Ygduf

I wonder how much you lose by not bending your elbows and riding tense all the time? your numbers are strong enough to win. There's no FTP part of CCCX.

caloso

Team mock race this morning. We broke up into smaller teams by category. With 28 miles to go, I roll off the front with another rider. He's on the Cat 3 team, I'm on the masters team. I really didn't think we'd get that far, but we worked well together, and nearly stuck it. More than an hour in a two-man break means I am wiped out. 208tss

mattm

Rest week has me feeling weak.

Plan on ramping it up next week heading in to Cascade on Friday, we'll see how the non-tapering thing goes!

aaronmcd

Lol. Maybe not for someone who can do 400 for 20'. Some of us are trying to recover from the hills close to threshold. And it's been literally two years since the ONE time you caught me riding rigid. Up Alpine on one of the group rides.

rankin116

First week after a rest week. 770 tss, 230 miles. I'm tired.

canuckbelle

Had fun on the Rapha Women's 100. 145TSS

Ygduf

15:50, 304 miles, 804!!! tss.

hubcyclist

im tired. 101miles, 398 TSS, NP 211 (IF 0.83), the crazy part is the first 40 miles I had a NP of 236 (IF 0.93 or something) until the summit of Mt Wachusett. quite possibly the most physically demanding ride I've ever done. MY CTL went from 54 to 62, ha!

TheKillerPenguin

Brosohotwhyyoudothat?!

One of them days where I picked my route based on which roads looked shady when I rolled up to intersections.

revchuck 

You do seem like a shady character...

Wylde06

I did terrible in a 40k this morning (not even going in race results thread). Leg started to hurt just over halfway through, which is super frustrating because its been fine since like March.

So I went out and rode for another ~hour before dinner. Nothing hard, but I had to do something.

aaronmcd

Week: 20:30, 316 miles, 23000 feet, 1140 TSS

Today I went out to explore Big Basin trails, got lost, followed the trails that looked likely to lead to the coast and eventually found highway 1. Got in 90' or so sweet spot and a good bit of intense up and down trail riding. 93 miles, 10,000 feet and 365 TSS

mollusk

+1

In ascending order, of course. Cavendish and Sagan are giving a high level course on how to follow wheels in this year's TdF. It is cool when one guy does it, but it is really cool when two guys do it.

rubiksoval

I came to terms with a lack of FTP a long time ago. I'm 163 lbs/74 kg, and my ftp is around 325-335 by best guess (WKO4 actually has it at 317 right now, down from 325 when it wasn't so hot and humid ...)

I have done some NP busters three to four times at 349-352 NP for an hour or so, but my all time best 20 min average power is 350 and I just about fell off the bike after that one.

But I'm a Cat 1. I've won 4 races this year (all from a break), have a handful of other podiums in road races and crits (mostly from breaks), and just got a top 15 at Elite Crit Nats (field sprint...ish).

As others have alluded to, there is just so much more to bike racing than an ftp number (or numbers across the board). My numbers are nothing special. 1 min in the mid 600s, 5 mins in the lower 400s, sprint around 1400. At 74 kgs none of that is particularly wonderful compared to some cat 2s, 3s, and 4s I know! But each year I pick up a little bit more and gain a little more confidence and start putting myself in the position to actually make the race happen instead of sitting back and having the race dictated to me. It's made a huge difference in my racing.

So I'd say just stay to the course. You'll see some super talented guys come up super fast and make it look easy, but then there are a whole lot of "veterans" at the front of the races who have gotten there through grinding it out for years and years. There's so much skill involved at the pointy end and a lot of that skill can be learned and the experience gained. Just keep pushing!

rubiksoval

I only rode three times this week. Took four days off. Hopefully I'm good and fresh now and I'll be back at it in the AM. Mapped out a route with 10-11 fresh KOMs so I'm gonna do some fartlek-style interval-esque training. Or ride slowly if that fails. Have to see how it goes.

