do you find it useful to look at your power while racing? if so, why?
For a TT effort, totally. I usually have a good idea of what I can hold for the duration. Having avg pover would tell me if I’m starting too hard or saving too much. Not as important for road racing or crits, though could be handy for the later parts of a breakaway imo. In this case it was an 11 min time trial and I ended up averaging less than my 20 min power, and equal to what I did for 31 mins at VoS. I was trying to push harder up the rollers and I think that threw me off a bit as well. If I’d realized I was averaging so low I’d have pushed harder and saved less for the end
i’m a luddite when it comes to these things, so take it for what it’s worth, but the example you mention seems to make the case against tracking power during races. does it not?
Im racing MTBs this year.
Doing three 60mile races may,june,july.
I have about 5 weeks till my first race and have no idea what kind of efforts to be putting in…
I have plenty of volume and have been doing a mix of 2-5min efforts and 15-30min things every week + big rides on weekends.
Keep doing that? Add VO2 stuff? Only focus on the longer things?
I guess I could get a coach…
Depends on the types of courses. For me, mtbing here has lots of steep technical climbing, so efforts are regularly above threshold, but only for being durations, so i try to get in long sets of 30 on/30 off. 20x will be a 20m interval, then rest, repeat.
30s on should be z5, not a sprint, and 30 off should be z3, not rest, but easy enough to catch your breath.
IT’S OFFICIALLY RACIN’ TIME!
pretty excited about the return of the middle-week world championships tonight. for the first time, tarck’s very own RAUCE and i will be TEAMMATES! (can you believe it?)
i’ve had apretty wicked start to my racing season so far, won a gravel/mixed surface race two weeks ago, then came in 5th in a field of +300 on sunday.
nice! let us know how that goes.
Sorry, just saw this. If I had a display up showing my lap NP, it would have shown that I was taking the effort too easily for the duration. I know that I can hold ~330w for 20 mins, so for an 11 min effort it should have been slightly above. Because I only had my 3s power on display, and not a rolling average of the whole effort, I didn’t get a full picture of how hard I had paced it. This usually works for me on steady TT’s, e.g. a hill climb or a flat course, but with the variable pacing up the rollers I thought my average was higher than it actually was. It still felt hard, so I’m not sure that pacing it without a power meter would have been any better. If anything, seeing that my power was lower than expected would have reminded me to push a bit harder.
Also I think I have some L/R imbalances that have been causing my power to read high. I’m apparently a bit weaker than I thought. I had a suspicion that this was the case, but the uphill TT at San Dimas Stage race seems to have confirmed. My power read out at just shy of 5 w/kg for the 19 min effort, but my time was slower than expected, and I was beaten by a decent amount of other riders that were doing closer to 4.5 W/kg. Discussed with Amy a bit, and then tested against a powertap with two Garmins. Looks like I’m reading 10-20 watts high on climbs, 20-30 watts high on flats. Kind of a blow to the ego tbh, but it’s not like I haven’t been improving and getting faster. Just not as fast comparatively as I thought.
Anyway, I’ve ordered a Quarq now (sorry Amy & stages peeps, love the product and the company, just my body seems to suck at being balanced. I know its consistency thats most important rather than the actual number, but I really want to know the actual number because neurotic). Will need to do some more testing to see where I’m actually at, and might get some insight into L/R balance (though a truly dual sided meter would yield more accurate numbers for that too).
At San Dimas, I got 22nd in the up hill TT. The Road Race was tough, some rolling hills and one big short kicker called ‘Heckler Hill’. Annoyingly, a breakaway of 4 got away right as the cat 2’s caught us and the field was neutralized, so they immediately had a minute+ gap on us after that. I followed a move with about half a lap to go (short, 7 mile laps) with two other guys, but I got gapped off through a sharp corner right before Heckler Hill, and didn’t think I could get back up to it. Took the hill sorta easy and let the group catch me, surfed near the front, and then started my sprint about 40 seconds before the line because I saw an opening. Wasn’t as fresh as I could have been due to the earlier break attempt, but I managed 3rd from the field. One of the guys from the 2nd break got 5th, other dude got caught, so I was 8th on the stage. https://youtu.be/NAFjOZNtCIo?t=263 I sprint by the left in the green at 4:25.
Crit was sorta uneventful for me. Was up near the front for the first 5-6 laps, let myself drift back a bit, and never saw the front again :\ Teammate got 3rd in the sprint.
