Originally Posted by
atwl77
Riding for an hour introduces pacing issues. You must be a very experienced rider in order to properly pace yourself to ride at threshold for the whole hour. It's all too easy for an inexperienced rider to ride to:
- ride too hard and blow up before the 1 hour test is over
- ride too hard, realize and compensate
- ride too easy, realize and compensate
- ride too easy, not realize, and still have energy left after 1 hour is over
While shorter tests like 20-minute and 8-minute FTP tests don't completely remove the pacing issues, but they are greatly reduced since it's easier to hold a consistent pace over shorter durations.
And on the other hand, ramp tests eliminate pacing issues completely since the whole point of a ramp test is to ride hard until you blow up.
Makes sense.
Can't you check this though by looking at you average watts over 20 minute periods within your 1 hour trial? At 10 minute periods within the trial? If at the end you get slower or faster you'd know if you were going too hard/too easy.