How common is 300w for an hour?
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It's definitely not the heat for me and purely the difference in rolling resistance. I do not have a big flywheel and can only coast 3-4 seconds tops and that's hammering going downhill so I don't get any reprieve on the flats from inertial spikes at all.
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My understanding is that the math formula used to get your FTP from a 20 minute test is supposed to be representative of what you should be able to do over an hour. But It doesn't seem right to me. The last FTP test I did on Zwift, on rollers with a power tap hub I averaged 330 watts for 20 minutes. But there is no way I could hold 300 for an hour. I've done a few A races on Zwift and I'm like dying at 3.5kg/w and I'm looking at everyone else around me at 4.5 and 5kg/w and then just watch them ride away in the virtual distance.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
FTP was what you can hold until TTE, but for the most part people just adopted the hour model.
So its probably going to be somewhere in the range of .88 to .96
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My understanding is that the math formula used to get your FTP from a 20 minute test is supposed to be representative of what you should be able to do over an hour. But It doesn't seem right to me. The last FTP test I did on Zwift, on rollers with a power tap hub I averaged 330 watts for 20 minutes. But there is no way I could hold 300 for an hour. I've done a few A races on Zwift and I'm like dying at 3.5kg/w and I'm looking at everyone else around me at 4.5 and 5kg/w and then just watch them ride away in the virtual distance.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
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The 20 minute formula is wrong because it is variable for every person, and not just slightly variable. Some riders crack at 35 minutes (Time to Exhaustion, TTE), others can go 80 minutes at relatively the same pace. Those with shorter TTE tend to have more fast twitch so they can go faster for shorter periods of time. People do shorter tests because an hour all out is not only hard physically, its hard mentally and logistically as well. Its also a selling point. The Trainerroad test is laughably bad as it doesn't even test FTP, more your FRC or what you can do over FTP.
FTP was what you can hold until TTE, but for the most part people just adopted the hour model.
So its probably going to be somewhere in the range of .88 to .96
FTP was what you can hold until TTE, but for the most part people just adopted the hour model.
So its probably going to be somewhere in the range of .88 to .96
To be clear I'm here to post about my kid and those I know, not about me. But sure, I can hit 1,500W any time I want at near 60.
I still remember doing these tests in my 20s and sometimes in the sauna (longer story). The 20 min thing applies for a certain age and certain fitness.
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My understanding is that the math formula used to get your FTP from a 20 minute test is supposed to be representative of what you should be able to do over an hour. But It doesn't seem right to me. The last FTP test I did on Zwift, on rollers with a power tap hub I averaged 330 watts for 20 minutes. But there is no way I could hold 300 for an hour. I've done a few A races on Zwift and I'm like dying at 3.5kg/w and I'm looking at everyone else around me at 4.5 and 5kg/w and then just watch them ride away in the virtual distance.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
Perhaps doing a 20 minute test on the road would be more realistic IDK.
20 minutes tells you your 20 minute power. Want to get the most accurate FTP estimation, you need to actually do something in the 50-70 minute range
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I think it is pretty accurate for elite cyclists and pros. For others, it is useless. My peak power is 20% less what it was 30 years ago. My 20 min is depressing. My hour is tourist level.
To be clear I'm here to post about my kid and those I know, not about me. But sure, I can hit 1,500W any time I want at near 60.
I still remember doing these tests in my 20s and sometimes in the sauna (longer story). The 20 min thing applies for a certain age and certain fitness.
To be clear I'm here to post about my kid and those I know, not about me. But sure, I can hit 1,500W any time I want at near 60.
I still remember doing these tests in my 20s and sometimes in the sauna (longer story). The 20 min thing applies for a certain age and certain fitness.
The whole 20 minute test was NEVER about 20 minutes anyway; it was about a 5 minute blow out effort and THEN 20 minutes max and THEN using the .95 multiplier which provided an estimate that may or may not be particularly relevant to any particular person.
The 20 minute test needs to go far, far away. It really has little to do with anything other than what you can do for 20 minutes.
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No, it doesn't. Age and fitness really have nothing to do with it.
