Ygduf

not saying you're wrong, but I recently moved to osymetric rings on my tt bike and had this happen: https://www.strava.com/segments/3221...w1ODY2MzE4MTY5

that's the comparison of my 2 best efforts. one from Jan 13th and Feb 4th, 3 weeks apart. Latter was on the osymetrics. weather was the same/very similar for both efforts, same equipment/position both times too. Only change was 3 weeks and the rings.

tl:dr I'm kind of a believer now.

echappist

weather was not similar. On the day you went faster, the wind was blowing at ~12 mph as opposed to 5 mph on the day you went slower, though wind direction was the same. On the headwind section, you actually went 1mph slower despite pushing out 25 more watts. More telling is that whereas on the low wind day you were able to coast down the hill at the beginning, you weren't able to do so on the windier day.

hardly conclusive

Weather History for Palo Alto, CA | Weather Underground
Weather History for Palo Alto, CA | Weather Underground

mattm

busted

Ygduf

Maybe the weather is more different than I remember, but those links are for the wrong town and also list wind speeds of 4mph/gusts 9 and 6mph/gusts 12 from roughly the same direction.

*oic hourly wind. still the wrong town!

e.g. can't find an almanac value for portola valley, but for today portola valley is 1mph/still wind and palo alto airport is 5mph. it's on the water vs. in a valley inland.

Hermes

I am getting a new power meter with oval rings as soon as the Germans decide to make it for me.

furiousferret

fudgy is the Brian Williams of weather.

Ygduf

to the best of my recollections

furiousferret

It also scares me that echappist does this much research, hopefully it is just limited to Cat 1s.

Ygduf

then I should be excluded!

I don't know why he looked into it to that depth, but obv I wouldn't have bought the rings if I didn't believe they could help reduce a weakness for me. I'm biased to believe in them, but I'd be interested to hear opinions on how they could not help. I view it like crank-length/ better mechanical advantage? It's not "free power" as I can generate more power still on the other bike, but they do seem to reduce the hurt in the pinch at the top of the pedal stroke.

gsteinb

my unscientific old man view is that if there was anything to it biopace would have stuck around

echappist

when one doesn't have that much power, one needs to pay attention to the smaller details such as winds, etc.

my contention is merely that one couldn't know more power was generated based solely on comparison of rides from different days. And even more power was generated, it would be hard to attribute the gains to the rings, per se, vs getting stronger due to 3 more weeks of training.

I think someone should do a study where an external, downstream PM is used in conjunction with the the oval rings to determine if there's indeed any difference

Wesley36

Le sigh. My PT G3 has been giving offset readings quite consistently around 440 - it has come to my attention that it should be in the range of 512, and this indicates a problem. It appears like I will be taken care of in terms of warranty, and it is better that it happens now rather than later in the season, but still, vexing.

Altho, it would be a bit of a boost if it turns out that my power has been reading low for the past few months, I suppose.

Ygduf

if the offset is consistent...

Wesley36

I know, right? The PT rep that I talked to definitely thought it was a problem tho.

Ygduf

440 to 512 doesn't seem like much of a stretch either. do you have issues with the numbers not matching PE or trending inexplicably up/down?

I mean, I dunno, I just hate shipping stuff so much.

cmh

Do you read zero watts when you are coasting for short periods? I had offset issues with my PT that I found when I was having my best ever 20' test in the whole wide world then glanced down afterwards and saw that it was reading ~30W when I was coasting... I'm still not quite over the heartbreak. I don't recall what the offset was reading when it was off but I recall it being consistent, just not in the correct range.

You will doubt every power reading that doesn't align with your PE until you send it back for a check up, so you might as well do it right away.

revchuck 

Go ahead and get it taken care of now, so that it's fixed when the weather fairs up.

Wesley36

Riding the rollers until the snow clears up, so no coasting for me.

carpediemracing 

Question, I have yo do a 5 min max test. What % ftp shpuld i target? Keep forgetting to Google off the nbike, it's beyond me to do it well on the trainer.

Wesley36

120% - VO2Max - roughly 5 - 8 min, the range is ~110-120% of FTP, if memory serves

carpediemracing 

Thanks. Just downloading stuff now, 241w@5m and I was mentally fried. I thought for sure I could do 280w but had to keep soft pedaling.

Based on 220w I should target 265w on the high level. Will be doing an FTP test in a couple weeks and in every other 20 min test I've skipped the 5 min pre-effort effort because too hard but now I need to do it.

I have no idea how I'm going to do the 20 min after doing the 5 min.

mike868y

^who are you and what have you done with aki?

carpediemracing 

^ ha

My 220w FTP number was based on not doing the 5 min pre-test effort. Should be interesting to see what happens with my FTP number.

Wylde06

Is the 5 minute effort before the 20 minute test absolutely necessary? My 20 minute testing spot is a 40-45 minute ride from my front door so I just use that as a good warmup, with maybe a couple of efforts..pretty sure iv'e only done the 5 minute effort one time and that my first test.

carpediemracing 

I don't know but I agreed to participate in a study and part of the protocol is doing the 5 min before the 20. My understanding is that the 5 min gets some non-aerobic stuff used up (stores in the muscles? not sure) and makes the 20 min more honest. Without the 5 min pre-effort the rider can cheat a bit and delay the fatigue for a bit in the 20 min. I think that's true since without the 5 min I can go a few minutes in before really feeling like it's hard. When I've done some efforts prior to the 20 min I've always given up before completing the 20 min. The FTP tests I've completed have all come after a 20-30 min easy peasy warm up and straight into the 20 min effort. Most/all of my FTP test rides end after the FTP test, I don't feel like riding beyond the test.