I’ve been on a mental break from racing since then. Just going to do some training rides and maybe some group rides for a few weeks.
[quote=BabbyMatt]Also I think I have some L/R imbalances that have been causing my power to read high. I’m apparently a bit weaker than I thought. I had a suspicion that this was the case, but the uphill TT at San Dimas Stage race seems to have confirmed. My power read out at just shy of 5 w/kg for the 19 min effort, but my time was slower than expected, and I was beaten by a decent amount of other riders that were doing closer to 4.5 W/kg. Discussed with Amy a bit, and then tested against a powertap with two Garmins. Looks like I’m reading 10-20 watts high on climbs, 20-30 watts high on flats. Kind of a blow to the ego tbh, but it’s not like I haven’t been improving and getting faster. Just not as fast comparatively as I thought.
Anyway, I’ve ordered a Quarq now (sorry Amy & stages peeps, love the product and the company, just my body seems to suck at being balanced. I know its consistency thats most important rather than the actual number, but I really want to know the actual number because neurotic). Will need to do some more testing to see where I’m actually at, and might get some insight into L/R balance (though a truly dual sided meter would yield more accurate numbers for that too).
At San Dimas, I got 22nd in the up hill TT. The Road Race was tough, some rolling hills and one big short kicker called ‘Heckler Hill’. Annoyingly, a breakaway of 4 got away right as the cat 2’s caught us and the field was neutralized, so they immediately had a minute+ gap on us after that. I followed a move with about half a lap to go (short, 7 mile laps) with two other guys, but I got gapped off through a sharp corner right before Heckler Hill, and didn’t think I could get back up to it. Took the hill sorta easy and let the group catch me, surfed near the front, and then started my sprint about 40 seconds before the line because I saw an opening. Wasn’t as fresh as I could have been due to the earlier break attempt, but I managed 3rd from the field. One of the guys from the 2nd break got 5th, other dude got caught, so I was 8th on the stage. https://youtu.be/NAFjOZNtCIo?t=263 I sprint by the left in the green at 4:25.
Crit was sorta uneventful for me. Was up near the front for the first 5-6 laps, let myself drift back a bit, and never saw the front again :\ Teammate got 3rd in the sprint.
I’ve been on a mental break from racing since then. Just going to do some training rides and maybe some group rides for a few weeks.[/quote]
5 watts per kg is pretty cool. Good podcast here on Powermeters. I need to do something with my old Powertap. I only really use it in TTs these days as it lives under some wheel-covers. https://cyclingtips.com/2017/04/cyclingtips-podcast-episode-30-power-meter-accurate-think/
[quote=cousinmosquito][quote=BabbyMatt]Also I think I have some L/R imbalances that have been causing my power to read high. I’m apparently a bit weaker than I thought. I had a suspicion that this was the case, but the uphill TT at San Dimas Stage race seems to have confirmed. My power read out at just shy of 5 w/kg for the 19 min effort, but my time was slower than expected, and I was beaten by a decent amount of other riders that were doing closer to 4.5 W/kg. Discussed with Amy a bit, and then tested against a powertap with two Garmins. Looks like I’m reading 10-20 watts high on climbs, 20-30 watts high on flats. Kind of a blow to the ego tbh, but it’s not like I haven’t been improving and getting faster. Just not as fast comparatively as I thought.
Anyway, I’ve ordered a Quarq now (sorry Amy & stages peeps, love the product and the company, just my body seems to suck at being balanced. I know its consistency thats most important rather than the actual number, but I really want to know the actual number because neurotic). Will need to do some more testing to see where I’m actually at, and might get some insight into L/R balance (though a truly dual sided meter would yield more accurate numbers for that too).
At San Dimas, I got 22nd in the up hill TT. The Road Race was tough, some rolling hills and one big short kicker called ‘Heckler Hill’. Annoyingly, a breakaway of 4 got away right as the cat 2’s caught us and the field was neutralized, so they immediately had a minute+ gap on us after that. I followed a move with about half a lap to go (short, 7 mile laps) with two other guys, but I got gapped off through a sharp corner right before Heckler Hill, and didn’t think I could get back up to it. Took the hill sorta easy and let the group catch me, surfed near the front, and then started my sprint about 40 seconds before the line because I saw an opening. Wasn’t as fresh as I could have been due to the earlier break attempt, but I managed 3rd from the field. One of the guys from the 2nd break got 5th, other dude got caught, so I was 8th on the stage. https://youtu.be/NAFjOZNtCIo?t=263 I sprint by the left in the green at 4:25.
