Rides4Beer

Had my first ride yesterday at the cycle gym that I have access to. Stages stationary bikes with powermeters. Just got on it, set some tension and rode for an hour and a half, felt like a decent workout. Not sure how often I'll be in there, whenever the weather is too crappy (I'll be there again tonight lol). Just wondering if it's better to do some sort of structured workout, or just go moderate/hard for 1.5-2 hours? I don't do any structured workouts when I ride outside, just try to keep my volume up, go hard on some fun sections of my usual loop, and usually do 1-2 A group rides a week (usually have some sprint zones and I do a fair amount of pulling). Still fairly new to the bike, I've been riding for a lil over a year, so I think just keeping my volume up has been good so far.

Hermes

I like the Stages bike a lot and use it the gym for warmup before strength training.

With respect to structured workouts indoors, that is all I do. Granted, I live in SoCal so generally, I can ride outside all year long. Recently, we had some rain and I did two trainer workouts back to back. 3x(2' on, 3' off, 1' on, 2' off, 2' on) 10' RBI. The "on" segment is VO2 max power or more. The next day was 2 sets of 3x(2' z1, 1' z2, 1' z3, 30" z4, 1' z2, 1'z3) 10' rest between sets.

I did the second workout using only one gear. So I set the Z1 power at around recovery just below z2 and the cadence at 75 rpm. Then I increased cadence during the different z levels such that z4 was around 105 rpm. One can set this up anyway that makes sense. On the Stages bike, you can set the tension at 75 rpm to get a certain power level and the increase and decrease cadence or hold cadence constant and increase or decrease the tension to change power.

So there are a couple of ideas for you. There are an infinite number of ways to set up structured workouts. I like breaking up the time into segments with different power levels and cadence levels as it seems to make the time go fast. Also, the intervals I have described are not easy. Have fun with the Stages bike.

I am not sure which is better i.e. structured or constant other than we need both to progress.

Carbonfiberboy 

My first couple years of actual bike training I did a lot of hard steady-state on spin bikes before I got my resistance rollers. I remember a little boy coming over once and asking if I was all right. No, I was not all right, I was out of my frigging head, but then I've always been. Now I do most of my indoor steady state at VT1 and otherwise various intervals. Outdoors I ride about like the OP. Not structured per se, but very conscious of my zones and wanting a particular distribution of time-in-zone. I upload everything I do.

jadocs

You averaged 272 watts and sustained an average of over 24mph for 90 minutes? That's pretty beastly.

Anyway, look up "sweet spot" training. That's what I have been doing with my limited time and it has been paying dividends.

Rides4Beer

The model we have also has the three position lever on the tension knob, not sure what the amount of increase is, but it def gets harder when you flip that lever. I had no idea what to set it to, so I just turned the knob until I felt some reasonable resistance and started pedaling. lol I guess I'd have to figure out my FTP to use zones and all that. But it would probably help to do some structured intervals.


I found when running that I don't do well with a ton of structure (I could never stick to a marathon training plan, I just wanted to run lol), so I don't get too crazy with the data with cycling, but some intervals would probably be good. I've done well on the bike my first year, so it would be nice to see some improvements over the winter and come out even stronger in the spring. I do upload everything to Strava to track it, and didn't realize last night that I can probably connect my Wahoo and have it upload automatically instead of entering the gym ride as a manual workout.


Thanks, former ultra runner, so I brought a decent aerobic engine to the bike game (it was supposed to be cross training for my running, but kind of took over lol). From what I just read on sweet spot training, I think that's what I did last night. I'd call it a moderate/hard effort, not all out, hard but sustainable.

Even if the weather is decent, I could throw in a couple of gym rides each week, maybe one interval ride and one sweet spot ride.

caloso

I think indoor really lends itself to structure. You can just warm up and unlike outside you don't have to worry about traffic or road conditions or wind or dogs or whether you run out of room on your route to complete your interval. So even on Zwift, which is meant to pretend like it's an outdoor ride, I'll usually do structured workouts.

Rides4Beer

Oh, for FTP, seems like most people do the 20min x .95 method? Probably hard to determine how to pace an "all out" effort for a full hour. I'm guessing there would be a fair amount of fade towards the end.

caloso

There's a lot of debate about the 20min test and what it really represents, but it's good enough for me to set my training wattages.

jadocs

IMO only, the tricky thing with 20 min x .95 tests are that they usually only fairly accurate when someone has the gas tank for 1hr all out efforts. In other words someone who is only used to going all out for short periods of time with recoveries would not be able to sustain the FTP calculated from a 20 min test for an hour. So in those cases, my opinion is that 20 min tests can be overly generous. I do my FTP test for one hour on the road, because if I can't do it on the bike outside for one hour where it counts, it doesn't matter what I get on a trainer.

