Apus^2

check out the wattage forum on google. it has been, and is being, extensively discussed.

umd

NP isn't for smoothing, it is for estimating the metabolic cost of an effort. The idea is that a very high power effort affects you more than a moderate effort would, and that you don't recover immediately through lower power efforts.

asgelle

Brought up where? It's been discussed on many sites, the Wattage e-mail group, the book "Training and Racing with a Power Meter," and elsewhere. If you haven't seen it, you're not looking. There's no way I can come close to explaining it as well as Andy Coggan has (repeatedly) so I suggest a search on Coggan and normalized power for an explanation.

Apus^2

+1 to asgell. go to google wattage forum and search this:

lies, damned lies, and statistics (everything you need to know about how the NP algorithm treats variability)

ZeCanon

I quite often end up with NP numbers well over my FTP during technical crits, so for me (without Training Peaks and thus without all the other things that come from/with NP) NP is a completely useless number. For example, my crit saturday night had an NP of 331, over 20w higher than my actual FT.

But it's a great way to make mediocre power numbers look great here on bikeforums. Kind of like setting your powertap not to record zeros - I tried that once and had an average power of 382w for an hour long crit! sweet

Enthalpic

Sounds oddly familiar.

kudude

Hey ladies and gents (probably mostly gents)

I just got a Powertap SL. Black hub, no carbon, I think it's a little old, but I got probably the deal of a lifetime on it (you don't want to know). However -- I can't seem to get it set up. I have the wheel on, and am trying to get a signal to the head unit. My understanding is that I should be able to spin the wheel and if i have the shark fin near it -- I should see something on the HU. Speed, etc. I don't get a signal. Should I assume the batteries in the hub are dead? Is there a good way of checking?

thanks

irish pat

I think it is a pro, not an SL, I saw one listed on ebay that went for $299 last week-it also said sl.

Does your CPU have watt's written on the top line?

Jynx

Hopefully this is the right spot. I am going to be picking up a powertap. Not sure if I want a 32 hole or a 28 hole. Prety much everyone I see is a 32 hole 3x both sides. This seems to be the standard. Is there a reason for this other than durability? Anything to do with the powermeter? I have heard some places saris prefers certain lacing patterns for accuracy. Any problems with other setups? What would you recomend? Thanks

irish pat

For the few extra grams of four spokes, I would err on the side of caution. It causes no difference in accuracy, they even make bontrager 16 spoke hubs.
I have had two 32's, I use them for training and C races, if I were going for race wheel ptap, I would go with fewer spokes and a deeper rim, currently I have DT swiss, rr1.1, it looks great and is solid as a rock.

kudude

don't know if this was a reply to me, but not sure how you would know if it was a pro or SL from my post. I have the 'yellow 1' cpu, and I paid less than what you've listed. When you say watts on the top line -- top line of what? The very top line of the cpu appears to list the number of watts, but the word is below that, on the lcd.

irish pat

I could be mistaken, but I thought the SL only came with carbon on the hub/shell-either way it does not matter, you got a great deal.

Okay, so the CPU is in the right mode, you can check to see if the cpu and harness are working by setting the cpu to cyclocomputer mode. Watts should then disappear. If the sensor does not pick up the magnet and display speed, then it is more than likely the harness. If it picks up the magnet, then you know that it is the hub and the first thing to do is change the batteries.

I hope this helps.

kudude

Thank you for the helpful response. I'm sorry if my comment before came across as rude -- things not related to the forum causing my to respond like a dick on the forum.

I'll check that right away.

irish pat

No problem, I know what it's like, thanks for the amends.

PM me if you run into problems getting it up and running, glad to be able to help.

johnybutts

Question for Low AWC limitation: my chart follows:
5" - 11.89 W/kg
1' - 5.82 W/kg
5' - 4.1 W/kg
FTP - 3.27 W/kg

following the category chart, My 5" and 1' are completely untrained, but my FTP and 5' are deep in cat5 territory. If I want to improve on the AWC component of my curve is it best to develope week by week 30" > 1' > 2' intervals. Or should i mix and match all these together to just see what the hell pops out on the other end? I've got a solid 5 weeks before any races I care about so i have time to play around. Any advice?

Hocam

How do you guys deal with lost data? I went for a really hilly ride on wet roads and lost the powertap after the first hour. I think I'll just multiply the TSS by 2.5 (3 hour ride) which sounds reasonable but what about entering kJ?

procrit

If you get dropped, your 5" and 1' power are totally useless anyway. I'd do 2 days of SST / Tempo, and probably throw in a day of vo2 intervals, and a day of 20 minute FTP intervals. That should be PLENTY of training stimulus to get you going. Set it up something like:

Monday: 2x20' FTP intervals
Wednesday: SST / Tempo (60-90 minutes)
Thursday: SST / Tempo (60-90 minutes)
Saturday: 3x5' vo2 intervals, 30-60 minutes SST

Do 4 weeks like this, then taper for a week before the race weekend.

irish pat

If you have good base, I would focus on getting stronger 20'/ftp and 5'vo2, I would do this by doing some LT intervals one day a week and some vo2 intervals one day a week. It is worth getting the Friel training bible, if you are serious about this.

It is not much use having 5" power if you cannot hang with the pack.

johnybutts

point taken. So this wouldn't be the time for the "train your weaknesses" mantra? just go ahead and keep building FTP?

irish pat

SNAP!! you beat me to it.

irish pat

Absolutely focus on your FTP, your other #'s will also improve with these. Later on you can do some sprint work etc. But, I was reading Coggans book and he highly discourages any top level training for at least the first year of serious cycling/training.
Remember you are training for the future, not just a month down the road, but one, two, three years etc.
Good luck.

johnybutts

MM, i'll work off this. just for clarification is this correct?
FTP intervals 100% FTP
SST/Tempo 93% FTP
VO2 intervals 115% FTP

I have ~1hr round trip bike commute every day which I'll keep in tempo zone like 70-90%

asgelle

Allen and Coggan (in that order).

umd

It's all weakness... train what's most important.

umd

This is where group rides with much faster people are helpful. Basically race intensity but you don't necessarily get dropped and it's all over, you get to keep coming back for more. The intensity is there but there's no structure so you get some of the benefits without having to worry about/deal with training plans, cycles, peaking, etc.