The "I should have left the credit card at home" thread

kenmc

Nietzschean wrote: »

hough i do find my HR tends to go up on big descents not down...

Bloody scaredy chicken!

Lumen

ROK ON wrote: »

OK, now I am very confused. IIRC, when on spins with you in the past you have often said to me that I am pushing too hard on the climbs, and have asked me what my HR is (usually in the 175-185 range). If I understood you then, I should aim for a lower HR (say 165-170 range), on the basis that it is more sustainable for a long ride with many hills. The burning a mtch concept.
Now you say that 180 is a good target - but for what? Treshold power, or a 40kk TT?
Any spin that I have been on my avg HR is usually 145-155? Does this imply that I am simply not pushing hard enough on the downhill parts of the course?

A time trial and a hilly training spin are different beasts. For training, it is important to get the right balance between training stress, training frequency and recovery time, but also it depends what you're training for.

If you can throw some hard hill efforts into a 100km endurance run that's fine provided that you're not going to need 3 days off the bike to recover.

If you're training properly you should be on your bike almost every day, even if only for a recovery ride, and you'll have to become more strict about metering our your efforts. If you're doing interval training you must have the freshness to put in hard efforts or you won't get the benefits.

Raam has a coach and a training plan (triggered by a recent seriousness infection), and he's not even allowed to race Freds on his way to work for fear of using up his allowance.

If you're only training twice a week you're not training optimally anyway, so just do whatever feels good.

FrankGrimes

@Lumen - yeh, your questioning those figures made me try harder to remember the ROK readings. I don't have the data to hand but will check later but I think my ROK average HR was actually around 155-160bpm, not 170bpm. First time I did a 40km TT my avg HR was 167bpm so that's what I'm regarding as my threshold HR in practice and I think I was probably overestimating things by about 10bpm.

@Nietzschean - what does your HR go from and to on a descent? Much as I try to work hard on slight downward slopes to keep the power output up, on a long proper descent the speed is so high I just can't pedal fast enough to keep power output high so I end up coasting much of the way and HR would drop to around 120 or even lower depending on the length of the descent. Are you sure your HR really does drop? I know the adrenaline might add a few beats but would be mad to feel your heart is doing more work going downhill than uphill.

ROK ON

@ Lumen. Thanks for that. clears it up. I think for the moment I will stick to racing freds.

Diarmuid

blorg wrote: »

Here are some HR charts for recent races I've done, any insight or comments much appreciated. Note on the club 25 I went over 180 right at the start, I think this was a bad mistake I paid for later. Kept it down on the Boards one and I think that worked, although I really lost it in the last 10km. Also included the road race I won, 204 at the end of that sprint! Note the end of the club 10 is around where speed peaks, I just didn't stop the computer.

Did you warm up well before each TT, were you sweating at the start line already? The pacing in the 10 looks good, started out not too high and upped the intensity after 3k. On the 25 the HR seems very jagged. Why was that? Was it due to the course?

ROK ON

[quote=FrankGrimes;61462859
@Nietzschean - what does your HR go from and to on a descent? Much as I try to work hard on slight downward slopes to keep the power output up, on a long proper descent the speed is so high I just can't pedal fast enough to keep power output high so I end up coasting much of the way and HR would drop to around 120 or even lower depending on the length of the descent. Are you sure your HR really does drop? I know the adrenaline might add a few beats but would be mad to feel your heart is doing more work going downhill than uphill.[/quote]

From observation of my own effort, I would tend to agree. There comes a time on most long descents that it makes no sense to pedal and push hard - difficult to see how HR could rise in those conditions. However a technical descent on bad roads with many hairpins and a lot of pothols, sheep and shhep crap on the road. Then maybe yes.

blorg

ROK ON wrote: »

Now you say that 180 is a good target - but for what? Treshold power, or a 40kk TT?

Any spin that I have been on my avg HR is usually 145-155? Does this imply that I am simply not pushing hard enough on the downhill parts of the course?

Again I think he means a 40km TT here, where you are attempting to absolutely murder yourself for an hour and have nothing left at the end for any more riding. Longer stuff you would want to do slower.

