I ride with quite a few guys like you who have big power numbers and are eternally stuck in Cat 4. They can't climb and they think going to the front and going beast mode on the flat is going to win them a trophy only to get jumped at the end of the race. Riding behind a guy like you is like drafting a tandem to a guy like me. Look up Stijn Vandenberg and see how many races he's won.

So you're saying that in powerlifting people don't compare the strength to weight ratio of a lifter? All of the tall lifters just sit around and cry for being unjustly penalized for their useless height? Is that how it is?

btw, where did my jpg say anything about peak power?

Let's simmer down on the bickering guys.

How exactly am I a dump truck? I'm not fat, I'm tall. Do you have bad reading comprehension or something? What are you missing?

Are you trying to make excuses why I'd be faster than you on flat terrain (where I live and the only terrain I would ever compete on)? Who knows, could very well be faster than you on hills. I'm in the top 1% or better on every flat segment around here and fall into the lowly top 5-10% for climbs (5,000-10,000 people on these segments).

Here it's totally flat. I can ride 50 miles and have 200ft of elevation gain. I mountain bike in the hills but have no delusions of ever being competitive.

If I were to compete in the flats, I'd like fare better than my w/kg would indicate, which comes in to play more on hills.

Oh so your 800 watts is average? Maybe for a 5 second segment

Again, there's a reason there aren't 6'6" powerlifters in the upper tier of competition. It's impossible for tall people to have competitive power to weight ratios, but that doesn't mean they're weak.

Sorry, didn't see this until after my last two posts.

You've misunderstood my initial point regarding w/kg and continue to do so. Strength to weight ratio is a metric that people use to compare riders & powerlifters of different sizes. It's a check on reality. You don't like the metric because you're tall. You still feel you'd kill it in a race because you would only race on an absolutely flat course. The reality in cycling is that there are hills and if a person wants to compare themselves with others they have to accept that there are different facets to the sport. You've decided that you will excel in the flat aspect of cycling and you focus on that & that alone. And that would be fine until you start telling some lighter cyclist who might very well kick your ass going up a hill that his power output is so small that you can produce that power level by raising & dropping your leg. I guess since you don't feel that that is mocking the person you shouldn't get butthurt when the 50kg cyclist tells you that your speed up a steep hill is comparable to their 9 year old daughter. But something tells me you'd find that insulting. I guess if they said that while giving you advice to improve your speed that would make it alright.

So by all means ignore the facets of the sport that you feel penalize you, and continue to brag about your flatland power. Just be aware that you run the risk of being mocked for your ability to climb. Living in a glass house carries risks.

It seems like you aren't understanding what I'm trying to say. What exactly about being tall gives me an advantage? It's the opposite. I have extra dead weight. Being tall/heavier doesn't magically give me strength, so it's silly to say that I'm weak BECAUSE my w/kg is "low" (it isn't).

The reality of cycling WHERE I LIVE is that there are not hills. I would be silly to compete on a hilly course. I ride hills (I have to drive to get there) but would not race them. You're saying that if I raced on hills I wouldn't do as well. No kidding, I've been saying that from the beginning!

I didn't say "you have childish power", I said "intervals have taken me to a point where your current power level, my old power level, is no longer challenging". That's different than "you have 9 year old girl power".

You realize that in cycling (TDF for example) there are "specialists". Cavendish specializes in sprinting. Contador specializes in climbing. Why would I not pick what I'm better at? You don't see pro basketball players saying "I should play football so people on the internet don't think I'm arbitrarily focusing on what I'm good at!". Go ahead and mock me for being bad at climbing, it's out of my control due to my height. I'd need to average 1,000+ watts to climb at a "fast" pace, totally not sustainable. Would you like being mocked for having a small manhood (just an example)? For being a midget compared to myself? Neither of those are in your control.

One of the issues I take with some of your posts is that you make very grandiose claims but you back them up with very sparse evidence... like a string of numbers in a jpg with zero reference points. That was why I posted the example jpg I did. You interpreted it to be max power, but who can tell from what I posted? I can claim it's anything I want & on the internet that's usually what happens.

A good example of what I'm referring to is your statement above. YOu are in the top 5-10% on climbs on Strava. But just a few months ago you were barely able to crack the top 50% and complained that you cannot climb. Similarly, your FTP has gone from 313 to claims of 400w for an hour now... also in a few short months. By all means, claim whatever you want. Just understand that your presentation of facts & progress leave a lot of room for disbelief.

And before you tell me that you don't care what anonymous users on this forum think of your veracity... if you don't care, why do you keep making the explanabrags with sparse support?

You wouldn't have to defend yourself if you didn't post what amounts to race braggadocio ("wrecking" cat 5 fields, being Cat 2 level, talking about being top .01% on the imaginary race that is Strava) without actually racing.

I'm not arguing, I'm just suggesting that either you try racing (genuinely being honest- it's fun, you won't crash, you'll love it and thank me), or you should refrain from talking about how much stronger you are than all these people that do race by looking at numbers alone.

Congratulations, your FTP is higher than most people that ride bikes, certainly much higher than mine and I'm tall too. We get it. Just don't go around thinking that's a predictive metric in a race, even a flat one. If you're really avoiding it because you're worried you could finish at the back of a cat 5 race with that much power, you probably will. That's just how those things work at first. I'm sure you can figure out how to get to the front and finish there though.