You definitely need to do a FTP test because sweet spot training is between 84%-97% of FTP, so you have to know what it is. If you sustained 272 for 90 min, your FTP should be over 300.

Rides4Beer

I don't have power on either of my bikes (yet), so I'll have to do it on the gym bike. Guess I could try it for an hour and see how it goes. Or maybe do a 20min test to get an idea of a target, and then see if I can hold it for an hour on another day.

Hermes

I use the lowest lever setting on the Stages bike and crank up the tension. I have not done any sprint efforts so maybe I would use the lever to increase tension for those.

An FTP test indoors at the gym without a fan will be brutal and due to the buildup in heat not very accurate.

I suggest a numerical method. Just guess an FTP. Based upon your current numbers use 300 watts. Set your zones and try some workouts. Your Vo2max or 5 minute effort will then be 330 watts. If 330 watts for a set of 4x5’ seems to hard, lower the FTP. You will find an FTP that works without subjecting yourself to a test. But, hey if you want to do a test, knock yourself out. It is all good.

Rides4Beer

Luckily this is a small gym and you can control the thermostat. Had it on 56* with the ceiling fans going, wasn't too bad. I did have a pretty good pool of sweat after 90mins, but I sweat a lot. lol I think it would be bearable for 20mins all out.

Didn't think about it yesterday, but do you do a calibration/reset before you ride on a Stages bike? I know most people that use power on their bikes do it before they go ride.

hubcyclist

you should def calibrate the stages every time and if the gym has more than one use the same one as much as you can. I go to a gym with stages bikes whenever I travel to my in laws and I take these steps (I always leave kind of questioning the meters anyway but it’s good enough)

Rides4Beer

Thanks, I'll make sure to do that tonight, seems pretty simple. There's six or seven bikes in there, but there's not usually anyone in there so I should be able to get the same bike. I also need to make note of my fit settings, forgot to see what I had set the seat height at, but it was comfortable.

Rides4Beer

Skipped last night, decided to rest and do an FTP test this morning. Made sure the pm was calibrated, did a 20min warmup and a 20min FTP effort. Averaged 353w for 20mins, was at around 342 for the first 10mins, then picked it up a bit, so maybe higher with a more even effort, altho I did feel pretty much tapped out those last 3-4mins. But I'm also reading that it can be tough to nail an FTP effort. How often do you guys test, monthly, quarterly?

So using the .95 method, FTP is 335w, w/kg is 4.1. It'll be interesting to see what I can do over the winter, now that I have some baseline metrics.

Hermes

@Rides4Beer Gonzo effort and indoors to boot. I derate my indoor workouts because I find them harder than the outside. I race time trials here and there so I do not "test" for FTP and use the results of races and other efforts to set FTP for training purposes.

Rides4Beer

Thanks! I turned the fans on high and it was 55* in the gym, but I was still drenched! lol It'll be fun just to have something to keep me focused over the winter. My club does a TT series from May-Aug, looking forward to seeing how it goes next summer. Won't be direct comparison, this past summer I did it on an aero bike with clip-ons and aero kit, next summer I'll just do the Merckx class on a different road bike with no aero equipment. But maybe I can go faster with less aero? lol

Hermes

Join us in the 33 road racing forum. There is a sticky at the top of the forum for time trials / position. I have done a lot of aero testing at the indoor velodrome so if I can help let me know.

In general, aero position trumps power but each athlete has a sweet spot position where aero and power are optimized.

MoAlpha

I agree. You need some sort of objective benchmark to calibrate training, but it doesn't necessarily have to be 20 min power. However, FTP is particularly useful for estimating the training load of workouts. Also, if you do enough indoor training with power and HR and you can record the data on your phone, you can construct a model relating your HR to power across the range (it's amazingly linear) and then use HR to get an accurate estimate of training load outdoors. The Intervals.icu app will do this for you.

Rides4Beer

I'll check it out, thanks. There was definitely a noticeable improvement with the aero bars, but the new bike can't run clip-ons and I prob won't pick up a TT rig for a handful of races each year. But I can def keep working on my position on the road bike, and my power.