SammyJ 

I think I have discovered something; back off my heart rate down in the 130′s, I can ride stronger and better! Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

TrojanHorse

Are you familiar with your max HR and HR zones?

I absolutely watch my HR going up a long hill - if it gets above about 162 I know I'm going to blow but if I keep it right there, I can go quite a while.

Same for "tempo" riding... 150-155 can last a long time.

Everybody's HR is different of course.

codyhmrck

how do you know what your max heart rate is?

WonderMonkey

Right before blood squirts out of your ears check your monitor. That's max.

codyhmrck

good to know lol. I need to invest into one of those.

bigfred 

Max heart rate is that which is achieved in the small amount of time between falling off the bike and puking into the ditch.

Seriously now: There is a base starting formula to approximate a best guess which is 220-age. This is wildly inaccurate. My personal MHR is 10 bpm higher than that approximation would suggest. Or, with the aid of a heart rate monitor you go for a good warm up, 20-30 minutes, including several intervals of increasing intensity. Then you start up a hill of at least 90-180 seconds in duration. Start up this hill at a realative percieved exertion of 8 or so. At the point your heart rate starts to plateau and stops climbing, SPRINT LIKE HELL!!!!! 10/10 for as long as you can. Chances are pretty good you'll come close to your MHR.

Drew Eckhardt 

Increase power output until your heart rate stops increasing. When power goes up and heart rate doesn't you've found your personal maximum. This is around where things happen like tunnel vision and vomiting. In formal settings they use a ramp test where you increase power output at 25W per minute.

That said the number isn't relevant. Efforts you can sustain for more than a very short time relate to your lactate threshold which is where you're making lactic acid faster than your body can process it and buildup starts increasing with the fourth power of effort - try 10% too hard, and it'll build up 46% faster. Where that threshold is as a fraction of VO2Max at your maximum heart rate varies with training and between individuals so even an accurate maximum heart rate is not a useful starting point.

Your lactate heart rate is about what you get averaging the last 20 minutes of a 30 minute all-out effort. Joel Friel has decent zone definitions built around that.

Finding 10+ miles of uninterrupted road and staying motivated through the discomfort
may pose an issue in which case you can use an alternate zone system from Chris Carmichael built around a pair of all-out eight minute efforts that are easier to accommodate logistically and psychologically.

With power measurement you use use critical power with CP60 (as in the power you can produce for 60 minutes) close to lactate threshold and something which can be estimated from somewhat arbitrary longer and shorter intervals.

TrojanHorse

I just looked at all my rides for a year and found the max HR on any of them.

+1 to what drew said about LTHR.

bigfred 

It's pretty rare for me to hit max heart rate on any ride not expressly intended for that very task. It's simply too arduous to do during a ride of any duration. If I do hit max, chances are pretty good that I'm shot for whatever remains of that ride.

TrojanHorse

I should probably include the verbiage that before I got a power meter I used to go try and peg my HR from time to time, so I just looked at garmin connect and found the max that year. it's slightly higher than the 220 - age would indicate for me. After I got a power meter it was more of a FTP/ LTHR thing for me. Interestingly, my LTHR seems to be higher than it would have been based on my non-scientific max HR findings from before.

keep in mind your max HR will differ by sport. here's an interesting website that discusses the variety of ways to find it: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/maxhr.htm

bigfred 

I need to forward that link to Mrs. Fred. She just got herself a Garmin 910xt last week and has been full of questions since:-) By the way, did you know there is now a Ver.3 of the "Premium" "Soft" strap? It's constructed with a bit of silver something or other woven into some of the elastic and supposedly a third contact or grounding patch to the one side which is supposed to help eliminate some of the HR spike issues as well as being more durable. It came in Mrs. Fred's Garmin kit. I would promise an update on how it functions, but, I think she may not use it as much as I would and there's no way I'm going to convince her to "loan" it to me to go get it sweaty:-) I'll just have to continue with my experiment with the "standard" "cheap ass" (which costs the same as the 'premium' strap) :-) So far, so good, with that though. I really think this strap thing is a classic example of a company looking for ways to minimize production cost of a product and then looking for a way to market it.

With regard to the HR stuff. Yep. I haven't got power. But, my MHR is significantly above the mathematical models. My LTHR I've arrived at through studying rides that I know I couldn't have gone harder on and trusting that I could have maintained 1-2 bpm higher if my legs hadn't fatigued. My average across several very hard events has been 161-163. So, I've basically been using that as my presumed LTHR. Compated with a max of 183-185. I know, you can't have a range to a max value, but, day to day variation, lack of trust in the garmin strap, etc. In practice I've learned that I can maintain mid to upper 160s for extended efforts (the 6-12 minutes it takes for most of our local climbs) without burning any matches. Break 170 and I've lit the match. It's just a matter of how long I want to let it burn. Get over 177 and I'm measuring max burn time in seconds.

But, there is some reasonable degree of day to day variation from the above based on hydration, coffee consumption :-), sleep, etc.

SammyJ 

Oh Yes, IPhone app HR ZONES. Machinehead software has a PC program also.

Upper 130's is zone 4 for me, also 58 years old.