FTP 2015

godtabh

Just saw over on the triathlon page that they have a thread going on their FTP scores for 2015.

Any interest in doing it here?

bazermc

FTP?

TheBlaaMan

Fantastically tailored pants........

sullzz

godtabh wrote: »

Just saw over on the triathlon page that they have a thread going on their FTP scores for 2015.

Any interest in doing it here?

Damn , gonna have to buy a power meter now .

tunney

bazermc wrote: »

FTP?

Its something that nots really relevant on this board. Its more for guiding training around the use of a power meter to improve and get faster on bike. Nothing to do with helmets, hi viz, coffee stops or the Wicklow 200.

Plus if most on here were to do it they would have to do two T20s - one on each side and then average the numbers out.

Beasty

I'm going to adopt tunney's stance over on the dark side and keep mine to myself....

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

Its something that nots really relevant on this board. Its more for guiding training around the use of a power meter to improve and get faster on bike. Nothing to do with helmets, hi viz, coffee stops or the Wicklow 200.

Plus if most on here were to do it they would have to do two T20s - one on each side and then average the numbers out.

8/10 for smug superiority. Come on, I know you can do better than that.

Beasty

... in all seriousness though, for this year it's going to have much less relevance to me - probably won't even do a 25m TT, and will be focussed on shorter distances (maybe a few 10 milers) and the track

bazermc

tunney wrote: »

Its something that nots really relevant on this board. Its more for guiding training around the use of a power meter to improve and get faster on bike. Nothing to do with helmets, hi viz, coffee stops or the Wicklow 200.

Plus if most on here were to do it they would have to do two T20s - one on each side and then average the numbers out.

What have power Meters got to do with Fantastically tailored pants?

Beasty

Just to show how far off topic this is heading, T20s belong in the Cricket forum

dvntie

godtabh wrote: »

Just saw over on the triathlon page that they have a thread going on their FTP scores for 2015.

Any interest in doing it here?

No

manwithaplan

I'm going for 5W/kg. I just need to get the weight down to 25kg.

Wishbone Ash

bazermc wrote: »

FTP?

Feel The Pain?

Beasty

it's actually "For Tunney's Pleasure"

(he doesn't get any on the dark side)

tunney

I'd love to know they actual number of posters on Cycling that actually train.

Dipping in and out of threads on power and heart rate, when they occur in between the posts on "what bike can I get for a hundred euro" and "recommend me the best gloves for 5.99" and "isn't aldi stuff great" that is, it seems most, well don't train.

Seweryn

tunney wrote: »

... it seems most, well don't train.

No, they don't. But they still enjoy what they do, and that's all that matters. BTW, a pair of gloves from Aldi for €6.99 is still the warmest pair of winter gloves I have at present. And I have tried many, including some of the expensive stuff. Having a cheaper bike, or less expensive gear does not make you any inferior or does not stop you from enjoying cycling.

Anyway, there is a lot more in cycling than just training...

tunney

Seweryn wrote: »

No, they don't. But they still enjoy what they do, and that's all that matters. BTW, a pair of gloves from Aldi for €6.99 is still the warmest pair of winter gloves I have at present. And I have tried many, including some of the expensive stuff. Having a cheaper bike, or less expensive gear does not make you any inferior or does not stop you from enjoying cycling.

Anyway, there is a lot more in cycling than just training...

Like? Red light jumping?

Chips Lovell

I think people who train are a small subset of the user base really. There's much more who're commuters and leisure cyclists.

Regarding the OP, I think a lot of cyclists will tend to be a bit cagey about their numbers.

Beasty

Seweryn wrote: »

Anyway, there is a lot more in cycling than just training...

Absolutely - triathletes are typically going to be training for specific events. I think a glance at the respective training logs forums shows that a very large proportion of the regulars in the T/D/AR forum are doing some kind of formal training. This forum has a far broader "audience", with relatively few doing training dedicated to racing.