There is no point pushing on a downhill, you should push up the hills and use the downhills to recover. This is because of the aerodynamic effect, there is less air resistance going up so you get more for your effort. Joe Friel advises this even for time trials BTW, harder up and ease off down.

There is also a point at which pedalling becomes inefficient as it disturbs the airflow; also in a proper aero position on a road bike you cannot pedal. The key to a fast descent down a steep gradient is a quick (pedalling) acceleration over the summit of the hill, sustained hard for the initial seconds of the descent to get up to speed as quickly as possible and then getting as aero as possible. This presumes sufficient gradient and lack of headwind of course.

Raam

Lumen wrote: »

Raam has a coach and a training plan (triggered by a recent seriousness infection), and he's not even allowed to race Freds on his way to work for fear of using up his allowance.

I suppose I should point out that none of that is actually true.

blorg

@Nietzschean - HR rising on a descent, presuming you are not riding a fixie, is probably a flapping jersey interfering with your heart rate monitor. Are you even pedalling when this happens?

Lumen

@Frank, one more thing, since you have a powermeter (ish). My average power on a 3-4 hour hilly "training" spin is usually around 180-190W, if I'm on my own and going at a decent pace. My FTP would appear to be around 250W, which gives me "Coggan" zones of up to 190W for endurance and 190-225W for tempo.

I realise now that almost all of my riding until recently was at endurance pace, and that I need to focus on shorter tempo rides to improve faster. I'm therefore committed to a strategy of "tempo commuting" where I try and spend an hour a day with normalised power over 200W, and I'll use the longer rides in the mountains for some easy endurance pace with a few short hill efforts.

Frank, according to my rule of thumb and your recorded FTP you should be able to do a 40km TT in around 1:04 with some aerobars and no hangover. This would be bloody impressive given your lack of cycling history. If you can convert your theoretical performance into reality you may be able to knock Scott off his perch as "most epic newbie of 2009".

Lumen

Raam wrote: »

I suppose I should point out that none of that is actually true.

Sandbagger.

blorg

Diarmuid wrote: »

Did you warm up well before each TT, were you sweating at the start line already? The pacing in the 10 looks good, started out not too high and upped the intensity after 3k. On the 25 the HR seems very jagged. Why was that? Was it due to the course?

I warmed up most for the Club 25. Note the HR scale on this is actually quite a small range so it is maybe not as jagged as it looks. It is a rollling course, there is elevation data in there. The Boards 25 I did on a fixed gear, not so warmed up, but took over 2:30 out of my time. I think a lot of this was thanks to consiously trying to keep my HR low for the first 20km. It is genuinely a lot choppier though, I felt I was not putting very much into the downhill bits due to the fixed wheel. Towards the end I was losing it, I made a few extra efforts to pass people earlier on (the peaks over 180 are all overtaking) while I think I should have just maintained pace and gone past them slower.

FrankGrimes

blorg wrote: »

Here are some HR charts for recent races I've done, any insight or comments much appreciated. Note on the club 25 I went over 180 right at the start, I think this was a bad mistake I paid for later. Kept it down on the Boards one and I think that worked, although I really lost it in the last 10km. Also included the road race I won, 204 at the end of that sprint! Note the end of the club 10 is around where speed peaks, I just didn't stop the computer.

I'll defer to Lumen for the more scientific analysis but I think the general view is that you shouldn't just look at the overall average to calculate your threshold: you should also look at the pattern of the line graph to understand how much time you spent above and below that average. A spike early in the workout can lead to a drop-off later in the session (as one of your graphs shows). Removing that spike and keeping a steadier level would likely decrease the rate of drop-off later in the workout, thereby increasing the overall average. Guess that's a long winded way of saying an early spike can really cost ya. But either way, from looking at your charts it seems your threshold HR is in the 170-175 ballpark.

Nietzschean

blorg wrote: »

@Nietzschean - HR rising on a descent, presuming you are not riding a fixie, is probably a flapping jersey interfering with your heart rate monitor. Are you even pedalling when this happens?

