So I plucked up the courage to conduct a ramp FTP in Rouvy over lunch today and I am suitably humbled! I managed an FTP of 150 Watts, up from the 114, estimated by Rouvy based on the two weeks of owning the trainer. Being honest, I even found the warmup of 100 Watts a little tough and I'm surprised I got the start of the 5th Ramp (220W). I'm planning on starting the Rouvy FTP training course and taking it from there.
Good work & well done for crossing it off. As mentioned not impossible the ramp 'over-estimates', but also it's just a measure so you have one. 150 being a much better number to work with than something estimated, an actual accurate number!
So use that, FTP only really being used to base training intervals/levels from, nothing else. When you're putting in some longer efforts (10+ mins) and you feel like you're capable of riding and sustaining over your FTP then it's worth doing the 20 min test. It's a different beast - far more accurate for longer intervals or endurance riding, if that's an interest for you.
I'm very much a punchy racer who goes well uphill. So that is what I do - I get bored doing training plans or intervals so I don't do them. Those shorter blocks of power in a race are my intervals, they engage me far more. I ride a lot of TTT's (I organise 4 teams and lead 1 weekly in the WTRL Thursday TTT) and sweep group rides, so am regularly riding 1-2-3-4 minute efforts over my FTP (sometimes a long way!) for my training. But put me onto a real hill to do a long 20+ min effort it's a massive difference. Even the Volcano climb in that link is a little too long for me (
7-8 mins), but in a race, I'm capable of riding it well.
But even when I'm riding well -
my FTP up-to 274W in this race on 4th Feb, when I jumped into a long iTT later that month which actually required an hour effort at around FTP, the best I could manage was
244W for an hour. I was much closer the first 30 mins -
but still 'only' 264W. It's really because I don't do long solid efforts like that - but put me into a punchy race on a hard course, maybe I could get the average to near my FTP. If you're riding longer efforts, you get better at them - who knew!
I've found that the sort of stuff I do on the trainer didn't estimate my FTP particularly well once I started getting a bit fitter so personally I think occasional ramp tests are vital.
I'm proof of that! But as I'm not doing training plans or anything like that - just having fun and riding hard on top of a long term good base fitness, I don't need an accurate FTP figure... My zFTP in my Zwiftpower profile is 265W and although I've not done tests that has all along felt more accurate than the ones Zwift gives me (it's always a bit lower).
