Trainerroad

So, training has begun again. I've decided to keep my FTP where if was when I was fit back in December and just man up. So far so good and last night's under/overs was actually quite comfortable. It felt like my lungs were taking most of the strain and the legs felt strong.

Evening is definitely the time for me to do this and sleep came very easily afterwards.

. It felt like my lungs were taking most of the strain and the legs felt strong.

Complete opposite of me. Wanna swap?

tried 'a very dark place' this evening, didn't finish it but got over half way. the sufferfest vids definitely pass the time quicker

plus this one had almost tolerable music

Bike nerdery ahead.

My gsc-10 appears to be working ok. I have pressed the reset switch. I can hear a click when the wheel magnet goes past the sensor. I can see a light flash. I can see cadence and speed output on trainer road (my garmin 705 is in storage, my edge 200 cannot display these things).
However, while the cadence may stay (relatively) constant, the "power" is going up and down and lagging or not even registering.

I have 2 x rare earth magnets on the pedal and 1 x normal garmin wheel magnet.
I have tried no cadence on pedal and 1 x rare earth + normal wheel magnet on the wheel. The "power" is still going mental/not registering.

Any ideas?

The virtual power is calculated from the speed rather than cadence.

Is the speed constant?

It should be. My cadence is constant. However, the speed is clearly not being "received" constantly.
Magnet and receiver are very close.

cadence is measured a lot less frequently though than speed, so cadence may appear to be constant whilst speed fluctuates?

That's the bugger. Speed (or power, as I've not got the garmin on) is going up and down, freezing etc.

TR does not need an internet connection while you're "training" does it?

It doesn't need a connection during a session, just after so it can upload your data.

Re the power fluctuations, do you have power smoothing set to 3 seconds? If not the power figure will jump around a lot. BTW, the connection between my GSC-10 and Garmin dingle very occasionally drops out (maybe 3 times an hour) for a few seconds. How long does your power cut out for?

Will check power smoothing to 3 seconds. I use the suntoo mini movestick.

I did a session earlier that normally has me begging for mercy at the end. This time I hardly seemed to know I was doing it. I checked the power curve that was selected, the power setting on my turbo, and the other details on my 'career' and all seems in order.

I certainly haven't developed awesome power since I last did this workout. I did however find I was better entertained watching a load of highlights of recent pro-cycling and so the time flew by. Surely that can't make that much of a difference?

I think I've said it before, but for me the right music is worth 10-20 watts. So, good distractions are obviously a benefit.

Also, rested legs might have had a little something to do with it.

I normally have select tunes to power me through the hardest bits, but I find I just stare at the timer willing the interval to end. This time the spring classics had me pretty gripped.

Or perhaps it is just sudden awesome power

Into week 2 now and did an hour at sweet spot last night. Last week was solid over/unders and was hard work. Last night I spent an hour at sweet spot and wow, what a difference. My legs are fresh today and my body isn't begging to eat everything it can consume.

I know this will be obvious to most of you, I just didn't realise the difference those few % make.

I've agreed to do at least half an hour each day for "lent" or whatever. Trainerroad looks like the way to go.

I did a session earlier that normally has me begging for mercy at the end. This time I hardly seemed to know I was doing it. I checked the power curve that was selected, the power setting on my turbo, and the other details on my 'career' and all seems in order.

I certainly haven't developed awesome power since I last did this workout. I did however find I was better entertained watching a load of highlights of recent pro-cycling and so the time flew by. Surely that can't make that much of a difference?

Not according to recent studies, no.

Listening to music you like, however, does reduce RPE.

Or perhaps it is just sudden awesome power

Sometimes you are in better psychological state for the effort, sometimes physically more rested. It doesn't tend to be sudden jumps though, unless you were quite unfit to begin with.

^^ Hippy, what is RPE?

http://www.topendsports.com/testing/rpe.htm

As above. Those numbers that the Sufferfest vids put up on screen to tell you how hard to push. I never found them that useful, and if was a shock the first time I did a video through TR and realised what power I was supposed to be putting out. Made them much tougher.

I like how you seem to have become the trainerroad thread guru tom. What / where is 'sweet spot'? Just under FTP?

Just under breathing out of your ears.

90-95% FTP

Hard going, but sustainable. And more importantly for me at the moment it means I'm not fucked today, so works well with long hours in the edit.

I've never totally liked the percent FTP descrpition. Its useful post ride. But I struggle to relate to itwhile riding.

So I think of it more as interval time.

So your FTP is 60min pace.
I think of sweetspot as 30min pace.

I can feel what a 1min effort should feel like. What a 5 min effort should feel like etc. But I cant sit on a turbo and think 'hmmmmmm this is 88%FTP'.

You can look at your max powers for different interval lengths on TR, and compare them to your FTP to get back to %FTPs.

I've installed my power meter, and have tested it on a sufferfest vid via TR.

Its quite different to vitual power. I'm used to winding up the flywheel of the turbo during an interval. Then taking my foot off the gas just before the end, and letting the flywheel keep my power numbers ticking.

The powermeter sees right through this. So you notice how the flywheel/resistance combo of the turbo has been smoothing your power out. So I had to concentrate at being smoother.