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THE FUCKING POWER METER THREAD

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,009
Sleazattle
But both were from 20 min tests? Those tend to overestimate by varying amounts depending on underlying fitness

View attachment 188690
I can't remember how long the FTP test was, was one of the 5 minute increments until you couldn't maintain power, I crapped out somewhere in the low mid 300s. This ride was 50 minutes long including a 5 minute cool down. Overall average was something like 242 which puts my average power for the 45 minutes of anger in the mid 250s and was far from a constant output.

Anyway, I don't really care about absolute values but perhaps tracking progress, or lack thereof.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
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I went and did me a VLa max test at home today



Protocol: 30 min (doesn't have to be this exactly) easy, something where you know your lactate will be nice and low. I did 100W, and at end of this was 1.2 mmol/l for the baseline value.

Then a 15s all out effort. I didn't see it specified whether this should be seated or standing so I did it seated (but clearly clipped in).

Next, hustle back over to the lactate meter and take 5 successive lactate readings ~1 min apart. Take the peak value.

VLa max is then calculated as ([peak lactate] - [baseline lactate]) / ([total sprint time] - [alactic time]), where the alactic time wherein one's mainly powered by the creatine kinase system is assumed to be 4 sec.

Thus one gets the values as per my spreadsheet here:



My peak power would be better as expressed in W/kg if I were less fat. Still working on that.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I had an on-bike VO2/lactate/RER test yesterday down in Colorado Springs at CTS:







Nice flat lactate plateau reflecting adequate warmup (30 min @ 80-90W earlier that morning, 15 min @ 90W before jumping into the test). LT1 at 180W looks right here.



Above are the zones that CTS would prescribe based off of these results, rescaled for 172 bpm max:

Z1: < 95W / <= 115 bpm / 66% max HR
Z2: 96-180W (!!) / 115-149 bpm / 67-87% MHR
Z3: 181-210W / 150-156 bpm / 87-91% MHR
Z4: 211-225W / 157-163 bpm / 91-95% MHR



Substrate utilization versus power. I maxed out ~5 kcal/min of fat oxidation, so not at the super level of Alan Couzens' Improving Fat Burning mega-Z1/2 grad student athlete but not bad, and maintained well up to 180W.

Max O2 only was 3500 mL/min at 172 bpm/260W, though, so at what I weighed in that afternoon that only comes out to 36.7 mL/min/kg. My takeaway from this: I remain overfat, my base is good, and I should work on increasing stroke volume and throw in some Z4/5 time.
 

CrabJoe StretchPants

Reincarnated Crab Walking Head Spinning Bruce Dick
Nov 30, 2003
14,163
2,484
Groton, MA
Tested out the Kickr and Zwift by doing one of those FTP tests all the kids are talking about. Bunch of intervals and rest periods followed by a 20min test. Seemed like a pretty good test for my current fitness level.
Screenshot_20230216-232231.png

Screenshot_20230216-235933.png
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
282 x 0.95 is strong. Nice. Like Westy now you should go replicate it for actually 60 min—the 20 min estimates can be off depending on what you’re strong at (like anaerobically overpowered for example). Or don’t. Whatever floats your boat.
 

CrabJoe StretchPants

Reincarnated Crab Walking Head Spinning Bruce Dick
Nov 30, 2003
14,163
2,484
Groton, MA
282 x 0.95 is strong. Nice. Like Westy now you should go replicate it for actually 60 min—the 20 min estimates can be off depending on what you’re strong at (like anaerobically overpowered for example). Or don’t. Whatever floats your boat.
I still have to get used to "how" to ride on a trainer I think. Matching cadence/power levels is something I've never really had to do and found myself either wanting to go slower or faster to be what I felt would be most comfortable. It was....weird.

Wait just one goddamned minute. Your real name isn't CrabJoeStretchPants?
Even worse.....I don't live in a pineapple under the sea. I live in a house. On land.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
4379/4391 == 99.7%. 13.4/13.5 == 99.3%. So add in some rounding issues and there ya have it.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I’m doing a ramp test today. Y’all have inspired me.

20’ easy, 10’ easy with 30” anaerobic bursts to empty those tanks and not skew the results. 20’ ramp, 100W to start, 5W/s ramp, 72% of max average power over last minute of ramp.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
You guys with your FTP's make me feel slow and weak. Also, Toshi's posts are too complicated for me to try to understand. I just pedal, man.
It’s ultimately simple: HR and RPE and all are crude proxies for lactate data, which differ by individual and training pattern. I go right to the source and try to have most time <= LT1.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I’m doing a ramp test today. Y’all have inspired me.

