SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 114)

How convenient...LOL. 

This is what I really love about my PM when doing intervals outdoors.  On the trainer, if you don't have a power meter, you can sort of just pick a gear and cadence and try to hold that steady throughout (sort of like virtual power).  But on the road, when you have slight wind changes, road condition changes, rollers, etc, you really have no idea.

The one thing I notice is that if I'm shooting for 300 watts, I always start out at around 320-330 for the first 10 seconds just because of the initial "jump".  But then I try to get it back down to 300 as soon as possible so I can ride the last 95% of the interval at 300...then like you said try to pour it on at the end.  I don't think it's remotely possible for me to pace it that well without a power meter...especially outdoors when you need a few gear shifts or cadence adjustments to keep power steady.  I can only imagine if I tried to do intervals without a PM outdoors, I would likely start at 340, then fade to 260 for something like a 300 average.  It would likely "feel" like I paced it evenly because holding 260 at the end when you went out too hard is still tough...when really it was far from it.

That's what I like about erg mode.  you ride at 300 or you stop.

If I rode outside with power, obviously, that would be different.

I had a few moments exactly like that for IMMT last year.  

Sorry, I know this isn't really proper, but quick rant, sometimes the advice on BT is so bad it's scary, at least on ST people get called out for stupid sh&%

Carry on

Zero offset?  I think that is the calibrate function for my PT when using my Garmin 910.  Someone let me know if there is anything different.

Is that first 10 seconds when you're accelerating? That's usually unavoidable for me. I just try not to go crazy and let it level out.

Had a few times like that on some Wisconsin rides as well. 380 or so was putting me at ~5-5.5 mph. Go ... for ... ward ...

I am trying to decide if I want to keep swimming 3x per week (short sessions) or switch to 2x per week but go for longer? In my mind, as I'm probably only going to race Sprint and Oly this year, I was thinking 3 shorter sessions would be better, but I don't enjoy swimming very much and the new water aerobics schedule is throwing me off. I could go 2x per week and swim the same amount of yardage, then maybe throw in an extra swim now and again on the weekend (OWS or drills). 

It might be worth an experiment?

Neil, I am only personally familiar with quarq and garmin, but I would bet a steak dinner it is the same as a PT. What garmin calls "calibrate" is actually just getting a zero offset, which is sort of like zeroing out your scale at home. If your scale is measuring weight accurately, then that should be all you have to do. However when your scale tells you that you weigh 150 pounds, how do you know that is really true? Well of course by checking the scale against a known weight, or in power meter terms, you "calibrate" it.

At the factory quarq (and I will bet you PT does the same) does both a static and dynamic calibration of each power meter, and everyone is slightly different. With a quarq,iPhone/iPad, whahoo dongle, laboratory quality weight, and a free app called Qalvin, you can do this calibration yourself just to check it on occasion, or you swap your chain rings out, etc. we swapped my wife's chainrings last summer and that is when I got a little more familiar with the process. More technically "calibrating" is performing a series of steps that allows you to set the "slope." The slope is just a multiplier that allows the PM to translate pedal force into Torque in Nm, which is ultimately translated into the power number we are all familiar with. Power of course is the description of the relationship between cadence and torque. For me that is one of the interesting thing about training with power: it is actually the output measure of two input variables (HR for example is the measure of a single input variable). So you can very precisely measure the relationship on your various systems (cardiovascular vs musculature) to determine the most efficient use of these systems, but that is another topic.

At least as I understand it, which could be really wrong and backwards.

Thanks Rusty - very good explanation.

Question for everyone.  Do you do anything special to store your latex tubes?  They won't fit back in the box all the way after being inflated, so I just leave them partically sitting in the original box.  It dawned on me the other day that this may cause them to potentially dry out a bit.  Hopefully I'm wrong on this, but wanted to confirm and see what others do.

Holy chit...Nashbar is having a sale on Quarq power meters for less than $1k.  I just bought one...

Most of my decision was because I can't use my PT at Honu if I want to use race wheels (disc not allowed), and I already wanted to switch my tri bike crank to compact.

I figure my PT is still worth about $400-500 and I know quite a few people who are interested in getting into power for cheap.

I was just looking at that....

I might be one of those people......let's tawk

where do you guys see them for that price - I only see them for $1400, but I only have access to the mobile site at the moment.... I know some folks that will be all over that. Linky-doo please?

When you add it to your cart it knocks a bunch off the price and then you can apply an additional 17% off St Paddy's day code - 34785

Cool - am on it!

ChrisM - 2013-03-15 11:39 AM Sad news today that was posted on FB (so I don't think she'd mind me posting it here....) Yanti's father passed away.  Condolences to you and your family Yanti 

Oh man...so sad.

ChrisM - 2013-03-15 4:39 PM Sad news today that was posted on FB (so I don't think she'd mind me posting it here....) Yanti's father passed away.  Condolences to you and your family Yanti 

Oh no!

Nice job getting it in.  That temp with rain can be a tough one to step out into

I know what you mean. 85F and sunny here today. But somehow I managed. