Soldato
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- 5 May 2004
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I can't say I've seen massive swings in temperature in the room that the trainer is in, but I'll double check the calibration.
The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread
- Thread starter randomshenans
- Start date
Suffered through Stage 4 of Zwift Games this morning. Doesn't help when range one events puts me into B (ZRS 390 to 510). London Uprising as a course is just nasty. 2km from the gun and then it chucks you straight up Fox Hill. Best power figures of the year for 7 to 10 minutes and a PR by almost a minute up Fox but was still shelled out the back of bunch early on the climb. Recover with a lap of London and then get a last slapping going back up Box Hill.
Associate
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Sounds good going with the PBs! I find racing score does make me suffer on hilly courses.
Yup total slog-fest and my RS being 513/514 puts me into the A bracket! 
But tonight I'm racing an EVO internal club race. Bit of fun. Thankfully back in B pen, but there's damn 'cat B' riders in there with Racing Scores over 700 so feeling it'll be another slaughter-fest!
But tonight I'm racing an EVO internal club race. Bit of fun. Thankfully back in B pen, but there's damn 'cat B' riders in there with Racing Scores over 700 so feeling it'll be another slaughter-fest!
I’m so glad the sun is out more. Indoor training is only good for me when outside looks worse than tv screen
I'm always a little bit conflicted. I find that I don't really improve when I ride outdoors because its such a mish mash around me and I haven't got the willpower to properly try and train on our roads. But when the weather is so good, being cooped up inside is a hard ask.
yeah I think it depends on your goals. I just want to cycle comfortably for fun and be able to do 50-100k rides without issues, performance on those is irrelevant as long as I personally feel comfortable in it. But if you're racing etc then yeah zwift etc is very good as a proper training tool.
Its not so much that I want to get into racing but I love the feeling of being fit and being able to put the power down when I want to. I love not suffering on hills. I love seeing a small hill and being able to just hammer it up there in the big ring without killing my legs. I like seeing my FTP going up as well. Fundamentally I think that 4w/kg is about my limit with the amount of time I have/am willing to put into cycling but I also think thats a really nice place to sit in order to be able to do everything I want to. I want to be able to go to Mallorca and ride 110km+ without suffering etc.
I know its a bit silly and up to a point, the fitter you are, the faster you get and thats about it past a certain point but I like to be able to cover a large distance without it taking me most of a day as I simply don't have the time to do 4+ hour rides now. If I want to do an 80km ride I probably have to do it in under 3 hours.
When my boys are a little older it might be different but for now this is where I am.
Associate
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I think you are right. You need to be pragmatic about how much time you have against other commitments. My weight has gone up and ftp dropped slightly after Xmas, so I want to get back to 4w/kg. This has taken fairly concerted effort with 5-6 hours riding a week. It might go up slightly if I’m riding outside in the summer, but definitely at a plateau point and without significant time I don’t see any big changes coming.
From what I have read and what a lot of other people seem to think, 4w/kg on 5-6 hours a week is very good and most people would have to be doing far more than that to get that sort of fitness level.
This is something that has been bugging me for ages and just wanted to know what you guys think.
Every workout on Zwift and from other sources seems to generally follow the same structure when doing intervals.
Warm up
Interval/rest x number of sets
Warm down
Now for some intervals that ends up with the final interval looking like this for me.
300w for 17 min
120w for 7 min
Warm down starting at 180w and dropping to 130w or so over 10 minutes.
To my mind, the idea of the 300w is the work to be done and the 120w is the recovery before the next hard interval. So why oh why do these workouts always have the recovery interval after the final hard one and just before you ramp back up to a higher power to start the warm down.
Tangentially, is there any benefit to doing a stepped warm down vs just spinning the legs at a higher RPM at a low power for the same duration? I understand the idea of a gradual warm up but in every other sport I have done a warm down is very light and doesn't change intensity.
Every workout on Zwift and from other sources seems to generally follow the same structure when doing intervals.
Warm up
Interval/rest x number of sets
Warm down
Now for some intervals that ends up with the final interval looking like this for me.
300w for 17 min
120w for 7 min
Warm down starting at 180w and dropping to 130w or so over 10 minutes.
To my mind, the idea of the 300w is the work to be done and the 120w is the recovery before the next hard interval. So why oh why do these workouts always have the recovery interval after the final hard one and just before you ramp back up to a higher power to start the warm down.