My HR tends to rise if i go between alot of bends and so am pedaling @ 120rpm between them like on the luggala descent, or just out of some form of panic doing 84km/hr down from djouce afraid my tire will blow up... So normally my HR goes up on steep inclines/tight corners but like everyone else if i'm just lightly spinning or on a moderate descent it tends to drop...

Nietzschean

kenmc wrote: »

Bloody scaredy chicken!

Yep thats mostly it, 4 punctures while >60km/hr in the past few months will do that to you

Diarmuid

Nietzschean wrote: »

Yep thats mostly it, 4 punctures while >60km/hr in the past few months will do that to you

That would do it all right. You might want to look into why you are getting so many though. Doesn't sound normal to me.

Nietzschean

Diarmuid wrote: »

That would do it all right. You might want to look into why you are getting so many though. Doesn't sound normal to me.

went through a spree on my previous tyres, seems to mostly have been it, only one on the new set.... mind you I have discovered ultremo's seem to have horrific grip in wet which helps my HR stay nice and high!

FrankGrimes

Lumen wrote: »

@Frank, one more thing, since you have a powermeter (ish). My average power on a 3-4 hour hilly "training" spin is usually around 180-190W, if I'm on my own and going at a decent pace. My FTP would appear to be around 250W, which gives me "Coggan" zones of up to 190W for endurance and 190-225W for tempo.

I realise now that almost all of my riding until recently was at endurance pace, and that I need to focus on shorter tempo rides to improve faster. I'm therefore committed to a strategy of "tempo commuting" where I try and spend an hour a day with normalised power over 200W, and I'll use the longer rides in the mountains for some easy endurance pace with a few short hill efforts.

Frank, according to my rule of thumb and your recorded FTP you should be able to do a 40km TT in around 1:04 with some aerobars and no hangover. This would be bloody impressive given your lack of cycling history. If you can convert your theoretical performance into reality you may be able to knock Scott off his perch as "most epic newbie of 2009".

It's probably getting dangerous for me to quote figures without having the data in front of me cos I've been wrong already today but I have to admit that I only adhere to/believe in the recommended approach to training in levels to a certain degree. I basically only have the discipline to work in one of two modes:

1. Pushing really hard: I do this in TTs (well, all 2 I've ever done ) and when doing hill sprint intervals (up Stocking Lane or Edmonstown Road a few times). Generally do those hill intervals at around 170bpm and at I'd guess 320-350w.

2. A 'Decent Sustainable' Pace: this is what I do in sportives and long training rides. There's a certain speed/HR/wattage I just can't stay below for any long periods as it feels like I'm not working at all and to be honest, the saddle gets uncomfortable when I'm not putting much power through the pedals. So I just don't have the discipline to do recovery rides and at a guess I'd say what I call Endurance rides are actually Tempo rides. Will check my data but at a guess I'd say any time I look down and see less than 150bpm or 240w (except when going downhill) I know I can sustain more than that and up the pace a bit.

I'll probably give that Batterstown TT one more go in a couple of weeks time and I'd be more than happy with getting to 65mins on a relatively calm day. Won't be getting aero bars as I doubt I'd use them more than once or twice and I'd have the hassle of repositioning the gadgets on my bars just for those. And the only title I'm interested in for the forseeable future is 'Successful Finisher of La Marmotte Route Within One Calendar Day'.....note the leeway 'one calendar day gives'

blorg

FrankGrimes wrote: »

I'll defer to Lumen for the more scientific analysis but I think the general view is that you shouldn't just look at the overall average to calculate your threshold: you should also look at the pattern of the line graph to understand how much time you spent above and below that average. A spike early in the workout can lead to a drop-off later in the session (as one of your graphs shows). Removing that spike and keeping a steadier level would likely decrease the rate of drop-off later in the workout, thereby increasing the overall average. Guess that's a long winded way of saying an early spike can really cost ya. But either way, from looking at your charts it seems your threshold HR is in the 170-175 ballpark.

Yes, I think that was the key thing I did to get faster in the second 25, less spiking early on. There were still a few mind, I am wondering if I can get rid of those maybe I could be going faster at the end... I also am able to bring it up a fair at the very end on both those 25s which suggests I might have been able to go harder overall in the last quarter (I believe you should not really be able to raise it that much for the final bit.)