20’ easy, 10’ easy with 30” anaerobic bursts to empty those tanks and not skew the results. 20’ ramp, 100W to start, 5W/s ramp, 72% of max average power over last minute of ramp.
Ramp test protocol from here: https://www.cyclecoach.com/blog/2020/2/2/is-the-map-ramp-test-a-valid-estimator-of-ftp?format=amp

Warmup with 3 short anaerobic efforts as per the quote, except I did 2 x 30", 1 x ~6".



The effort. A bit jumpy from 150-200W or so as I took a phone call! but continued the test. (Call was from one of my work buddies wondering why he was traffic on the way up to Winter Park.)



Bit noisy but I tapped out at the 350W point @ 171 bpm. 172 is my usual max so a solid effort. 350W * 72% would be 243W nominally, but that's almost certainly an overestimate for what I can truly do over 60' based off of how 250W x several minutes feels now. This reflects that I'm still overmuscled, if you will, for my aerobic capacity.

I did 214W legit over 60' a few months ago. Therefore I plugged in "232W" to the Peloton (which takes 20 min values and then multiplies by 95%): 220W estimate for an hour seems about right. I don't go by the displayed zones anyway so it doesn't really matter practically for when I decide to do 160W x 30 min or whatever.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
ok, I will accept that. a datum as measured in in quanta of 12 s or whatever.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,009
Sleazattle
I had an on-bike VO2/lactate/RER test yesterday down in Colorado Springs at CTS:







Nice flat lactate plateau reflecting adequate warmup (30 min @ 80-90W earlier that morning, 15 min @ 90W before jumping into the test). LT1 at 180W looks right here.



Above are the zones that CTS would prescribe based off of these results, rescaled for 172 bpm max:

Z1: < 95W / <= 115 bpm / 66% max HR
Z2: 96-180W (!!) / 115-149 bpm / 67-87% MHR
Z3: 181-210W / 150-156 bpm / 87-91% MHR
Z4: 211-225W / 157-163 bpm / 91-95% MHR



Substrate utilization versus power. I maxed out ~5 kcal/min of fat oxidation, so not at the super level of Alan Couzens' Improving Fat Burning mega-Z1/2 grad student athlete but not bad, and maintained well up to 180W.

Max O2 only was 3500 mL/min at 172 bpm/260W, though, so at what I weighed in that afternoon that only comes out to 36.7 mL/min/kg. My takeaway from this: I remain overfat, my base is good, and I should work on increasing stroke volume and throw in some Z4/5 time.
All this to ride an e-bike :rofl:
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
All this to ride an e-bike :rofl:
No one pays me for purity of riding experience, they’re 100% legal here*, and they’re more fun, imo.

* legal in CO state parks and in JeffCo (and Clear Creek, I think) Open Space. Not legal on USFS or BLM lands at this time despite Trump’s 2017 directive to open them up for such use.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Ok, just the fun bit then: if they weren’t more fun I wouldn’t ride them. But they are.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
See, now this is you guys just being dicks because you can.

You all are free to not ride e-bikes. It's a totally independent concept from that of this thread. So kindly allow me to ride my e-bikes in peace, as we allow stoney to drive his go karts in peace now.

:)
 

CrabJoe StretchPants

Reincarnated Crab Walking Head Spinning Bruce Dick
Nov 30, 2003
14,163
2,484
Groton, MA
I'll just leave this here.
As we allow stoney to drive his go karts in peace now.
What’s the endgame? Everyone in motorsport from karting through F1 has rich parent-patrons, no? It’s not a self funding venture.
That said, I'd say we give Stoney an equal amount of shit for the karting stuff. All (well....most) of it is obviously in harmless fun. We all wish the best for him/Haley with it no doubt.

I can promise you none of us actually give a shit what you ride, at least I don't. The irony of focusing on and going so into depth with all the fitness testing in combination with riding a bike with a motor is something that you can't help but poke fun at, as a collective of cyclists (erm....using the term "cyclists" loosely).
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
you will note that that was when Full Trucker called me out for ragging on stoney too much. and since then I have been all the way off his back.

:)
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
me on my peloton right now
you will note that that was when Full Trucker called me out for ragging on stoney too much. and since then I have been all the way off his back.

:)
I must have missed something but you were giving stoney shit for his kids racing karts?

.....but those are cool


It's not like he bought a house he doesn't live in or something.