Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

If you can do 6x10 at FTP, unless super reste and feeling on point, you've under estimated your ftp.

3x10 at FTP on any given day would be tough.

I asked ap/np split, as it could have been an np busting ride, with lots of sprints and short efforts, which can inflate tss.

It's a big ride either way.

It's like when you're riding along, feckin' slow and you keep looking at the back wheel to see if it's rubbing...

Possible but unlikely unless you've been smashing it the last two months (which is mental, unless you're a cross racer and peaking) or you were super motivated for some reason. IIRC most people race 100s at ~85-88% FTP.

Re-test.

I do that most days.
I even stopped once and checked. No rubbing.

Ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one.

The number of times I cursed my disc brakes only to check them and find they weren't rubbing at all and it was just my shithouse legs...

Don't forget about tyre pressures. Forgetting to inflate before ride is another
explanation to slowness that isn't leg related. Happens to me all the time.

Hardest ride ever for me yesterday
Z2: 1h35m
Z3: 2h19m
Z4: 0h33m

You managed Z2 on that gear?

What do you mean?

Anyone into WKO4 charts that knows how to make a chart to show change in VAM over time for set durations? I just can't get my head round it.

I appreciate that the reason it doesn't exist is that it's not a particularly useful metric due to extraneous variables. I'm just interested to see if it's gone up or not (I feel like it has, and need a morale boost).

(And there doesn't seem to be one other than the one you can attach to an activity)

My understanding (which I warm is basic at best) is that it's not an athlete level chart. Therefore only shows up under workouts.

You can obviously compare VAM between different workouts workouts, so that way you can compare how you've done on the same climb on different dates. I don't see how you can measure VAM over time in any other way though, as it's so dependent on conditions (climb length/gradient/etc). Sorry if I'm misunderstanding though.

Do you know about the WKO4 power group on Facebook? It's a great resource.

Yeah, you're probably right. I know my VAM tends to be around 1000 on any given climb (unless I'm really going for it) having had a quick look back on Strava, though that's only really climbs up to 15 minutes or so. See, in theory WKO4 could actually compare VAM and gradient, possibly even over a given period (it might need to be a month to provide anything meaningful though).

That might actually be a more useful comparison...

Although, I suppose it becomes meaningless when you consider that you don't smash it up every hill... or is that what meanmax accounts for? It does seem to be possible, expression is

meanmax((_elevation - shift(_elevation,1)) / deltatime * 3600)

Gives:

1 Attachment

I'd say it's meaningless unless all of that data came from the same climb. As you say, your mean max curve is what tells you what you have produced at every point in time. That's a far better measure of performance gains over time (assuming you have ridden at max effort for the durations you are interested in comparing).

If you are determined to use VAM, find a climb that you can test on repeatedly and just use those data Setswana create a chart (using tags).

Cheers. It's not really giving me anything that a meanmax power curve isn't giving me anyway, I just thought it might be interesting. VAM x gradient might be an interesting chart though, to see if there's a drop off anywhere. But then that wouldn't consider interval time... ah fuck it. I'm just bored waiting for my next uni semester to start so am filling my non-cycling time with nonsense.

Thought you were on your epic fixed gear inches

42X17 SS :)

I thought 32x17 SS was pretty hard! (29er)

I just re-tested and FTP went up by 18 watts so yes, I was pretty far under.

The ride I did the week before went from 197TSS to 188TSS when backdating in TP. Not as much as I had expected, probably because 30+ mins in Z5 and Z6. However the Z1/2 stuff already since my test has been significantly lower, as expected.

Did a quality hour on the turbo last night. It sucked. Well, bits of it were cool, but lots of it sucked.

I'm doing more and more on rollers. Informal intervals according to tracks on random playlist. I'd like to know how Spotify manage to unerringly give long funeral dirges for the interval and short upbeat numbers for the recovery.

I have Foobar2000 mp3 player with Random easily to hand for such situations.

Easier to just find 90min gabber set...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRkwG9f4SE

Can someone explain to me in nice cycle training bollocksy terms with lots of acronyms why it is that 2-3 days after a big 4-5 hour ride I feel like a beast on the bike?

super-compensation.