chrisvu05

How is this done?

skipmcne

Wow... Wouldn't that just be a kick in the ass, categorized racing based on watts/Kg.

umd

here

chrisvu05

thanks...figured i'd do that if someone else couldn't give me a brief synopsis

umd

Sorry I always wanted to use that

Basically you hang a known weight from the pedal and compare it against the torque that the powertap is reporting. Torque should be the same as the weight's force multiplied by the crankarm length and the gear ratio. I don't have to deal with the gear ratios for mine since it is on the crank so I don't know exactly how the math works out.

chrisvu05

The google thing was pretty cool...I had never seen that before.

waterrockets 

ridethecliche

The revenge of the nerds...

Jynx

for those that use WKO+ can you input your weight into it so it automatically calculates W/Kg ?

slynkie

Yes, and it has a built-in power profile chart.

skipmcne

Which I'm convinced is broken; my numbers are far to small for the amount of suffering I'm enduring. I need a way to suffer better.

Athlete, Joe

OK, here's my dilemma:
Earlier this month, I competed in a *hard* 1 hour circuit race. I cranked out normalized watts of 267 during that time. The terrain was rolling, with a sharp half mile power climb to the finish. The pace was high and I was OTB for most of the race with a lot of bridging work to keep in contact with the pack.

The IF was 1.271.
Average Power was 198W
The VI at a stochastic 1.35

Never occurred to me to adjust FTP (I'm new to structured power training) or to perform a power test, but workouts and subsequent "hard" rides since have consistently been reporting IFs of over 1.

If I were to take a conservative swipe on FTP based on this race and a few select ~1hr. hard efforts, I could reasonably say I'm at 240...

Any arguments to the contrary?

Athlete, Joe

Oh, forgot to mention I did 2 x 20s yesterday at 230W... HARD but feeling pretty good today. The second interval hard slightly higher wattage than the first...

mattm

Yeah I think if you're consistently seeing IFs over 1, then it's time to up the threshold.

At least that's how I look at it.

kudude

Good use of stochastic, and I think you're right on about the race not causing your to increase your FTP. What does cause some interest is the subsequent workouts at IF > 1. Have you done any tests? For those high 1 hour efforts, do you have any solid 20 minute efforts?

Athlete, Joe

I did a self-administered test in March (210W) and a lab ramp test where a coach conservatively concurred my previous findings.

I'm fairly sure that 2 x 20s that assumes an FTP of 267 is not sustainable (for now)

slynkie

do you really feel 15% stronger than you did back in March? if yes, try setting your FTP at 240w and see how it feels for a few weeks or a month.

Athlete, Joe

You mean 27% (57/210)?

It's maybe less the magnitude of how much stronger I feel (I do... but by how much, I'm not sure) but more about which "protocol" yields the most accurate result.

We ascribe a lot of authority to power testing, but isn't performance the best predictor of all?

slynkie

i thought you'd mentioned setting it to 240w.

https://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2008/...adly-sins.html

after the fact, sure.

Athlete, Joe

I did. Just yesterday. So I've been working on an underestimated FTP for at least since that race a month ago.

60 watts of improvement in two months has me incredulous, although not nearly as incredulous had it not been verified by a professional. (EDIT: the 210 baseline figure, not the jump to 267)

All evidence points to raising FTP. Whether at 240 or 267 is the $60K question.

Thanks for the Alex link, I knew about the 7 deadly sins before, but that was a much more detailed explanation.

Hocam

With a jump that big you should also be looking at the past month or two worth of data to adjust FTP so your CTL isn't inflated.

johnybutts

How exactly is ATL calculated? it doesn't appear to be a simple running average of the last 7 days.

umd

I believe it is an average of everything that is expontentially weighted for the last 7 days, or something similar...

Enthalpic

It includes all values, just that with a N of 7 values greater than ~7 days old essentially drop out of the eq.

Exponentially weighted moving average.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average

Enthalpic

So:

alpha = 2/(7+1) = 0.25

New ATL = (0.25)(TSS) + (1-0.25)(yesterdays ATL)