I didn't just post a single number though. I posted a screen cap of the entire lap.

My previous FTP test were less ideal conditions and I did a really poor job pacing myself. Went out too hard and burned out. Of course my second attempt with better pacing, better sleep, better nutrition, and some serious training behind me is going to give me a better result. Go do a hungover FTP test tomorrow then do one next week and compare the two. You didn't gain 50% power in a week, you just had a bad attempt the first time.

I'm stuck at work and I'd rather discuss bike stuff with strangers than stare at the wall. That doesn't mean I care, it's just something to do.

Of course it's not a predictor of a race but what other hypothetical metric is there? I could be spilling my guts up front with some little guy behind me cruising along at 200 watts in my draft (I create a big one at my size) then out sprint me at the last 200ft because he's fresh and I'm roasted.

But if I raced, it would be cyclocross or XC MTB (we have a course with 200ft per 10 miles, very manageable). Both of which are the type of terrain that my size/strength/conditioning/whatever would do better at.

I haven't quoted your wall of text because of the EPIC levels of projection about my motives and supposition about what I am or am not prescribing for the OP. None of which is worth arguing about cause it's just not germane.

Straight up, friend: what's your experience with road racing? Have you done any? Honest question - it would really help to better evaluate where you're coming from. Because my reading from you is that you don't understand what it entails and what's important for a n00b. Believe it or not, experience does count for something. It just seems like you have no context for evaluating any of this except for some sports science articles. But what the hell, I could be wrong. It's happened a zillion times before, after all.

It's ironic that you're accusing me of "defending my training ideals tooth and nail." You're framing your suggestions as just innocently suggesting some original thinking in training for a new rider, and look here are some studies. As I said, that would've been worth discussing. Instead, what happened was you barged in saying "y'all suggestions are pointless and stupid cause SCIENCE and you're not going to do well in crits and you should read Carmichael's book and do what it says!" How strange that this got anyone's dander up. As I said before, you seem very interested in impressing people with your knowledge, but it's not working very well.

It's also worth considering something else that you probably haven't been to read between the lines of my posts or anyone else's, and I apologize for not making it explicit from the start. A bulletin board post, even if it is about training methods, does not really constitute coaching advice or a training program. Because it just can't take all the myriad influencing factors and knowledge of the OP into account. Among your many words are some that accuse me of not understanding that the OP needs goals and a means of measuring progress in order to be motivated and to make training progress. Uh, what? Have you considered that these factors might be outside the purview of what can realistically be offered as training advice to a stranger on an internet bulletin board? How strange that you've been able to read the OP's needs so well - in my experience, people vary a lot in terms of their needs for defined goals and measures of progress in the early stages of an amateur racing career. My suggestion to anyone who is feeling aimless or unsure of how to build an effective training plan - and this is a normal way to feel - consider coaching, or at least a good resource like Friel's Training and Racing Bible. I would never presume that a couple of paragraphs of text that I type into a box on some webpage can or even should take into consideration the specific motivations and needs of the person I'm conversing with in anything like a complete way, and I find it bizarre that you think they should.

w/kg is a decent predictor of potential in most bicycle races. ftp is not.

It might be helpful for you to understand something about specialists in the pros: they are good at everything. It's only among their peers that they have specialties. Cavendish is a weak climber for a pro, but he is a better climber than the vast majority of cyclists. Contador, likewise, is a better sprinter than most cyclists. It's not uncommon for the guys who end up as sprinters as professionals to have been dominant climbers as younger riders. It's only against the best international competition that they have to focus on a specialization. Andre Greipel and Tom Boonen both won hilly races as juniors and U-23s.

You should also know that every group ride hero with good power numbers thinks they're going to crush their first race. Some do. The majority don't. It's impossible to understand what racing is actually like without doing it. Maybe you would be the exception, but you don't know unless you try.

It doesn't seem productive to use the FTP number as a dick waving contest.

Compared to you and me they are good at everything, yes. But compared to one another, Cavendish will absolutely and brutally humiliate his peers in a sprint.

Start watching at 1:03. He passes them like they're not even moving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFkjPgccHto

Just saying that if I'm going to race, I'm going to pick something I'm good at. Flat stuff like CX or mostly flat XC MTB. If someone wants to criticize me for that, I really don't care. I'm not going to hate on a short guy who focuses on hilly courses because it's what they're good at it. It's much easier for small riders to have impressive w/kg. Would you criticize me for choosing to play basketball instead of another sport? Being tall, that's where I'd do better than something like being a horse jockey.

For a flat ~1 hour race why the hell wouldn't it help to predict? That's essentially what an FTP test is

No, not at all.

You kind of have to pick one... either ftp and w/kg matter or they don't. Obviously strategy in a road race (drafting, etc) comes into play MAJORLY but in an XC MTB race, that is hardly a factor at all. Assuming the same technical handling skill among competitors, a flat course, and a 1 hour race time, ftp matters a lot.

Enter a Cat 5 crit and tell us how it goes, then. You should be able to lap the field.

How would you know?

Because I'm not a moron and am blessed with the ability to make logical inferences like most people and can come up with reasonable outcomes without actually performing the activity. As my FTP climbs, my segment times improve at a given exertion level (heart rate).

Do you have to stick your dick in the knot hole of a tree to know it won't feel good?

There's really only one way to find out.

Are sticking a dick into a tree and racing a bike analogous in your neck of the woods?