The whole 20 minute test was NEVER about 20 minutes anyway; it was about a 5 minute blow out effort and THEN 20 minutes max and THEN using the .95 multiplier which provided an estimate that may or may not be particularly relevant to any particular person.
The 20 minute test needs to go far, far away. It really has little to do with anything other than what you can do for 20 minutes.
The whole 20 minute test was NEVER about 20 minutes anyway; it was about a 5 minute blow out effort and THEN 20 minutes max and THEN using the .95 multiplier which provided an estimate that may or may not be particularly relevant to any particular person.
The 20 minute test needs to go far, far away. It really has little to do with anything other than what you can do for 20 minutes.
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No, it doesn't. Age and fitness really have nothing to do with it.
The whole 20 minute test was NEVER about 20 minutes anyway; it was about a 5 minute blow out effort and THEN 20 minutes max and THEN using the .95 multiplier which provided an estimate that may or may not be particularly relevant to any particular person.
The 20 minute test needs to go far, far away. It really has little to do with anything other than what you can do for 20 minutes.
The whole 20 minute test was NEVER about 20 minutes anyway; it was about a 5 minute blow out effort and THEN 20 minutes max and THEN using the .95 multiplier which provided an estimate that may or may not be particularly relevant to any particular person.
The 20 minute test needs to go far, far away. It really has little to do with anything other than what you can do for 20 minutes.
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Which makes it sort of funny to me that zwift uses a straight up 95% of the best 20 minutes in any ride as your FTP (and zwiftpower uses the average of your best 3 95% efforts) to determine your race classification. Now that Zwift owns zwiftpower, I'd love to see them go to using their race rankings to place people. Maybe use their made up FTP calculation to find a general starting cat for the first 10 races (not everyone needs to start out as a D if pack safety isn't an issue) and then switch over to race rankings after that.
The appeal of Zwift racing is that you can do it over and over at will without the time investment of driving, prepping, doing real races. But still get the fitness stimulus.
I say that to mean folks wouldn't on purpose only do two Zwift races a year to game a points system. In USAC you get Kona Ironman triathletes who never get mass start points who stay "novice" forever, but have 350w+ ftps winning TT's someitmes. But in Zwift, you're going to get those points and you're going to move up.
Points system in Zwift solves all the ills.
I think if they go points system they could program in auto "relegation" also so you don't lose fitness then suffer forever. Maybe have the points system do "relegations" once per quarter of the year.
So, if you're constantly suffering the bottom 10 to 20% of a race class, the quarterly relegation moves you from Cat 3 down to Cat 4.
Do Cats novice thru "pro" just like USAC. Then let race organizers choose the mix. Choose 4/5, 3/4/5, 2/3/4, P/1/2, P/1, 1/2/3, etc.......
If they did something with points.......I'd race again on Zwift. But the hit to my TSB to wreck myself simply sprinting, holding threshold for 40min, isn't any kind of stimulus I desire for fun.
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I think some way of letting people move down (rolling window of points in the last X number of races moves you down if you do poorly enough, points expire after a certain amount of time but only drop you to a floor set by your "FTP" or other power metric they calculate, etc), is key. Then, don't let racers pick their category but auto-assign them (or let them pick if they want to race up a category) but not down (they know how to do this because I can't enter women-only events). Sure, there'll still be people who figure out ways to game the system, but, if your goal in sandbagging is to win and winning moves you up, you've got to make a choice. I know some crafty guys who consistently get results way above their power (and others with lots of power who underperform). Rewarding guys who race strategically seems the right approach and should make races better in the long run.
There was a time when all the other stuff of travelling and waiting and that shared experience was a big part of things for me. Now that I'm older with kids and their commitments, I'm happy if I can just get up at 5:30 on a Saturday, get into a race by 6:30, and be done to eat breakfast with the kids by 8 so I can get on with my chores for the day. That'll especially be true if their sports ever start back up again.
There was a time when all the other stuff of travelling and waiting and that shared experience was a big part of things for me. Now that I'm older with kids and their commitments, I'm happy if I can just get up at 5:30 on a Saturday, get into a race by 6:30, and be done to eat breakfast with the kids by 8 so I can get on with my chores for the day. That'll especially be true if their sports ever start back up again.
