Originally Posted by
merlinextraligh
To me though, it seems mostly a curiosity, given that you can do a field test to actually set your training zones. At best, it would appear to be a tool to tell you it’s time to retest if the number is going significantly up or down
Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
The best indicator of performance is performance itself. All I can say. If you care about a power at a duration, go try it. Shrug.
FTP tests give you the best data (once you learn how to pace one) but they're hard and unpleasant, and take time to recover from. The AI FTP feature is (obviously and by necessity) less accurate than actually taking a test, but it doesn't wipe you out the same way either.
I take it as an opinion. I don't want to go take a new test every time my intervals start feeling too hard to easy. If I don't agree with the number it gives me, I ignore it and go on with my life. If I'm already kind of thinking the # I've been using is out of date and the Garmin says the same thing, I take it as I'm right and go from there.