caloso

It seems to me that the strongest correlation to FTP is in hill climbs. For example, if you run the numbers, you need to be pretty close to 4 w/kg to get a Mt.Diablo t-shirt.

bobonker

Great post, cdr!

Bob

carpediemracing 

Also regarding cadence. If you're going up a hill, for example, at a given speed, you're doing a set amount of work. For example there's a hill I have to go up to get out of the complex where we live. I have to do 400-600w to get out, so say 400w on this hill, crawling at 6 mph or something. Our example will be that it takes 400w to go 6 mph on this hill. Wind is pretty irrelevant since the road is sheltered by trees/brush and the speed is low.

I could use a 53x11 and go 6 mph.
I could use a 53x21 and go 6 mph.
I could use a 39x15 and go 6 mph.
I could use a 39x25 and go 6 mph.

Every single one of those gears would require me to put down 400w, given the hill and the speed.

However the 53x11 will feel much, much harder to push than the 39x25.

This is why a higher cadence can be considered "easier". It feels easier even if it isn't, based on wattage. However if you're spinning then you put less ultimate load on your muscles so you're going to be fresher when you get to the top. You don't go faster but you will be more fresh.

In other words spinning is not a cure all. It doesn't not magically make you faster. It reduced the muscular load on your legs but it does not reduce the work you're doing. It cannot - if you reduce your absolute power output then you'll slow down.

When I'm sitting in a group I'm often doing 100-110 rpm in the small ring. This barely loads my legs and transfers the stress to my aerobic system, which, hopefully, isn't too stressed.

As a group gets a bit more antsy I'll prepare to respond by dropping my cadence and using bigger gears, typically the big ring at 80 or 90 rpm. This way I have some room to accelerate in terms of cadence. If I'm going 110 rpm then I'm going to peg my heart rate if I go 150 rpm to accelerate. However if I'm rolling along at 80 rpm and I respond to a quick acceleration then my cadence might hit 100-110 rpm but I'll be able to respond immediately without shifting. If you watch a rider following, waiting for a move, they're usually in a slightly bigger gear so that they can accelerate. When I jump I almost always jump as I shift into a bigger gear, taking advantage of the short term power I have.

Having said that I think it's important to use all sorts of cadence ranges while riding. You can't be just a 120 rpm rider. You'll find it very difficult to develop significant torque at high rpm. You need to do power down low, like 50 or 60 rpm, so that you stress your muscles. I'll do slow big gear work, 60 rpm in whatever gear I need to be in to do 60 rpm while really working the whole pedal stroke. This helps develop the broad range of muscles that you use cycling. If you skip doing this you end up with a smaller foundation as far as cycling power goes because you aren't developing some of the minor supporting muscles as much as you can.

Racing is a great way to really focus these kind of things. It broadens your horizons by showing you what's possible when someone is super motivated to work hard, including yourself. My first race was so much harder than all the group rides I'd done but by the next season I was sort of used to it (and I ended up probably the second strongest on the team's regular group ride).

KantoBoy

well, the guy's a genius. I wish I could sprint like him.

And testing is a gift and a curse. The higher the more painful it gets when training. It's nice to know what your FTP is but it's also good to know your power profile so you can improve on your weaknesses.

I for once probably won't be rider 1-10 on a flat course going ftw on a sprint anytime soon. My only chance is a breakaway til I get eaten up by power monsters. I live in an area where they favor flat finishes as opposed to an uphill one where I have better chances :'(

link0

CDR, your videos are awesome!

carpediemracing 

For what it's worth I'm pretty sure I was did about a 1000w jump at the Nutmeg race. I led out and won a Tuesday race around that time, in the rain, against 1s, 2s, and 3s, and never broke 1000w. To do well in racing, for me, means committing 100% to a particular plan. I don't have the luxury of messing around for 5 or 10 laps here and there, doing stuff like attacking or pulling and stuff.

In military terms it's something that really came into play in WW2 in Europe. The Germans would focus most of their forces on one spot - in some offensives they'd strip the surrounding forces to the point that literally a hundred thousand soldiers would have literally just one or two anti tank guns in one sector while another would have thousands (in one major battle the German's Romanian allies had just a couple ineffective anti tank guns when they got hit by the Russians; all the German focus was on a different sector). In more successful battles the Germans would "win" a local battle but have literally just a dozen tanks left out of the hundreds that they started with, but since they were in control of the battle field they "won" (and they'd recover their damaged armor and repair many of them). The famous saying regarding this focus of force was something like "Hit with a fist, not with an open hand", by one of the innovators of this tactic, Guderian. Likewise when you race and you're trying to be competitive without being obviously stronger than the others you need to formulate a plan to focus all your energy for one move. It leaves you vulnerable if the race doesn't develop following your assumptions (like the Russians hitting the Romanians) but if things go your way then it works out (Germans winning with just a dozen tanks left).

