burnthesheep

Even at 289 though, that's 11w shy and your closest ever actually doing it at 270 is a whole 30w shy.

It's easy to find folks doing it for 20min, totally agreed. But the hour is still rarer.

I'm similar for the taper as yours. Almost identical. My best actual hour is a hair lower and best actual 90min a hair higher.

I just think the preparation and "cost" to do an actual all our hour is also a severely limiting factor. Folks could, but they'd have to do a couple weeks of preparatory workouts and a proper preparatory taper. Then actually have the mental fortitude to do 100% for a whole hour.

I've done some Strava TT training at 100% on the TT bike longer than 20min for like 25, 30, 35min and that still isn't the same as a full hour. The prep, cost, mental, is just soooooo out there. Which is why the hour record is fascinating to me. Lots of kudos always goes to the cool aero tech and prep, or the huge watts, but not necessarily the technical physiological and mental preparation for such a thing. The aero tech sells stuff, the mental stuff people find boring or exhausting.