Ahhh, some progress on the cardio

[mechBgon]

Stats from comparable workouts on my road bike, on an indoor trainer:

December 31st

Averages: 19.8mph @ 171bpm. According to the trainer's calibration curve, this is about 250 watts. This was all ridden in the same gear (39 x 16).


January 18th

Averages: 20.6mph @ 161bpm, which is around 275 watts. This time I was switching between my 39 x 16 and my next-harder gear (39 x 14). Wish I had a 15 inbetween those two... You can see my pedal RPMs jinking up and down in the orange graph depending which gear I was in: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/142866064


So that's a start. Hopefully by springtime I'll be approaching 300 watts at my aerobic threshold and have a few less pounds to haul around too. But our weather just turned snowy, so that puts a damper on my favorite training (riding my XC mountain bike) 🙁

 

[Megatomic]

mech, weren't you the one a few years ago who was posting vids of themselves bike commuting in the snow?

 

[jsedlak]

Nice! But how are you calculating your FTP based on a 45 minute session with HR/speed?

 

[mechBgon]

mech, weren't you the one a few years ago who was posting vids of themselves bike commuting in the snow?

Yeah. As you can guess, I have no dependents/wife/SO to answer to 😉

Nice! But how are you calculating your FTP based on a 45 minute session with HR/speed?

It's actually just plain power estimation, using Kurt's formula for their Kinetic fluid trainer: http://www.kurtkinetic.com/powercurve.php Plug in a speed and it spits out the power. While it's not scientifically 100% accurate, it works for general progress tracking. Since I'm putting out more power at a lower HR, that's a win-win.

For actual FTP benchmarking in the real world, I usually ride out to Charles Road, a steady 1.5-mile climb with 640 feet of vertical gain, and ride up that, then throw the numbers into the Bike Calculator site. 300-310 watts for ~10 minutes is the usual outcome, so that's my empirically-measured 10-minute FTP in a real-world scenario on a road bike. I wouldn't mind having a PowerTap hub for a better analysis, but I don't have the budget for toys that nice.

The ride back down Charles is fun:

 

[SociallyChallenged]

That's solid 🙂 I suck at cycling so I respect that a lot. Just keep chugging along and hopefully you'll reach your goal shortly. Make sure to keep mobile. Most people forget mobility/stretching work when they're trying to improve strength or endurance specifically. Remember that mobility is essential to performance so get on/keep stretching, foam rolling, etc so you can keep working hard 🙂

 

[mechBgon]

That's solid 🙂 I suck at cycling so I respect that a lot. Just keep chugging along and hopefully you'll reach your goal shortly. Make sure to keep mobile. Most people forget mobility/stretching work when they're trying to improve strength or endurance specifically. Remember that mobility is essential to performance so get on/keep stretching, foam rolling, etc so you can keep working hard 🙂

That's a good call to action for me, because my flexibility is pathetic. I'll make myself get back on the stretching bandwagon as the post-workout routine.

This is the sort of thing I watch when I'm on the trainer, really helps keep me in the groove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g05zlCYZGAQ GET THOSE GUYS, THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!!! 😡

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

How many miles are you averaging 20mph? Type of bike? Terrain?

Just curious as I use to do a little riding. I'd average 17.X for about 30+ miles at my best. Not really anything great especially when I saw a guy going 24mph into a 30mph headwind and this was for miles until he finally got so far off I couldn't see him. I was looking for a motor on his bike. lol

 

[mechBgon]

How many miles are you averaging 20mph? Type of bike? Terrain?

Just curious as I use to do a little riding. I'd average 17.X for about 30+ miles at my best. Not really anything great especially when I saw a guy going 24mph into a 30mph headwind and this was for miles until he finally got so far off I couldn't see him. I was looking for a motor on his bike. lol

The rides I mentioned in this thread are indoor trainer rides, so they don't really equate 1:1 to actual riding:

In general, on a normal road-racing bike without bags, fenders, lights, generator hubs and that sort of thing, I could average 20mph for a few hours solo if I were in shape and the course/winds weren't too crazy. I've even knocked out somewhat-hilly 20mph averages for an hour on my mountain bike (a lightweight cross-country bike with top-of-the-line tires). There's nothing like passing the roadies and triathletes on my 2.2" XC tires at 24mph 😉

The only year I did road racing (2009), I did end up as the state road-racing champion in the Masters C category (I was 39 at the time).. But I'm known more as an XC mountain-bike racer.

