"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Did a FTP/LTHR test today w/ good results

I haven't completed on of these on my trainer since May of this year and since i have trained more this year i wanted to compare from my previous results. In my last test i did the friel test and used the last 20min of a 30min effort to calcualte my LTHR. at that time i rode my trainer @ 31.72km/h for the last 20min @ 187bpm. today i decided to go for one hour straight and get a real reading of my FTP/LTHR to my surprise i was able to average 193bpm @ 31.13km/h. the first 30min was averaged @ 31.72km/h the second @ 30.54km/h. here is my dilema. i don't have a power meter all i have is this chart from the minoura website about a given wattage at any certain speed.
http://www.johnhenrybikes.com/learn/2007/10/minoura-vfs-trainer-review.html

according to this if it is correct i would be around 300w for the hour. i weight 56.81kg and that would mean 5.28 w/kg. how accurate would you say that chart is? i have only been riding a year and a half and while i think i am a strong rider i can't really see this a totally possible. i mean it could be but??? i really need a power meter i guess.

i guess the w/kg really kicks in on the mountains which we have none of here in SW Ontario and 300w makes me an average rider on the flats. I think i live in the wrong area to take advantage of my body makeup.

It's possible but if you have that much power you should be dropping people on rides easily. Are you? How tall are you? I think it's more likely that the trainer-based power estimate just isn't very accurate.

Also 31 km/h is not very fast, you shouldn't need anywhere near 300W to do that speed. Did you maybe mistake mph and km/h?

I am 5' 11.5" tall. I only ride on ocassion w/ a small group ride from our LBS which is a mix of Tri athaletes, and your typical weekend warriors and another masters MB rider. It is a MOnday night recovery ride for me. I can drop them fairly easy if i want but usually just relax and chit chat. No mistake on the speed, its a mag/fluid trainer the weight on the mag side is 3.3lbs so thats pretty heavy and combined with the variable fluid resistance its pretty hard to pedal. oh well i guess i need a power meter.

The way I read that chart you did 280 watts. Its hard to say how accurate the trainers are but I'd expect them to be a lot less accurate than a power meter.

Still, it sounds like you're fairly strong. If you are interested, you should do some racing.

1. No, you can't get a reliable power estimate from a trainer. Even many trainers with built-in power measurement aren't very accurate.
2. Have a donut.

Don't forget at that speed on the trainer you aren't fighting the wind etc...

i did some racin fthis year and moved to cat 3 a few races into the season so i am a cat 3 for next year. we'll see how it goes.

so i am a cat 3 for next year.

eat two donuts.

(puzzled)

how can you get to be a cat 3 after just a few races?

(puzzled)

how can you get to be a cat 3 after just a few races?

Here, in Ontario (Canada) we need 10 points to upgrade from Cat 4 to Cat 3. A win is worth 5 points, 2nd place is worth 4 points, etc., down to 1 point for 5th place. In terms of ability, our Cat 3 is probably similar to your Cat 4.

Here, in Ontario (Canada) we need 10 points to upgrade from Cat 4 to Cat 3. A win is worth 5 points, 2nd place is worth 4 points, etc., down to 1 point for 5th place. In terms of ability, our Cat 3 is probably similar to your Cat 4.

Interesting... is there a cat 5 or does everyone start in cat 4 like women in the US? It's funny though, aacording to what you wrote you need half the number of points to upgrade but you also get half the points for a win, well at least for road races anyway. Are those points for any race or is there any differentiation between road races and crits?

Interesting... is there a cat 5 or does everyone start in cat 4 like women in the US? It's funny though, aacording to what you wrote you need half the number of points to upgrade but you also get half the points for a win, well at least for road races anyway. Are those points for any race or is there any differentiation between road races and crits?

Cat 4 (Senior 4, actually) is the beginner category. RR and crits give the same number of points.

I'm pretty sure you put out between 270-280w, according to that (poorly organized) chart.

Still very strong for your weight. Nonetheless it can under or overestimate your power by up to 20%, so I wouldn't have faith in it. Just use it for consistency reasons rather than accuracy reasons.