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#161
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Check out this guy. This is by no means a competition TT effort as he obviously had help from traffic and it was only one way but still a remarkable feat none the less. His average power over 100 miles was only 270 watts.
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8866/...-under-3-hours
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8866/...-under-3-hours
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This topic is totally unnecessary, but got into a back and forth about this with some folks and wanted some more perspective. Your perception is often colored by the folks you hang around with. So, this may be the case and I may be 100% incorrect.
The disagreement was basically about how many people, thin or heavy, are tossing out 300+w as B racers in Zwift for anywhere from 20min to over 30min. 300w isn't very remarkable, at all. But I do feel it's less common than I'm being told to think it is.
I follow about 120 people on Strava. In the last few years I know of at least 40 of those who have done some kind of race. Be it a crit, TT, Ironman, road, endurance MTB, etc......Out of all of that entire list, only 5 or so have ever tossed 300w for even 20min. Not an hour. I know of 3 of those who've done it an hour. One an elite collegiate racer, one an out of contract domestic pro, one a Cat 1.
These folks were telling me that most every Cat 4 racer they know can do 300w for ftp. FTP would be 45 to 70min or so. I know exactly zero Cat 4 racers who can do 300w for 45min.
Am I totally in left field here? I thought the other day Rubik said he thought most 4/5's would struggle to do 210w for 3 hours for a Zone 2 ride? I tend to believe that.
If you could do 300w for 45min, you could ride away from a Cat 4/5 road race field around here on the 2nd lap and never look back.
The disagreement was basically about how many people, thin or heavy, are tossing out 300+w as B racers in Zwift for anywhere from 20min to over 30min. 300w isn't very remarkable, at all. But I do feel it's less common than I'm being told to think it is.
I follow about 120 people on Strava. In the last few years I know of at least 40 of those who have done some kind of race. Be it a crit, TT, Ironman, road, endurance MTB, etc......Out of all of that entire list, only 5 or so have ever tossed 300w for even 20min. Not an hour. I know of 3 of those who've done it an hour. One an elite collegiate racer, one an out of contract domestic pro, one a Cat 1.
These folks were telling me that most every Cat 4 racer they know can do 300w for ftp. FTP would be 45 to 70min or so. I know exactly zero Cat 4 racers who can do 300w for 45min.
Am I totally in left field here? I thought the other day Rubik said he thought most 4/5's would struggle to do 210w for 3 hours for a Zone 2 ride? I tend to believe that.
If you could do 300w for 45min, you could ride away from a Cat 4/5 road race field around here on the 2nd lap and never look back.
Having had a Computrainer multirider studio for around 10 years and running one of the largest teams in the Chicagoland area...it's not uncommon for us to have cat 4/5 racers whose ftp is over 300. Super depressing for me but not uncommon.
That said most of them do end up moving up to 3's shortly.
All of this in a vacuum without weight is interesting but kind of pointless imho but I am sure that's covered extensively in other comments.
I have also known pros that will win races with average power outputs for over an hour that is more in the 240-260 range. Good thing racing isn't just about power.
IIRC - "the guy" I got into racing whose brother was on Garmin and who raced in the olympics, etc. his off the shelf ftp from my first test with him was like 340. I have had many in the 320-350 range. Like I said though most upgrade. They also don't win everything. I have one guy in the 350ish range and I can't tell you any race he has won.
As for zwift - - I honestly think the best approach is just to suspend your disbelief and enjoy it as a game without ever really trying to compare anything from there to reality. Sure there's elements of truth to it but that's like saying car racing games have some things in them that are similar to real life car racing. Sure but they don't translate the same completely and really shouldn't be used to measure performance on. Especially without outside standards and certification of those standards.
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Which makes it sort of funny to me that zwift uses a straight up 95% of the best 20 minutes in any ride as your FTP (and zwiftpower uses the average of your best 3 95% efforts) to determine your race classification. Now that Zwift owns zwiftpower, I'd love to see them go to using their race rankings to place people. Maybe use their made up FTP calculation to find a general starting cat for the first 10 races (not everyone needs to start out as a D if pack safety isn't an issue) and then switch over to race rankings after that.
