scartissue22

Posted this on another forum but didnt get much feedback.

So about 2 years ago, before I quit, I was riding my bike on/off for about 6 months, not putting too much effort into it and no gym work at all.
Earlier today I just found a power profile of one of my rides and turns out I did a personal best of 1810 watts in a random sprint effort, next best 1650...
I was around 74kg, 20 years old at the time.
I have always been told I have a strong sprint, and have won quite a few b grade crits with it but I was pretty surprised with myself with those numbers.

https://connect.garmin.com/activity/283034135#

Not trying to show off or anything i'm just interested in how long the process takes to get to the wattage some of the top players are doing of around 2500?

carleton

What are you really asking?

Are you asking how long will it take for you to clock 2,500W? Or asking how long will it take for you to start winning races? You can certainly do one without the other

There are guys in gyms in every neighborhood that could probably lay down weill over 2,000W without ever having been on a bike.

2,500W is not required to win even elite track races.

Using Max Wattage to evaluate the potential of a bike racer is like using vertical leap to evaluate the potential of a basketball player. It's just one small metric among many.

scartissue22

Well since I've never ridden the track at all I think I go under the general consensus that trackies have such a fast sprint based off their power output.
Obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about as I've only ever ridden the road, but am really interested in learning more.

Other question I was going to ask was, what are you guys doing in the off-season outside the gym?
Is it just a 90 minute spin 3x a week or are you doing intervals like 10s seated sprints or standing start efforts?

carleton

That's kinda like saying that being a good Soccer/Football player is based around having a strong kicking leg There is obviously a lot more involved. But, yes, being strong does help.

Track racing is fun and addictive. Do you have a track nearby? We'll be glad to help you get started.

How long is a string? Ask 10 trackies what they do for off-season training and you'll get 20 answers

carleton

For off-season, some trakies
- lift weights
- race CX
- race MTB
- ride LSD road miles
- play a different sport entirely (swimming, running)
- train on spin bikes
- train on indoor trainers
- race late into the track season, eat pizza, drink beer, then race early the crit season

To be honest, there are a whole lot of ways to get in shape and stay in shape through the winter in prep for racing track.

scartissue22

Okay, thanks for the input. Appreciate it

taras0000

YUP! Weights and then anything else that struck my fancy at the time.

carleton

No problem.

The general goal is to come into the track season:
- Not fat (hard to diet while you are eating to refuel from racing a lot)
- Generally cycling fit (you'll get "race fit" as the season progresses)
- Strong legs (strength will decline as the season progresses)
- Decent threshold (this will progress as the season progresses)
- Fresh mind (the season is very long for most tracks. You get tired of it all after 3-4 months of intensity)

scartissue22

I'm just wondering if there is much need for interval/conditioning on the bike in the off-season.
Like for road there is a structured build up throughout the year. There's no one point of the year which is more important than the other.
Seems things are a little different for track in that respect huh?

scartissue22

Interesting, so body fat a big factor when it comes to improving times?
Would think that it wouldnt matter on the track.

carleton

There is a good time to train all of this. Personal experience or that from a coach will help you decide when to train each component. Unfortunately there is no easy book to prescribe for training for track racing like for other sports. The closest thing is: If you plan on being a track enduro, loosely follow a road crit racer's winter training schedule as the physical demands are very similar.

Success on the track is about the ratio of power/weight. Losing unnessary weight increases that ratio.

As a new racer, you'll make gains via leaps and bounds. But, as you mature and race in higher categories, you'll start to win and lose races by very small margins. Like less than a second. That's when fine-tuning comes into play. This means fine tuning your body, training, skills, as well as your bike.

Quinn8it

What power meter were you using?
It could be that youor PR of 1800w was a fluke.. only saying that because i would expect to see 5" power over 1500w with that type of 1" power, and yours is 1300w..
none of that means you don't have what it takes to be a sprinter.. ive won lots of races with less

also- in my experience 1" power is a metric that doesn't really respond much to training.. ive gotten a lot faster over the years and my duration watts have increased, but my 1" peak power is the same as it was the first time i used a power meter..

scartissue22

Hmm, quite weird... my 3 second power is 1547 though? Don't understand how it would drop 200 watts over 2 seconds. Although it wasn't aimed for a 5 second max. It was just a random sprint effort.

I feel like I do have quite a good ability to do some focused 5 second efforts though considering I got my watts up to 1800. Its all relevant in the grand scheme of things.
If I can max out at 1800 watts and not blow a knee cap I'm sure id be able to hold it for longer than 1".

carleton

This is a very good point!

Quinn8it

If you actually did 1800w

scartissue22

Hmm, definitely looks like 1810 to me.

Quinn8it

Power meters record random high wattages all the time.

gtrob

I think quinn was questioning the accuracy of the power meter in a single data sample(1 second).

I dont get what this your question is exactly, how long it takes to get to 2500w? Probably infinity.

carleton

Scar,

Don't get defensive. We've all been training with power meters for a long time and anomalies occur all the time.

Your top 8 max power numbers from that file are:

594
577
950
784
1810
544
671
532

This, my friend, is a glitch.



Your power meter malfunctioned. Period.

You can see if you download the file and go through the power tick by tick. If you really did clock 1800W, you'll see numbers like 1400, 1600, 1700W before and after the 1810W number. But that's not what's here.

Here is a true 1900W by Greipel:

carleton

And if you really want to prove it to yourself and us...do it again...and again and again 15-20 times within a couple of hours. And that would be a normal sprint standing start workout

Seriously.

We aren't doubting your ability. But we are doubting the validity of the numbers from this particular file.

scartissue22

well, ****

/thread