Perhaps it should be "For Triathlon People"

tunney

I am generally intrigued now.

So we are counting out the racing people.


What is left? Messing about in sportifs and commuting? Coffee stop rides in Wicklow?

Ole Rodrigo

Tunney, about time you fought back. All the abuse Triathletes have got over the years.

I'd still take a coffee break on the W200 over a man bra though.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Those Aldi gloves are pretty amazing in fairness, best pair i have ever owned:)

I always found it strange that there was very little discussion about FTP on this board compared to the tri board, (coming from tri into cycling).
I do think cyclists (the ones who are serious about training/racing on here) are a lot more cagey and less open about their numbers as if its some sort of guarded secret, reality is people don't really care about your numbers.
You will often here people turn up at races and when asked how was their winter training the usual response will be "just alright" failing to mention they got divorced, have lost all their mates and spend several hours a day out in the shed hammering away on their turbo:).

fat bloke

tunney wrote: »

I'd love to know they actual number of posters on Cycling that actually train.

Dipping in and out of threads on power and heart rate, when they occur in between the posts on "what bike can I get for a hundred euro" and "recommend me the best gloves for 5.99" and "isn't aldi stuff great" that is, it seems most, well don't train.

And yet.... Here you are.

ford2600

A lot more to cycling than racing. Best of luck to lads who race and dedicate themselves to getting better but there are many other ways of enjoying cycling.

Maybe my eyesight is failing me but this is a "cycling" forum not a " racing cycling" forum?

When you meet real legends of racing you never get that bullsh1t, they are often the ones rolling up their sleeves to help.

Did a 200km audax pernamnet last Friday with an 8 year old pair of lidl/aldi gloves. Toasty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL7jyXCQ2Zc

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

And now for an interesting experiment, a table:rolleyes:
User|Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Current FTP|Watts/kg|Target FTP|Target Watts/kg|5sec|1min|5min|20min|60min|Test|Unit
XXXX|XX||||||||XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|
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godtabh

Must be the time of the month for a lot around here.

I've never ridden a race yet I'm interested in power. Its unlikely I'll ever ride a race (well maybe this year if I find the time I might) but I'll still ride with power.

Using trainerroad and its given me a better understanding of how to train. And I enjoy it. So whats the harm in talking about FTP?

Chips Lovell

Nobody said there was any harm in it. It was more attempts to explain why a lot of users wouldn't be interested.

Beasty

I would suggest there's already a bit of a problem in what you've put up there jackyback. It assumes everyone is training with similar objectives. It equally assumes everyone will try and measure these things monthly (when from later this month until some time around August the racers amongst us may well be focussed on racing once or even more often each week)

Now take me as an example. I haven't been caring about FTP over the past year. I am currently interested in my power up to 20 mins, but that is not my objective for the year - that objective is likely to be (hopefully) less that 2 minutes 40s during the first half of October. My 5 minute power is something I will really focus on in August and September. No-one on this board is likely to have anything like the same objectives

Leroy42

The funny thing is, since a lot of the racing posters on this forum have a Strava account, it's actually not that hard to make an educated guess about the FTP. See what time there are doing on a particular segment, if they have a power meter the number will show up and they probably have put a rough weight in (these guys tend not to fluctuate too much) and there you have it. Even if they don't have the power meter, you can use formulas to give a good estimate

Not that useful really and certainly not as accurate as having a dedicated Training peaks of Golden Cheetah report but if one was so inclined to waste time and something like that then it could be ascertained.

And even if you know the FTP, it really is more important to know the W/kg, but only if its a climb. If its a TT then straight out FTP, unless they don't have the aero gear and thus lose lots of time and effort against those that do. Or even if they have the aero gear if their position is dialled in correctly.

Jebus, this all gets very confusting

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

I am generally intrigued now.

So we are counting out the racing people.

What is left? Messing about in sportifs and commuting? Coffee stop rides in Wicklow?

Only a triathlete would find the idea of non-competitive cycling mysterious and intriguing.