Point being - if Zwift used my best 20 minute performance in a race and I just happened to be using a calibrated trainer at the time then they very well could easily think my FTP was over 300. I can assure you it most definitely is not.
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My PowerTap G3 PM data shows my best 300w effort, on the road, was in 2016, for 6:25 (mins:secs), that same year my best true 60:00 effort was 259 watts at 3.2 w/kg. I was feeling confident in my fitness, so 1 year later, at age 45, I tried my first CAT5, and came in dead last out of ~40 riders. And that was the end of my racing career.
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My PowerTap G3 PM data shows my best 300w effort, on the road, was in 2016, for 6:25 (mins:secs), that same year my best true 60:00 effort was 259 watts at 3.2 w/kg. I was feeling confident in my fitness, so 1 year later, at age 45, I tried my first CAT5, and came in dead last out of ~40 riders. And that was the end of my racing career.
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The 20 minute formula is wrong because it is variable for every person, and not just slightly variable. Some riders crack at 35 minutes (Time to Exhaustion, TTE), others can go 80 minutes at relatively the same pace. Those with shorter TTE tend to have more fast twitch so they can go faster for shorter periods of time. People do shorter tests because an hour all out is not only hard physically, its hard mentally and logistically as well. Its also a selling point. The Trainerroad test is laughably bad as it doesn't even test FTP, more your FRC or what you can do over FTP.
FTP was what you can hold until TTE, but for the most part people just adopted the hour model.
So its probably going to be somewhere in the range of .88 to .96
FTP was what you can hold until TTE, but for the most part people just adopted the hour model.
So its probably going to be somewhere in the range of .88 to .96
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As a follow up to my last post, I do think that FTP can be broken when your testing is out of date, or just due to all the factors that have been mentioned in this thread; it's very subjective. The issue with training by KJs is that it's going to use your average watts over a whole ride. Would there be an "easy" way to get a minute by minute measure that would take into account more variable workouts, or does the average already do that?
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I used to laugh at my power files after crits. My ftp was easily in the 240-260 range but if I took a peak 20 minutes average from a race then it would have been 300+. Don't hold me to it but I could have sworn I had one race where I "averaged" 320 or so.... but I blew up about 25 minutes in. To quote Robby Ventura - "you have a monster anaerobic system and you're just burning the hell out of it to stay in the race. You have the aerobic system of a child." My power file would look like something off a seismograph during an earthquake.
Point being - if Zwift used my best 20 minute performance in a race and I just happened to be using a calibrated trainer at the time then they very well could easily think my FTP was over 300. I can assure you it most definitely is not.
Point being - if Zwift used my best 20 minute performance in a race and I just happened to be using a calibrated trainer at the time then they very well could easily think my FTP was over 300. I can assure you it most definitely is not.
USAC rankings work because there are a few new studs coming in all the time but the Cat 1s are already 1s (and the super strong new guys are spread out all over). With Zwift's pool of folks coming from all over the world, pretty much every race low level race would have outdoor 1s (or their equivalent) crushing it (at least for the first few years) if everyone started off with no points in a race rankings system.
Sure, there's got to be a better way to initially place people with no race history than 20 minute power, but I'm not sure what that'd be. Letting people move up OR down as their results indicate would be a big help too if that first estimate put you too high (or you got a new trainer, or took some time off, or got hurt or whatever) and I could totally see having that estimate put you 1 cat down from where most people with that power would typically race so you move up to your level faster (get some success on that first hit to get you hooked).
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A few observations:
If I do five minutes all out I can't move afterwards. Ergo, my FTP is around 75. I've adjusted my zones accordingly. Let's see how it works out.
Doge can hit 1500? Is this a CDR 1500? I've never hit anywhere close to 1500.
If I do five minutes all out I can't move afterwards. Ergo, my FTP is around 75. I've adjusted my zones accordingly. Let's see how it works out.
Doge can hit 1500? Is this a CDR 1500? I've never hit anywhere close to 1500.
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Yes the "all out" thing is a bit of a wild card. I just basically do a VO2 max interval first at a routine power (~115%).