Tangentially, is there any benefit to doing a stepped warm down vs just spinning the legs at a higher RPM at a low power for the same duration? I understand the idea of a gradual warm up but in every other sport I have done a warm down is very light and doesn't change intensity.
Last edited:
Soldato
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- Gloucestershire
Guess it depends on how hard/many intervals you've done before. The 120W might be the 'proper' recovery, then the next set is 'active' recovery. They might want you to keep the legs spinning for a bit longer perhaps.
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Laziness on the part of the creator, i guess. I edit the workouts to remove the warm down if there's already a recovery interval at the end. Sometimes replacing with another set if the workout would become too short.
I've always felt it was largely laziness rather than anything else. Most of these session creators allow you to create a block and then just copy paste it for the number of sets you want. Perhaps I am doing them a disservice but I don't think so!
Yup total slog-fest and my RS being 513/514 puts me into the A bracket!
But tonight I'm racing an EVO internal club race. Bit of fun. Thankfully back in B pen, but there's damn 'cat B' riders in there with Racing Scores over 700 so feeling it'll be another slaughter-fest!
Brutal race considering so many top B in there and such a small field. But really chuffed with my result (will update the description with a report soon)... Annoyingly as it was setup as a Private Group Ride it doesn't show on ZP/ZRA or count towards Racing Score...
What's all this talk of a golden 4w/kg FTP being a plateau point to aspire towards?! It's taken me 13 years on hard riding and I'm not even that near it...!
But guess I'm averaging 6-8 hours a week and that includes 1.5-2 hours of commuting, with no real training plans or structure, so I'm my own worst enemy just racing for fun!?
Only really am I there with my 20 minute maximum race efforts at 3.7 for 20 minutes...! But equally really happy with that!
I just either follow my Garmin suggested ones or use erg mode to target either low aero, high aero and Anaerobic as suggested by Garmin.
The other night for instance I mostly sat at 260w with some 30s sprints of 460w thrown in then 140w for 5 mins at the end.
The other night for instance I mostly sat at 260w with some 30s sprints of 460w thrown in then 140w for 5 mins at the end.
Got my head kicked in on Tuesday Zwift Racing A bracket again. Going into the race with fairly fresh feeling (hadn't ridden since Thursday before). Only to be dropped around 5 mins in, really over my FTP and no hope of hanging on. Some good fun racing behind but such scattered riders nothing to gain other than a bit of pride. Actually dropped some racing score (-8) but still at 504 means I've not dropped out of the A bracket yet for these!
It's hard, especially this time of year when the weather begins to change and is dry after a long winter indoors. I don't really consider Zwift/indoors a replacement to riding outside. I treat it as different riding, different challenges and also I guess different enjoyment from it. Especially as nearly everything I do is racing 'fun' and the TTT's fantastic intervals with friends. Group rides are maybe the only ones I do as a replacement to outside rides - as they're more convinient to fit in and squeeze into various points of the weekend rather than a saturday morning.
I've found that with how busy I am, I try to get outside when the weather is fantastic but outside of that, I generally do a Zwift workout as its less faff (bib shorts on, pull bike out, move fans about 1ft and crack on). I love riding outdoors, especially when the route is excellent and the weather is good but especially with my broken PM, I don't feel like I can even really do proper Z2 outside. I'm just bloody awful at gauging effort levels. I often feel like I am in Z2 outside doing 280w until my legs start to feel it.
I want to get a pair of PM pedals but I don't want to get Assioma duos because they are about 8 years old at this point or something silly and surely they are about to release an updated model based on their MX. The other pedals seem to get mixed reviews or don't support SPD-SL and dual sided shimano based PMs outside that are a ropey bunch.
I could send my left sided 4iiii crank back to be fixed but then I won't have a working bike for god knows how long.
Presume the bike came with the PM fitted and you didn’t get the chance to keep the crank arm? Bet there’s loads on fb marketplace from people who have put on a sigble sided meter, reckon you’d get one cheap as a work around.
I have a single sided one but will be going for pedals when I get round to getting a new bike, hopefully in Jan. will likely go Garmin as they seem to review well and warranty experience with them for me has been very good. Plus I may as well lock myself further into their eco system
I have a single sided one but will be going for pedals when I get round to getting a new bike, hopefully in Jan. will likely go Garmin as they seem to review well and warranty experience with them for me has been very good. Plus I may as well lock myself further into their eco system
I did a trade with someone. So I bought it for £200 but sent them my "dumb" crank arm as part of the deal. As you say, thats what I might have to do. I am talking to 4iiii at the moment to see about a fix/replacement and the turn around time.