Get back in your shed Tunney.

BoardsMember

tunney wrote: »

I'd love to know they actual number of posters on Cycling that actually train.

Dipping in and out of threads on power and heart rate, when they occur in between the posts on "what bike can I get for a hundred euro" and "recommend me the best gloves for 5.99" and "isn't aldi stuff great" that is, it seems most, well don't train.

Do they even lift bro?

ROK ON

From personal experience I would say that a far higher proportion of the triathlons that I have been at (as a participant and a marshal) have a higher proportion of non-competitive participants relative to the average A4 race or club league race. But nothing wring with that either.

As for the 2 Pulse Tri riders that I saw at 1pm yesterday time trailing down Bachelors Walk on TT rigs in the tuck position/head down in traffic - for FFS. I wonder were they commuting or training?

Hunterbiker

I like messing about doing Sportifs and I can't swim.

I am not a number and won't be defined by one (unless having one gives access to cake at said Sportif...)

I am interested in power stats as I like numbers so this is an intetesting topic.

mossym

ROK ON wrote: »

From personal experience I would say that a far higher proportion of the triathlons that I have been at (as a participant and a marshal) have a higher proportion of non-competitive participants relative to the average A4 race or club league race. But nothing wring with that either.

probably true, but then cyclists that don't want to race can do sportifs. not really an equivalent in the tri world, you want to do one, it's in a race, but as you say it may not be competitive.


take the 10000 or whatever do the ROK and merge them with the a4 or club league races and the numbers will look different


i'd imagine as well that most ofthe non competitive people doing the tri's would have as much interest in their ftp as the sportif rider.

Darkglasses

ROK ON wrote: »

From personal experience I would say that a far higher proportion of the triathlons that I have been at (as a participant and a marshal) have a higher proportion of non-competitive participants relative to the average A4 race or club league race. But nothing wring with that either.

So true. I'm not a competitive person at all really, and I like cycling much more than running. But I'm going to do a Duathlon at the end of March, whereas I'd really never see myself doing an A4 race.

pprendeville

Currently at 256W, down from 285 after being sick and of the bike for 3 weeks. I've learned its easier to produce more consistent and higher watts going uphill than on a rolling road.

Lumen

pprendeville wrote: »

Currently at 256W, down from 285 after being sick and of the bike for 3 weeks. I've learned its easier to produce more consistent and higher watts going uphill than on a rolling road.

How are you testing?

godtabh

Lumen wrote: »

How are you testing?

I use the 20 minute test on Trainer Road. I've seen 19w increase since I started testing at the start of the year.

Lumen

godtabh wrote: »

I use the 20 minute test on Trainer Road. I've seen 19w increase since I started testing at the start of the year.

Ah, right. I found that 20 minute tests overestimated my FTP (compared to lactate testing in a lab) by a significant margin.

You should do 60 minute tests. They're lots of fun. :pac:

Beasty

Might post some figures when I get back home tomorrow, but as I've already said I'm not targeting FTP at all currently. The best I can presently go on is likely to be an extrapolation based on the Goldencheetah calculator applied to Wattbike data but on an NP basis. It was coming out at around 265 to 270w a few weeks ago but should be a bit better after a workout I did at the backend of last week. On a non-normalised basis 1hr power is coming out at around 235-240w. W/kg is even more depressing at present mind although I'm focused pretty much on flat (short!) stuff this year.

buffalo

pprendeville wrote: »

Currently at 256W, down from 285 after being sick and of the bike for 3 weeks. I've learned its easier to produce more consistent and higher watts going uphill than on a rolling road.

What's your watts per kilo?

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

Ah, right. I found that 20 minute tests overestimated my FTP (compared to lactate testing in a lab) by a significant margin.

You should do 60 minute tests. They're lots of fun. :pac:

Or a T5/T20 followed a few days later by a T60, can get your multiplier then.