As previously mentioned, the key letter in the FTP acronym if the first one IMO. I think the utility is mainly to establish training zones, not to understand what your power is at actual lactate threshold.
I'll bet that the 95% is an over-approximation for me. But knowing what I've learned anecdotally about myself as a rider, I can burn hotter at VO2-length efforts and recover quite quickly from being in the red, compared to what my (true) FTP would indicate. Both of those are more critical to most real world racing scenarios.
As previously mentioned, the key letter in the FTP acronym if the first one IMO. I think the utility is mainly to establish training zones, not to understand what your power is at actual lactate threshold.
I'll bet that the 95% is an over-approximation for me. But knowing what I've learned anecdotally about myself as a rider, I can burn hotter at VO2-length efforts and recover quite quickly from being in the red, compared to what my (true) FTP would indicate. Both of those are more critical to most real world racing scenarios.
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My indoor and outdoor numbers vary by almost nothing. In many cases I can definitely drop more power indoors than out.
I've gripped and ripped 20 minute tests and set zones for longer than most folks in this forum have been riding bikes. I have kits older than some of you. Testing straight 20 minutes and setting zones from there doesn't seem to have impacted my results over the years. To tmonks point, it's about setting zones for workouts. Test. Set your zones. Adjust accordingly as you succeed or fail at your workouts. It's winter, but unless you're calculating TSS for the hand wringing you're ******g up your CTL and recovery.
I've gripped and ripped 20 minute tests and set zones for longer than most folks in this forum have been riding bikes. I have kits older than some of you. Testing straight 20 minutes and setting zones from there doesn't seem to have impacted my results over the years. To tmonks point, it's about setting zones for workouts. Test. Set your zones. Adjust accordingly as you succeed or fail at your workouts. It's winter, but unless you're calculating TSS for the hand wringing you're ******g up your CTL and recovery.
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My PowerTap G3 PM data shows my best 300w effort, on the road, was in 2016, for 6:25 (mins:secs), that same year my best true 60:00 effort was 259 watts at 3.2 w/kg. I was feeling confident in my fitness, so 1 year later, at age 45, I tried my first CAT5, and came in dead last out of ~40 riders. And that was the end of my racing career.
Indoors I've done 305 up Epic KOM in Zwift at 4.3w/kg for 22min. Hour indoors I've done right at 265 on road bike at 3.6w/kg.
I'm nothing to write home about. Even as a 4/5. But the road race where I crashed, I was in a 3 person sprint for the win and we had 100 yards on the field with 200m to go. I'm not that bright of a racer either. So, if I can be in that position, you probably could also.
IMO, I just think in general if folks aren't a Cat 3 or faster or about to be a Cat 3 due to their points and power..........you don't have the aerobic engine or need for it to make nearly 300w for a whole hour.
I would love to since I do TT and regional TT's is a 25mi event. That's between 50 and 65min for most folks. So, I've tried to focus on that more (and my 1min thru 3min power has stagnated due to neglect).
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Check out this guy. This is by no means a competition TT effort as he obviously had help from traffic and it was only one way but still a remarkable feat none the less. His average power over 100 miles was only 270 watts.
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8866/...-under-3-hours
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/news/8866/...-under-3-hours
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Yes the "all out" thing is a bit of a wild card. I just basically do a VO2 max interval first at a routine power (~115%).
As previously mentioned, the key letter in the FTP acronym if the first one IMO. I think the utility is mainly to establish training zones, not to understand what your power is at actual lactate threshold.
I'll bet that the 95% is an over-approximation for me. But knowing what I've learned anecdotally about myself as a rider, I can burn hotter at VO2-length efforts and recover quite quickly from being in the red, compared to what my (true) FTP would indicate. Both of those are more critical to most real world racing scenarios.
As previously mentioned, the key letter in the FTP acronym if the first one IMO. I think the utility is mainly to establish training zones, not to understand what your power is at actual lactate threshold.
I'll bet that the 95% is an over-approximation for me. But knowing what I've learned anecdotally about myself as a rider, I can burn hotter at VO2-length efforts and recover quite quickly from being in the red, compared to what my (true) FTP would indicate. Both of those are more critical to most real world racing scenarios.
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