Crit was sorta uneventful for me. Was up near the front for the first 5-6 laps, let myself drift back a bit, and never saw the front again :\ Teammate got 3rd in the sprint.
I’ve been on a mental break from racing since then. Just going to do some training rides and maybe some group rides for a few weeks.[/quote]
5 watts per kg is pretty cool. Good podcast here on Powermeters. I need to do something with my old Powertap. I only really use it in TTs these days as it lives under some wheel-covers. https://cyclingtips.com/2017/04/cyclingtips-podcast-episode-30-power-meter-accurate-think/[/quote]
Listened to the podcast, it didn’t really clear much up for me but was an interesting one anyway.
Also the one dude’s last name is Tarkington lolz.
^ that guy is actually on my cycling team (tarkington)
hey i did a bike race and didn’t dnf. got 3rd even. local crit, got beat out by a couple pro/semi pro riders who were right on my wheel going into the sprint. plus i fucked up a bit, came off my teammates wheel sort of early, we were getting waved to the side to avoid the crash fromt eh previous lap and i rode right into this really bad crack in the road and had to hop my rear wheel out of the hole, which slowed me down for those two to easily blow by me before the finish line. my teammate was intended to be a sweeper on my wheel, but got knocked off as there was a crash going into the last lap that kind of shook things up.
felt pretty good though to go into the last uphill finishing stretch on my teammates wheel with no other rides in front of us and know i just had to fucking go for it and that there was still a chance i could win.
just saw the podium for the p12 race… coworkers of mine got 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th. lol. they were 1 person away from having the entire long podium work at the same place…
So, this weekend was my first weekend back racing in 2 month or so. And it rained for the entirety of both of my races (and as long as I stayed in them). My confidence was completely shot in wet corners.
Saturday was Barrio Logan Grand Prix in San Diego. Got to say hi to BabbyMatt, as he was pulling up right before I went to go warmup. Figure 8 course with lots of road dots had me freaked out. Power was there, but I just couldn’t get confidence to hold speed through the turns. Lasted 30 min, but with 358w avg. Yay power.
Sunday was the non-stage Redlands Bicycle Classic Criterium. This is for all us regular folk and all the pros who didn’t make the time cut on previous stages. So lots of fast guys. This year they put the P12 on the short (.6mile) course instead of the full 1 mile course (which delivers you into the final turn at 25mph instead of 35-40 of the short course). This course is technical as it is in the dry, but in the rain, the first and last corners were even more sketchy. Again, I din’t have the confidence. I really didn’t want to hurt myself trying to get a top 10. Ugh. 20 mins.
Dunno if the MTBros want to read this, so I’ll post it here.
I did the Dog River Super D race Sunday. I placed 8th in my category, which is pretty decent for my current streak of DFL.
I did the preride in the morning, since the trail has only been open for a few days. The dirt during the preride had a nice moisture content and was really grippy. By the time my turn came around, the soil was pretty dry and dusty. I managed to clean the tough rock garden, only to drop my tire into the loam on the side going into the switchback out and decked. Then I dropped another tire into the sandy loam off the side of the trail and managed to ride into a tree. After that, I stopped pushing it in the corners so hard and managed to keep it mostly on the hardpack. I think if I hadn’t wrecked, I would have caught my 2-minute guy. I was about 0:30 off him by the finish.
Over the last week, I was feeling really tired and decided to skip last Thursday’s workout. I think this week is going to be a rest week.
If there’s a bicycle exercise thread other than this one, I’ll post there instead with apologies, but:
I’ve gotten into doing shorter road rides with a lot of intervals, rather than the 2-3 hour sporty meander that I’d fallen into over the last few years. Is there a basic interval set for general fitness and power, or is it all tuned to specific outcomes (like crit vs road race vs cx)? I haven’t read up on any racing / training stuff in years, and the popular articles I just skimmed seemed unhelpful regarding my question.
I’m generally looking to regain some speed I used to have, and break up the otherwise monotonous rides this part of the country has to offer when on pavement.
30" on/30" off for 20min x2
8-10x1-2’
5x5’
hour of power
the GCN youtube channel has some good training info: