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Old 07-19-19, 12:18 PM
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Seattle Forrest
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Thanks for the suggestion. As I said in my OP, a test is not going to happen for at least a month. Meanwhile, if I'm going to upload to TP and Strava as I've been doing for years, and that will upload power too, from which TSS and everything else will be calculated. No more using hrTSS. Therefore I have to enter some FTP power number, and starting from a Strava estimate seems better to me that using whatever fool thing Strava inserts as a default.

I doubt that Strava would be that far off at estimating power on the steady, windless grades of 1000'-3000' I had last Sunday. If they are, they need to hire a physics major. Those numbers seem usable since I had 5 climbing PRs on that 115 mile ride. I'll see when I get out there and do a couple multi-thousand foot climbs next Thursday. I obviously won't be climbing at FTP on a 10 hour ride, rather in the middle to upper zone 3. Using HR, my hrTSS should be ~600, probably somewhat less using power.

I'll have to see what happens. At least that gives me something to go on while looking at power and estimating HR drift. Might keep me from overdoing it on the first big climb or unknowingly burning matches on the little rises during the 60 mile, 3000' run-in to the climbs.
But it's a different thing to estimate how much power you're using, vs how much you're capable of producing. Even with a direct force power meter it takes some work to nail down your FTP. You're right that the system demands a number, and maybe one Strava guess is better than another, I don't know. But I'd put a lot less stock in their FTP estimates.
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