Trainerroad

Try riding at sweetspot (rather than ftp) and with bigger gaps between sprints?

Also those sprints aren't really going to be max-beans (or you'd only manage one) so regulate the effort of those to stay consistent.

[ not an expert opinion - just what I'd try ]

Tonight is the night. Trainerroad is being dusted off (so to speak) and the new turbo is being tested. The 8 minute test beckons.

In order to get my account working with the new turbo, I presume I don't need to do anything except change the turbo i've got selected in the 'my devices' bit of my profile?

Sounds about right - which turbo are you using?

Good luck.

^ Thought as much, thanks

I got me a Kurt Kinetic Rock n'roll mk 1 for 50% off as they've just released a mk2 and so are trying to shift the old ones.

Both looking forward to it and dreading it. The latter mostly because since i've moved house i don't have my old flatmate's fan, and also because I will be told just how weak i am.

My fan is pathetic. Cost about 15 quid.

Had a bit of a triumph tonight by smashing through Clarence King. Can still only manage it at 94% intensity but plan to crank that up by 1% each week and then set a new FTP when I hit 100%.

197w? This cannot be true, D. Are you sure that you have calibrated the PT?

Also - FTP is what you can hold at 'steady state' for an hour at your absolute limit - you are currently using it as 'recovery'- so no recovery. You will never be able to hold onto it after 30s smash repeats. No way.

As miro_o suggests, you will end up sub threshold anyway (in the sweet spot probably) which will still be a hard workout. Basically, don't worry about it - your body will only do what it can, just aim to get as close to FTP as possible, and you will end up in the sweetspot. It will still be a total barf-fest.

I'm guessing what he's talking about is an 'attack' so.. say (if your ftp was around 260w ish), a 5-600w effort, rather than a 1400w one.

If you mean going through the menu and pressing "calibrate" yeah. If you mean doing some sort of "stomp test", no.

Yeah, the trainerroad progs have a series of "attacks" for 30 seconds (eyeballs out) and then try and get back to somewhere just shy of FTP (sweet spot). Seems specific.

Tried out 'Graveyard' yesterday.

Appropriate name is appropriate.

Also, I appear to have lost a big chunk of ftp somewhere. I knew riding outdoors for a few weeks would do me no good >:(

"197w? This cannot be true, D. Are you sure that you have calibrated the PT?"

That's what I thought when I saw it. I thought I was a weakling with my pathetic 243w, although this is in TT position.

I've just looked up Graveyard. I think that's probably the last workout I would do if I was trying to 'complete' Trainerroad.

Definitely in the top ten.

So, I did an 8 minute test today. My FTP has been recalculated to 154 watts, which might not sound fanfuckingdabby spectacular to any of you, but it's a massive gain for me. 3 months ago I couldn't even finish an 8 minute test as my heart would be going mental at the slightest amount of effort due to what I assume to be a nasty bout of post-viral fatigue following an illness in February.

My trainerroad career is filled with aborted attempts to try to uncover my FTP since February and each effort was more depressing than the last. I finally finished a test today without bailing from exhaustion before the first 8 min effort ended (or even began), and I have never been so happy to see such a low number appear on my screen as when my results were recalculated. I wept like a child in the shower afterwards out of relief at finally approaching "normal" again.

^ That's fantastic. Onwards and upwards.

Trainerroad needs a 'kudos' button.

:-)

Anyone use the Cyclocross plan on this? How's it going?

Don't have trainerroad, but thinking it might be a good idea.

Words

More words

Great news- you've inspired me to put the turbo tyre on the Serotta and finally make use of Trainer Road.

Has anyone used one of the site's training programme? How are they?

I tend to just pick workouts based on the descriptions in the library without thinking too much how they interplay, so structure may be good. Or boring.

I've used the sweet spot plan workouts and found them very good. They've mostly got on-screen instructions which gives you something to read during the dull steady state bits. They also give some hot tipz for Becoming Awesome that are only loosely related to the workouts themselves so are quite good value IMO.

The turbo-tyre is on, I repeat, the turbo-tyre is on.

Graph, or it didn't happen.

The cassette is not yet on. Baby steps.

Are you planning on not sweating?

I'd kill my laptop in about ten minutes if I had it that close :-/