This focus of energy is a really basic tactical theory. I have repeatedly watched really strong riders try to escape a field with 10 or 15 laps to go, solo for all but the last lap, and get caught just before the finish. I inevitably tell them to try making their move at 5 to go, or 4 to go, a distance they know they can hold but a bit shorter so they can pour on the gas in the final lap or two. Two riders immediately won the next week. Another, who, I have to admit, was racing against me, he got 3rd - we knew what he'd do so we tried to control him yet he still rode away from the field but he was too tired to do it solo and got beat by a couple of his break mates.

I mentioned in an earlier reply about following a guy doing 500w for a while. He got 3rd at I think the first Nationals that combined pros and amateurs. He was a nobody, no one knew who he was. The race was held in stifling heat and humidity and he knew that he had good form, that he'd be good after 100 miles. Therefore he sat in the field for virtually the whole race, waiting until only 8 miles to go (I think the race was 120 miles or so). At that point there was a 4 man break a minute ahead of the field and the field was pretty cooked. Brice Jones sat in the break, the overwhelming favorite at that point, a pro for 7-Up and one of the better domestic racers. The 7-Up team was absolutely dominant domestically, sort of like United Healthcare now (and maybe they're the same team? I don't know).

The guy I know, Tim U in the Rent video (I only line up against him at training races since he's a Cat 1) was in that race. Brice Jones named "56" after Tim's number in a Brice-authored post on cycling news that has since been pulled down. "56" made his move at 8 miles to go, bridging the minute gap in just three miles, leaving 5 miles to go. Jones told him to pull since everyone else in the break was pretty cooked. "56" went to the front and pulled all the way to the line until everyone started sprinting. "56" has never hit 1200w yet he bridged a minute gap solo then pulled for 5 miles and he still got passed by only two guys in the sprint. He was 3rd at Nationals.

(To be fair Brice Jones pulled a foot out of a shoe in the sprint and basically that hosed his chances, but still, to bridge a minute gap at light speed then pull for 5 miles and lead out the sprint and not get last? btw "56" is a fervent anti-doper, he knew some guys that got sucked into it, and he decided that he didn't want any part of that.)

"56" shared his power numbers in the past. He would do 500w 5 minute intervals, 5 at a time. My record for a minute is just over 500w and it was in a race where I blew up with half a lap to go, and I made 1200w jumps all over the place trying to keep position until I blew up (no cam that year). I'm pretty sure he still doesn't believe that I can go over 1200w ("are you sure your SRM is calibrated correctly?"), just like I can't really believe he's never hit 1200w ("Come on, 1200w is like pulling away from a stop light").

"56" won the Pro12 race at New Britain one year. He soloed off the front for something like 45 out of 50 laps. There were some pretty good riders in the field, including Graeme Miller, who I think got 6th at Corestates the year prior (4th, actually), and I think Jeff Rutter (teammates on Scott Bikyle), the former a pro Aussie, the latter a pro US rider. They tried really hard to chase him down but they couldn't quite finish off the chase. After the race I asked "56" how he did it. He told me that he just rode hard until he got 30 seconds. He knew that if he went 28 mph then they'd have to chase at 31-32 mph and that's a bit faster than sustainable, even for a pro, at least for 5-6-7 minutes, i.e. a few laps. If he went faster, like 31 mph, then they'd have to do 35 mph to close and he didn't think they'd do that too long either. Therefore every time the gap came down (we were yelling him splits) he'd do a lap at 31 mph. If the gap didn't get bigger he'd do another 31 mph lap. When the gap stretched out to at least 30 seconds then he'd rest at 28 mph.

Rest at 28 mph.

That sounds pretty simple, right? Well to go 28 mph on that course, for one lap, is an incredible effort. To do 31 mph is crazy. I attacked once, did 28 or 29 mph for a lap, and blew so hard I almost didn't make it on a wheel when the field caught me. Yet for basically two hours he was out there turning 28 mph laps by himself, with maybe 5-8 laps at 31 mph. Mind boggling.

Graeme Miller got within 15 seconds once and "56" just maintained his 31 mph lap and hoped it would be enough. It was and Miller eased and faded back into the group - he would have had to sustain 33-35 mph for a while to bridge that final 15 seconds and he'd already been going flat out for two laps. This is the same guy that could solo in front of a chasing field in Philly for 20 minutes or so (I think he got 6th that year, chasing in vain behind the break).

That's what separates the talented riders from the less talented.

Thanks

Dudelsack 

Great teaching thread. Thanks.

beatlebee 

Love it CDR.

WhyFi

+1 - even though I have no interest in racing, it's interesting to see the POV and annotated thought process.

lennyk

+2

simonaway427

To be op, I'd be curious to see the result of a 20min test instead of the 8min one.

PS... My ftp/kg is a hair above 4.0 as measured with a stages PM.

vasuvius

I'll do another FTP test in 3-4 weeks and do the 20 min test to find out.

The flip side of the increase in FTP is that all the TrainerRoad workouts are now a lot harder :-) They were too easy at the lower FTP and are really hard at the higher FTP which I guess is good.