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THE FUCKING POWER METER THREAD

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I remain very much anaerobically overpowered. Or aerobically underpowered, on the flip side. From a pseudo-Wingate test today, seated max effort x 30 seconds after an easy warmup more or less:

14D22C1B-CFEE-4F4C-B3CF-B4E03F10C8A4.jpeg


The 10s curve was standing, for comparison. Had to manually parse the xml to extract second by second data:

92B08E06-D170-48EF-853D-1974D8E03EF5.jpeg



From the 30s run:
30s avg power 811W
15s 937W
10s 993W
5s 1047W

10s run:
10s 1112W
5s 1232W

As context what would be expected of me at my age, weight, and measured VO2max would be 500-650W per Alan Couzens’ site’s calculator. 811W is Kona qualifier level, but Kona qualifiers pushing that would be expected to have sky high VO2max and Z2 power in the mid 300W range. I’m perhaps 160-170W for that now, not even in the same zip code.

From this I conclude that I do not need to hit the squat rack but instead need to continue to spin away volume at Z1/2 paces, entirely aerobic.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
6E1CACA3-B22F-4566-B08D-46D7D01F3880.jpeg


after my last short block of riding today. Got 95 minutes in, in 15-30 min chunks. Last work block was at 145W so I’m quite happy with this lactate.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
impromptu FTP test to kick off a new training block starting monday. I was doing awesome last time until COVID stole my lunch. Currently sitting at 215w, was at 245 before starting my first build block, so it was probably quite a bit higher right before I got sick.



will start with z2, rowing, and weights, move to z2 and weights, then z2/sweet spot again, followed by build for FTP and build for sprint/4m power.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Spotted a cheap secondhand Quarq PM that was the right model for my SRAM Red cranks on ebay this morning. They're not available new anymore and don't come up for sale too often.

Forgot to bid before I went out for a road ride, it finished at a low price while I was out :(
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
After a work block at 150W, 126-132 bpm or so.

View attachment 183957

Dat low lactate life yo
I'm much less metabolically efficient walking than pedaling, it appears. From my exciting Friday night on the new treadmill:







A little noisy in the linear section (and had dinner/did kid bedtime in between 3.3 and 3.4 mph segments to boot as a further confounder), but my on-foot LT1 is at 3.6 mph @ 118 bpm, fast walking.

Walking was more or less comfortable at all of these paces until 4.0 mph. Then I switched into a slow jog. Not a tremendous increase in the lactate curve slope there but certainly that prompted a big HR bump for the increment in speed.

What I take from tonight's data is:

- I should be just straight up walk-walking, not run-walking of any ratio
- aiming for a pace that gets me to ~115 bpm but no faster is a safe bet to stay on the nice, flat area of the lactate curve (in contrast to the quoted post from being on the bike, where I can push to near 130 bpm and still have low lactate)
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Can't work out if the Quarq Dzero DUB PM will fit on my SRAM Red 22 Etap BB386EVO crankset. Most information seems to imply no, but a thread on weightweenies said it would...

Or there's a Sigeyi, which I actually like more because it's rechargeable but it's currently $100 more than a gamble on the Quarq.

edit: Hey @Jm_ I know you've done a bunch of spindle swapping before. Any idea if the spline size is the same on a 30mm SRAM axle compared to a 28.99mm DUB axle?

edit2: Sounds like the DUB Dzero spider has 1mm of extra offset versus the older non-DUB Dzero spider to account for BB difference. So it would work with the FD trimmed out slightly...
 
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Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes

As somebody who owns multiple power meters, I wouldn’t bother with anything other than power pedals. No drivetrain loss, easily transferable to multiple bikes, rechargeable, easy to calibrate or send off for repair.SRAM killed my chainring power meter and now I have no way to update firmware nor to calibrate it other than also running powerpedals and seeing what the difference is. SRAM is the Google of bikes, good ideas then abandoned for no reason.


 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Mine is the BB386EVO version with removable spider, not those in the above link which are integrated spider.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054

As somebody who owns multiple power meters, I wouldn’t bother with anything other than power pedals. No drivetrain loss, easily transferable to multiple bikes, rechargeable, easy to calibrate or send off for repair.SRAM killed my chainring power meter and now I have no way to update firmware nor to calibrate it other than also running powerpedals and seeing what the difference is. SRAM is the Google of bikes, good ideas then abandoned for no reason.


Considered the Favero heavily, but then I'd also need to swap the pedals on my trainer bike, so I'd be at $700ish. Brand new Quarq DZero DUB just cost me $230ish from Backcountry.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
I am so confused...so you bought a power meter?

And why do you need two sets of power pedals if you can swap them between bikes? At worst you would need a set of assiomas and another set of LOOK keo compatible pedals, which would be as low as $25. If you had two sets of pedals, you would have two power meters as well. I'm so confused. Anyways, it sounds like you have a solution?
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I bought some power meter pedals, Garmin Rally XC200s (native SPD support without hacking pedal bodies!). Picked them up today from REI having bought them on a whim with the 20% discount code and am going to return them tomorrow.

For context, I connected them to my Apple Watch via BLE and the WorkOutDoors 3rd party app. I got some data with large dropouts but mostly present during testing on the Peloton. Then I mounted them up on my Pivot Shuttle and went for an outdoor ride… and got just complete garbage data.

They may well be much more reliable when using ANT+ but I don't want to switch away from the Apple Watch ecosystem (no, the new Ultra doesn't do ANT+ either) so don't want a Fenix 7X or Enduro 2, and I don't want to deal with a headunit.

