hr is impressive and very consistent considering you have never ridden with power. You like to grind big gears though?
 
^ Thanks

Yeh an added bonus of the vector is the cadence sensor, as I've never bothered with one before. From watching other people in club rides, I do tend to have a noticeably lower cadence a lot of the time. It's just the way I ride I guess. That's something I will work on. I don't even have the cadence stats on my garmin either, might put that on there too.

What would a 'typical' cadence be?
 
Shadowness said:
^ Thanks

Yeh an added bonus of the vector is the cadence sensor, as I've never bothered with one before. From watching other people in club rides, I do tend to have a noticeably lower cadence a lot of the time. It's just the way I ride I guess. That's something I will work on. I don't even have the cadence stats on my garmin either, might put that on there too.

What would a 'typical' cadence be?
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Typical cadence can't really say as everyone is different but averaging 80RPM is pretty low.

I usually average 94+ at least and if I take the guys I train with as examples they will all average over 90RPM for long steady rides or hard/fast training too.
A lot of resource online will typically say that 95-100RPM is optimal but I have never done proper reading into the experiments that proved this or anything so far.
 
Shadowness said:
I thought the whole point was to be fully fit to get the best possible result? ie. the maximum performance you could possibly give?

I'll be ok for another long ride tomorrow, but not what is essentially a 20 time trial!
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I'm not suggesting you do it fatigued but you also don't want to inflate your training zones.

You could test now then re-test in like 6 weeks.
 
80 is definitely on the low side but keep in mind that the mean cadence figure can be slightly misleading if you're the sort of person that rather than freewheeling at times just pedals slowly (or indeed if you tend to slowly ramp up your cadence when starting off). I prefer looking at median cadence or looking at the analysis graph in Strava to get an idea of where my cadence hovers at a given power.

Also, you should get the StravistiX extension for Chrome and enjoy all the extra stats you get on the Strava website.
 
FrenchTart said:
80 is definitely on the low side but keep in mind that the mean cadence figure can be slightly misleading if you're the sort of person that rather than freewheeling at times just pedals slowly (or indeed if you tend to slowly ramp up your cadence when starting off). I prefer looking at median cadence or looking at the analysis graph in Strava to get an idea of where my cadence hovers at a given power.

Also, you should get the StravistiX extension for Chrome and enjoy all the extra stats you get on the Strava website.
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I use Safari but I'll check it out!

From looking at the data more, I think I can safely say my cadence is on the low side.

During the longest climb of the ride, I was averaging around 300W, but my cadence was around 60-70.

It's not like I was taking things too steady either, as my time for the climb would put me in the top 16% on Strava (around 200th out of 1200)

Just to get my head around this......I would produce the same power using a lower cadence than I would at a higher cadence and lower gear (at the same speed)?
 
Shadowness said:
I thought the whole point was to be fully fit to get the best possible result? ie. the maximum performance you could possibly give?

I'll be ok for another long ride tomorrow, but not what is essentially a 20 time trial!
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You should technically 'spend' your anaerobic contribution prior to an FTP test. What you want is a power output reliant purely on the aerobic system so by giving a 5 minute moderately hard effort some welly prior and then recovering you should get a truer power figure.

Just like being fresh jumping straight in to a 20 min FTP will inflate your results and means your zones are slightly adrift.

Personally I prefer the 8 minute test as a 20 minute effort can be hard to pace, can be mentally quite challenging and isn't really indicative of most UK terrain. I'm more willing to retest an 8 minute effort than I am a 20 minute ;) We are all prediposed to different types of intervals. Some people suck at 20 minute or long power whilst others can't handle Over/Under's at all.

You can see power/fitness gains though even on 3 or 5 minute power too and you should generally see your average or notional power start to trend up on similar rides if your training stimulus & recovery are correct.

The higher your cadence then the lower the muscular force needed which means the less muscularly taxing it is, the higher the aerobic contribution and the greater the longevity your your power & ride. There's a reason most pro's spin up climbs with 3 figure cadence. You can't mash a big gear for an hour, well you shouldn't be able to :p Your legs will thank you for spinning more too the following day. Just make sure you're not bouncing about all over your saddle like a n00b.

Your ride is relatively flat though and I find lower cadences with similar power output less taxing on that sort of terrain.
 
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Depending on the grade of the climb it's to be expected that you would have lower cadence so I wouldn't beat yourself up about that *too* much. That said, I'd expect 60 only on a really steep section.

The ideal would be that you produce the same power at a higher cadence yeah. The point of that being that you're a little more efficient and will put less strain on your muscles.
 
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