 

[jsedlak]

Yeah. As you can guess, I have no dependents/wife/SO to answer to 😉



It's actually just plain power estimation, using Kurt's formula for their Kinetic fluid trainer: http://www.kurtkinetic.com/powercurve.php Plug in a speed and it spits out the power. While it's not scientifically 100% accurate, it works for general progress tracking. Since I'm putting out more power at a lower HR, that's a win-win.

For actual FTP benchmarking in the real world, I usually ride out to Charles Road, a steady 1.5-mile climb with 640 feet of vertical gain, and ride up that, then throw the numbers into the Bike Calculator site. 300-310 watts for ~10 minutes is the usual outcome, so that's my empirically-measured 10-minute FTP in a real-world scenario on a road bike. I wouldn't mind having a PowerTap hub for a better analysis, but I don't have the budget for toys that nice.

Interesting - you should try doing a 60 minute flat road test to see what your CP60 is and see if it is close to your FTP benchmark. It'd be interesting to see if the CP60 you get actually correlates to your FTP benchmark, as they say it should.

I just got a LT test done which was fun and produced some very pretty graphs:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/141374468

I highly recommend a PT by the way. I'm about to go for an ME ride this morning, and using a PT/Garmin makes life so much easier. Just program the zones and go.

 

[mechBgon]

Interesting - you should try doing a 60 minute flat road test to see what your CP60 is and see if it is close to your FTP benchmark. It'd be interesting to see if the CP60 you get actually correlates to your FTP benchmark, as they say it should.

I just got a LT test done which was fun and produced some very pretty graphs:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/141374468

I highly recommend a PT by the way. I'm about to go for an ME ride this morning, and using a PT/Garmin makes life so much easier. Just program the zones and go.

Someday when I'm rich and famous, perhaps :sneaky: I actually got rid of my road-racing bike, all I have left is the sport-touring bike in the trainer photo. Road racing is too much of a chess game for my tastes, although I do have a good team to race with if I want... state championship race blow-by-blow, for those interested in such things, it was a team win. XC mountain biking is pretty straightforward by comparison... there's a few tactical aspects, but nothing complicated.

If I had a PowerTap, what I'd especially like to analyze would be power in short durations, like 15 seconds to a minute. In XC mountain bike racing, short hard efforts have several useful applications. But wholesale dealer cost on a PowerTap rear hub with a disc rotor would set me back about $850. That's a lot, I know they're awesome and everything, but it's more than two months' rent :\

Yesterday I warmed up and did 1/2 hour at more like 290 watts, and tonight was "movie night," a 2-hour session at ~225 watts while watching a movie to keep me distracted. Time for a rest day now.

 

[mechBgon]

I've transitioned to outdoor training rides on my studded-tire commuting bike, which is heavy and very un-aerodynamic, thanks to saddlebags and handlebar covers, so it makes for some extra resistance both when climbing and cruising:

Aptly named "Reflecto-Bike" for the amount of reflective tape stuck to it. Typically hits the road at about 40-45 pounds loaded.

I've been doing various lengths of training rides as weather dictates, but try to include several climbs per ride that have 400-600+ feet of altitude gain, enough to get 8-10 minutes at a stable VO2-max workload (basically, hitting the limit of how fast the cardiovascular system can supply oxygen).

Tonight's ride was short, since it was cold and rapidly getting colder (23°F heading for 15°F), but I set two new personal bests on two back-to-back climbs. Strava.com* is estimating about 300 watts for these hills, which are close to 10-minute efforts, so I think that's my current 10-minute power. That puts my 10-minute watts-per-kilogram at about 4.2W/kg. And my kilograms are still going down 🙂

http://app.strava.com/rides/4593695

Considering it's still just February, that's a good start for the year. I've also come up with a source for a new road-racing frame/fork for cheap, so I should have a dedicated high-performance road bike set up by the time Spring arrives. My clubmates are going to hate me 😀

*Strava is NOT habit-forming, by the way, I can stop using Strava any time I feel like it