mattm

Damn I weight almost as much, but my numbers suck way worse.. thanks for making me feel weaker! =]

+1 to everything you said though.

hubcyclist

I just came to the sad and obvious realization that I need to finally dump these excess 15lbs, I did a bike calculator comparison of my time up a mountain yesterday of my current weight vs my previous weight at 231w and I could have been almost 2mins faster, and it seems that everyone but me makes it up hills easily

Ygduf

I was reading "lack of ftp" and then the numbers you posted were pretty comparable to mine and I'm seen as an ftp rider. I'm just a try-hard and the part I quoted above is truth. Experience >>> numbers.

grolby

Heh, your FTP is slightly worse than or about the same as mine on W/kg, but you're 18 kg heavier than me. That definitely makes a difference in terms of how much you have to play with in a break. When your FTP is ~250w, it's not going to matter in a lot of circumstances that you weigh 56 kg if the other strong riders have similar W/kg but are 20 or 30 lbs heavier.

Still, I agree. I've been racing for a long time but I'm still a 3 on the road. Strength isn't my biggest problem, probably isn't the biggest problem for a lot of people. Racing well is hard! At least, it is for me. But I do gradually get better at it. Saying "well my FTP is way below 300" isn't actually an excuse despite my complaints above. Even "my FTP is way below 300 and my sprint is sub-1000" isn't an excuse. There's a way for me to do something with what I have. I just need to find it more often. Yeah, some people have it easier thanks to genetics. But that's life and life isn't fair. Oh well.

Edit: fudgy is right, btw. 325 - 335 and 4.4-4.5 W/kg isn't a "lack of FTP." I mean, 335 is basically VO2 max for me. And I don't mean 5', I mean maybe 3 or 4'. But whatever, we'll go with that.

Ygduf

when am I not?

grolby

Anyway, total training fail this weekend. Some nasty Z4/Z5 cruise intervals on Saturday that I failed halfway through. I blame my lack of recovery on work-related stress. And the heat - it's been tough to sleep well the past week, for both of those reasons!

Then I had 3 hours Z2 on the schedule. I was tired, but figured I'd do at least 2 hours. Got my cross bike built and headed out to the Blue Hills. So excited to ride some trails! Then I flatted after less than 30 minutes. Put in a new tube, screwed it up and it was flat before I even got out my pump. And that was all of my tubes. Rode out of the woods on my front rim. Got a ride from my wife (luckily it's not far). Spent the rest of the afternoon installing a keyed lock for my cellar door. Oh joy.

TexMac

Commute to work 24 miles on CX bike. Pass two ladies on roadies while taking it easy 17-19 mphr whistling some tunes..they hop on my wheel, after 5 mins, one jumps, i cover her move, then the other one jumps i close it, at this point they are about to dropped, i wave and say goodbyes.

hack

ack ... went to edit and hit delete ... oops


As said before ... raced a bunch with @aaronmcd . He has plenty of strength and while the numbers may lead him to believe he's FTP limited, his attacks would suggest otherwise. Numerous attacks with a lot of pop. Just need to get the right mix of guy rolling with him that are willing to contribute and not be dead weight.


I'm FTP limited (~4 w/kg) and have been able to sneak wins out of the break or reduced field sprint. That is just from pushing myself as deep as I can to help get the break to stick then doing whatever I can to recover enough to use sprint power to win (shorter or less effort or even fewer pulls). Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

aaronmcd

Being able to attack a lot and being able to stay in a break are 2 entirely different things (although I could usually stay in a cat 3 break). And cat 3 and cat 1/2 are also entirely different things. The only time I'd attack in a 1/2 or 123 race is if attacks stop and it starts to get slow - and that's more about self preservation to get me to/off the front and keep the pace up.

hack

Agreed and I've found the P12 game to be drastically more challenging than the 3s. I was asked to leave 15 minutes into the 90 minute Tour de Nez


While attacks are indeed different than surviving a break, from what I've seen I still think you're plenty strong to hang in the breaks and get good P12 results.