Enthalpic

Iirc a "halfpipe" type course is best for aero testing - you can get a wide range of speeds at a fairly constant power which helps tease out the coefficients.

mattm

Tried, but failed, to leave work early. Got on the road at 5, did two hours total, about half of it in the dark.

At one point it hit 34 according to my Garmin! Wtf.

Forgot how annoying riding in the dark is.. I have a good light but it's still annoying, especially when it's cold.

furiousferret

Got a new toy. An Elite Direto Trainer. Played around with erg mode a bit and rode for about 90 minutes. It should help with longer intervals and recovery rides, but there's a good chance its going to collect dust once it warms up.

I really like Direct Drive, but the cassette isn't aligned and doesn't shift into the top cog. Its going to be a PITA getting my CX bike and my wifes bike aligned so everything shifts smoothly.

Even though its my birthday present (which technically doesn't exist this year) I also got it because my wife wants to start riding again.

rubiksoval

WKO4 gives me the number. I just try to average about 10 w over that. Then there's another nifty chart that uses a rolling average at specific percentage of vo2 max and totals up the time.

Last year I always did the typical 115-118% of ftp, but it didn't seem to actually change my 3-8 min power at all. Then I realized wko4 was putting my vo2max power way higher. Hoping this will actually raise 5 min power quite a bit more. If how hard they are to pull off is any indication, it should.

Ygduf

use erg mode, don't shift, and just find whichever cog makes the least noise. there is no reason to shift with erg mode.

caloso

I was debating on whether to wear my normal gloves or my super warm but so bulky I can barely shift ski gloves. Went with the former and regretted it. Hands finally stopped hurting 10 minutes into the post-ride shower.

hubcyclist

easy z2 today for 60mins with 4x20sec "sprints" at ~500w

So on a whim I installed wko4 on my pc and imported data, it's mftp estimate is 294, whereas my set training ftp is 280. now I'm all for vanity ftp, but i'm having a hard time buying it, trying to find out what might have caused it to go up, as my best 60min NP in the past year is 266. I may very well die if I tried some of the recent stuff I did based on a 294 ftp lol

edit: I just pulled up the power duration chart and it's saying mftp is 286w, much more normal, still not sure where the 294 in the header area is coming from. seems like something I can ignore lol

edit to the edit: as it turns out, there was a singular 1600w spike that contributed to skewing my data. without it my modeled ftp is 270

TMonk

I have some cotton knit gloves that are comfy, light and just great but not enough when it's sub 45 F or so, which is has been a lot lately in the mornings in San Diego. WTF!!!

Needless to say my bulky gloves have been seeing a lot of use which I just hate because they're so cumbersome. At least I feel like I'm getting my money's worth. Same with my fleece lined tights.

TMonk

Rode for 90 min on my fixie road bike this morning, 42/15t, a bit over an hr of high z3 (by HR). Legs a bit sore from yesterday's VO2 workout so it was tough when my cadence bogged down, but generally good.

Remaining week schedule:

Th: 1 hr MTB trail commute to work, 30 min ride on roads back home after
F: Off
S: 2-2.5 hrs Chili's group ride
Su: 5 hr z2 ride

Ygduf

add 5 watts, remove 5 seconds. 16:53 @ 422w. Headwind and cold af today, should have been ~10s faster I figure.

TheKillerPenguin

My legs seem to be really good, and it's been making me paranoid about my power meter. I've stopped to zero it multiple times on like every ride I've done the past week. I've removed the cassette freehub and went to town on the bearings to make sure crappy rolling wasn't creating wonky torque readings. I've called saris twice with different questions RE: needing servicing and they're like "nah it's fine dude". Not to mention comparing strava segments against old times, which is super ridiculous this time of year because I'm always wearing a puffy pearl izumi fred jacket.

The plus side is my bike is super smooth and quiet right now. Silver lining to the paranoia is I'm actually doing bike maintenance!

Ygduf

this is weird impostor-syndrome **** but I do it too.

I actually think my data from october-november 2015 is bad. CA lets me run the power of like, today's ride, on a graph vs. all-time or year by year. Power today is better than 2017 by 1 watt, better than 2016 by 3 watts, but is 20w lower than the duration in those few months of 2015. I was fast, but not like, THAT fast that year.

TheKillerPenguin

Ha, glad to know I'm not the only one! I'm going to use my other powertap for a bit just to make sure. I usually use it inside, and the numbers on that one usually gel with the one I use outside. Hopefully that gets me to chill out.

Ttoc6

Forgot to take pics of my tt position today during the recovery ride, but the position is much more comfortable. Was able to hold the position much easier, and my eye test says it should be faster. When it warms up, I look forward to testing it out for some data.

rubiksoval

Yep, once you start playing with it, you start seeing how ALL parts of the curve have an impact on different things.

My mFTP "went up" 8 watts last weekend because I did a few hard sprints and hit a 100+ watt pmax improvement in the last 90 days. Really needs up-to-date and accurate data to be...accurate. That's kind of irritating in the winter time, especially since it requires recent data within the last 90 days all year-round. And even more so since I don't really do testing that well/much.

Helps to have a good feel for what you're capable of/have done/can do when taking those numbers absent of race/max effort rides.

Ygduf

I use the kickr sometimes to run power side by side. was ~1w different last time I did that.

Hermes

Tuesday, Mount Soledad 4x5 minute VO2 efforts and yesterday Fiesta Island - sprinters warmup plus two jumps then 20 minutes low cadence intervals in the drops followed by 20 minutes of tempo.

caloso

Rode the trainer in the garage. Zwift kept locking up and never uploaded what I actually did. Oh well. Still better than nothing.

hubcyclist

2hrs with 6x8 @ 102% followed by some 65% rode in a zwift race while trainerroad did the usual erg duty, finished last in the B group lol

furiousferret

Stages power is reading 9-15 watts less than Direto power. I suspected as much, and some of that is from favoring my left leg but even with that its probably off a few watts. Curious to see how the Vectors match up. Since Elite uses friggin laserbeams* attached to their heads its supposed to be very accurate, so I'm using that as a baseline.

Been taking it easy because of the hamstring. It doesn't hurt but is tight so I don't think its more than a grade 1 strain.

*found out its optical but theres no cool phrases for that.

Ygduf

I don't know which thread this best fits in, but man, is this ever me.

https://www.outsideonline.com/228463...-big-breakfast

Ttoc6

Check in the zwift folder in your /documents/ directory. You probably have at least a partial ride there.

Today's workout was a fun one. Came into it thinking it was gonna be hard, but got over the mental barrier. Workout was 3 by this weird reverse pyramid 115% (2min) - 105%(2.5min)- 95%(3min) - 105%(2.5min) - 115%(2min) with only 30 seconds between interval and 10 minutes between set. I like these lots of rest, but hard workouts, very satisfying to hit big numbers.

Ttoc6

Hmm. This might be something I experiment with. I currently eat pretty small bfast, lunch and then a fast snack when I get home as I hop on the bike after work. I fuel during the workout if I have to. Then I eat a pretty big dinner afterwards. From a top down view, this doesn't make much sense in terms of getting energy to the body when I need it.

This article does help justify the 6 pancakes + eggs, bacon and hashbrowns I had for breakfast at work today, though . (Management cooked the whole site breakfast and I'm really bad at turning down free food....)

aaronmcd

I couldn't live without a big breakfast. But... it seems adding more protein to my cereal and milk might do me some good.

TMonk

The big breakfast thing is great, but what if you train first thing in the morning routinely, dawn patrol style?

Have a big breakfast afterward?