Or we can all have a scone, a lait and complain about the state of the latest pro teams cycling kit, or talk about the Paris-Nice routeprobably too much for this board

pprendeville

Lumen wrote: »

How are you testing?

Warmup, 5min all out test, rest, 20min test all done on the road with the workout on the Garmin and using a Pioneer Gen 2 for power. Multiply avg by 0.95

W/kg is not high enough me thinks. 256/66=3.87
Fairly paltry I'm afraid. Expecting a good kicking around the place for the first 5 races at least and then I have exams after that which won't help either.

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

Ah, right. I found that 20 minute tests overestimated my FTP (compared to lactate testing in a lab) by a significant margin.

You should do 60 minute tests. They're lots of fun. :pac:

Were you doing the five minute effort before the 20 minute test? That might explain the disparity? How far was it out?

I did one 25 mile TT last year (and one is enough), which is close enough to an hour long test. Power was about 3.5 percent lower than 20 minute testing suggested my FTP was. Could have been either testing overestimating FTP or me starting to go off the boil a bit after a hard few months.

manwithaplan

pprendeville wrote: »

Currently at 256W, down from 285 after being sick and of the bike for 3 weeks. I've learned its easier to produce more consistent and higher watts going uphill than on a rolling road.

If you insist! Averaged 325W for a 20 min uphill test a few weeks ago. I didn't do a 'blowout' beforehand so there's a bit of anaerobic juice in there for the first few minutes. I'd say the FTP's around 285-290W. I weigh a good bit more than you though!

Beasty

tunney wrote: »

Or a T20 followed a few days later by a T60, can get your multiplier then.

Or we can all have a scone, a lait and complain about the state of the latest pro teams cycling kit, or talk about the Paris-Nice routeprobably too much for this board

@ tunney. I appreciate your tendency to engage in a bit of cyclist vs triathlete banter around here and I'll readily admit I can get involved in such "discussions". However to the "uninitiated" it can come across as low-level trolling. Can I therefore ask you to back off a little on your dismissive posts aimed at cyclists.

As always please do not respond in thread. Drop me a PM if you wish to discuss this further

Thanks

tunney

manwithaplan wrote: »

If you insist! Averaged 325W for a 20 min uphill test a few weeks ago. I didn't do a 'blowout' beforehand so there's a bit of anaerobic juice in there for the first few minutes. I'd say the FTP's around 285-290W. I weigh a good bit more than you though!

Do it on the flat. your numbers will be an awful lot less so if you got with 285-290 you are over estimating FTP.

Beasty

tunney wrote: »

Do it on the flat. your numbers will be an awful lot less so if you got with 285-290 you are over estimating FTP.

I certainly find I can put out quite a bit more on a hill climb than a flat effort over the same time. I've always put it down to the out of saddle efforts when climbing

Leroy42

pprendeville wrote: »

Currently at 256W, down from 285 after being sick and of the bike for 3 weeks. I've learned its easier to produce more consistent and higher watts going uphill than on a rolling road.

Hold on, 30w drop off in 3 weeks? Really?

What sort of improvement do people generally get in terms of increase from a base level in January to what they expect their FTP to be.

Would people expect to get 10% or more increase in FTP by doing say 4 weeks of focused training?

Lumen

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Were you doing the five minute effort before the 20 minute test? That might explain the disparity? How far was it out?

Actually, now that I think about it I was using the CP curve from GoldenCheetah. Most of my data points were 15-20 mins laps of a road circuit with a couple of longer TTs (one was 40km).

I think GC reckoned my threshold was about 275-280W but it was measured in the lab at 262W.

Only 7% difference but it felt significant, although I wouldn't exactly have been troubling Jens for the hour record.

pprendeville

Repeatability is just as important in fairness. No point in having a high FTP if you can't do high intensity efforts over and over again (for road racing at least). I had an FTP of about 300W last June but hadn't raced all yr. first few races I was spent after 70km and took me about 3 races before I finally managed to finish one.