Lumen

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Will check my data but at a guess I'd say any time I look down and see less than 150bpm or 240w (except when going downhill) I know I can sustain more than that and up the pace a bit....And the only title I'm interested in for the forseeable future is 'Successful Finisher of La Marmotte Route Within One Calendar Day'.....note the leeway 'one calendar day gives'

IMO if you try and do the Marmotte at an average of 240W you'll bonk miserably. You need to ease off and dance on the pedals a bit more.

If you haven't already, check out the TDF power data on the Saris site (e.g. this). You might be surprised how little power the pros put out much of the time.

FrankGrimes

Lumen wrote: »

IMO if you try and do the Marmotte at an average of 240W you'll bonk miserably.

Agree 100%. I should've pointed out that while this approach suits me for sportives and training in Ireland, I know La Marmotte is a different ball game. For that what I'm trying to do is get the overall fitness and endurance to a good baseline and then basically spend as much time as I can climbing between now and then to build up climbing endurance. My plan is basically to get a few weekend sessions in where I just spend about 6 hours going up and down Slieve Mann and the Shay Elliott at an endurance HR and power cos I can't think of anything more applicable than that.

Thanks for the link on the TdF power, will give that a gander.

FrankGrimes

blorg wrote: »

Yes, I think that was the key thing I did to get faster in the second 25, less spiking early on. There were still a few mind, I am wondering if I can get rid of those maybe I could be going faster at the end... I also am able to bring it up a fair at the very end on both those 25s which suggests I might have been able to go harder overall in the last quarter (I believe you should not really be able to raise it that much for the final bit.)

You ain't gonna like me for saying it (but secretly you'll be loving that I've given you another reason to fork out on that power meter you've been longing for ), but one of the advantages of a power meter is that it gives you more instant visibility on your effort level. Heart rate lags effort by a while so before you know you may already have spiked. Keeping a close eye on power output allows you to easily identify spikes as they're happening.

blorg

@Frank- yes, I know that with HR vs power regarding lag, I can tell from perceived effort what way my HR monitor is going to go in the next 15-30 seconds or so. Only question is how big the swing will be.

The power meter is already quite high up on my wish list, it has jumped over carbon wheels. Now we just get into the question of which one- in the cranks, in the wheels, and I can't use one on both a fixed and geared bike

Lumen

Back on topic...

I appear to have just purchased a 2008 Scott Addict SL frameset.

How did that happen? One second I was in the Images of Beauty thread, the next I was reading an order confirmation e-mail.

Thanks gman2k.

AstraMonti

haha enjoy it, it's a lovely frame. I thought though you had issues with your current bike being too black!

Lumen

AstraMonti wrote: »

haha enjoy it, it's a lovely frame. I thought though you had issues with your current bike being too black!

Yeah, well at that price the Scott was too difficult to pass up, given that equivalent quality framesets are usually more than double the price.

I'll just have to bling it up with finishing kit....

oheilis

I really have to stop reading this thread! I find myself hovering over my CRC wishlist dangerously, and I absolutely cannot afford any new toys this month!

Ryaner

oheilis wrote: »

I really have to stop reading this thread! I find myself hovering over my CRC wishlist dangerously, and I absolutely cannot afford any new toys this month!

They are not new toys but compulsory purchases!

blorg

Nice frame Lumen, are you going to go lightweight as possible with the build? A SRAM group perhaps? What plans for the Cayo...

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

Nice frame Lumen, are you going to go lightweight as possible with the build? A SRAM group perhaps? What plans for the Cayo...

Since it's a weight-weenie frameset, I'll probably start with Red, then at some point stick Q-Rings on it for the Wiggo factor, then maybe consider switching to a Rotor Agilis/CinQo Saturn crankset when I want to bling up the wheels.

Or go bankrupt, completely lose the plot and retreat under the bridge down from Sally Gap to become a cyclist-bothering troll-hermit.

The Cayo will no doubt be up for sale once the build is complete.