Anyway, the only really useful data I grabbed were of spot checks between the Bike+'s internal power meter (recall that DCRainmaker tested it and it's quite accurate vs other power meters per him) a la this:





At a robust sprint (so both hands on bars, no photo) the Bike+ logged 1,221W and the pedals logged 1,274W so seems to hold up at the high end fairly well, but again those data were just rife with dropouts indoors and completely useless from the outdoor ride.

Said useless data, mostly logged as 0W despite having checked that the pedals were connected to the app before and even once during the ride:

 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Been throwing some seated 6s and 30s sprints into my otherwise steady state after warmup spins.

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Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
Thinking about a used kickr bike because I am stupid and there’s one for 1000. I can probably sell my trainer and trainer bike for 7-800. I’m not in love with the trainer I have
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Bolted on my PM to the road bike this morning. Hopefully give it a test tomorrow or Saturday.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Fun to get out and use it today, first time I've ever ridden outdoors with power versus indoors on my Kickr Core.

194W NP for the 3 hours was probably slightly higher than I would have expected :)
 

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,860
4,154
Copenhagen, Denmark
Also now in the 50s like I am it’s really now you have to fight to keep the strength but you actually can do pretty good if you try that is motivating.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Repeat lactate test day. No real change since September. I shall continue to put time in at 110-120W for easy days, 140-150W for harder days.



(baseline lactate was 1.7 mmol/l before starting out)

Also did 6s and 30s seated sprints, which came back with average power over those intervals of 1,161W and 745W. Felt like death during the last 10 seconds of the 30s seated sprint.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Added some HIIT intervals and a 30s seated basically critical power interval to my baseline easy spin tonight. That 30s felt like death for basically its second half.

45DE04FF-871A-4BC4-A672-779E519B02E2.jpeg
 
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6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Haven't done a truly hard effort for a while, so in true @Toshi style after an hour of zone 2 last night I blasted up the final climb in about 250W average for the 18 mins it took me. I'd have liked a full 20 minute effort and the couple of little downhills in there lowered the recorded average. But that means my FTP is about where it was before COVID tried to kill me last July ~250ish if I were at sea level.

I just need my knees to not be effed up so I can put in the training I'd like to be doing. I'd love to get closer to 300.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
I just need my knees to not be effed up so I can put in the training I'd like to be doing. I'd love to get closer to 300.
same girl, same. I have been coughing for a week just as I wanted to ramp up sweet spot training. Felt great doing it then caught the plague.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Haven't done a truly hard effort for a while, so in true @Toshi style after an hour of zone 2 last night I blasted up the final climb in about 250W average for the 18 mins it took me. I'd have liked a full 20 minute effort and the couple of little downhills in there lowered the recorded average. But that means my FTP is about where it was before COVID tried to kill me last July ~250ish if I were at sea level.

I just need my knees to not be effed up so I can put in the training I'd like to be doing. I'd love to get closer to 300.
Your ability to push ~200W for hours aerobically is a much more useful skill! FTP is kinda stupid. LT1 is life.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
Your ability to push ~200W for hours aerobically is a much more useful skill! FTP is kinda stupid. LT1 is life.
You have to open the taps every now and then though, just zone 2 won't increase your speed. Top end of my zone 2 is ~170W.

If you haven't watched, this is a good follow up to other stuff they've put out.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I have not watched that. shall do so. Inigo follows me on twitter! perhaps only as a tip of the hat to a fellow U of CO faculty member :D
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
13,054
I have not watched that. shall do so. Inigo follows me on twitter! perhaps only as a tip of the hat to a fellow U of CO faculty member :D
S will be impressed, she's a fan of the stuff we've watched with him.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
45 min aiming for 128-130 bpm for the first half, allowing some small drift in the latter bit. 152W over that period, 1.4 mmol/l. I will take that: still on the flat part of the lactate curve even though perceived effort is getting up there to at least a 4/10.

 

Flo33

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2015
2,057
1,298
Styria
You have to open the taps every now and then though, just zone 2 won't increase your speed. Top end of my zone 2 is ~170W.

If you haven't watched, this is a good follow up to other stuff they've put out.
GCN a bit late as always.

Here's a 180 min - don't know what's that in Freedum units - long podcast with Iñigo


And there's even more:



Very worthy listening.

And yes, I have a Power2Max frikkin power meter on my roadbike :banana:
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,225
20,003
Sleazattle
Was feeling a little punchy today and Zwift informed me that my FTP bumped up to 250watts. That feels pretty good considering that was where I was 15 years ago, however that was also 30 lbs ago.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Was feeling a little punchy today and Zwift informed me that my FTP bumped up to 250watts. That feels pretty good considering that was where I was 15 years ago, however that was also 30 lbs ago.
You should verify that estimate by doing a full 60 min at 250W then.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
BDDC5013-662D-4946-8DC6-ACEF6641AFE9.jpeg


one week until VO2 / lactate testing. Adding in some intensity. It shall be painful indeed.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,225
20,003
Sleazattle
You should verify that estimate by doing a full 60 min at 250W then.
Was only a 10 watt bump from a proper FTP test from last year. As I have had a lot more saddle time this winter I have no reason to believe it is that far off base.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Was only a 10 watt bump from a proper FTP test from last year. As I have had a lot more saddle time this winter I have no reason to believe it is that far off base.
But both were from 20 min tests? Those tend to overestimate by varying amounts depending on underlying fitness

F597F038-366B-496A-9A5F-CD409B345BD6.jpeg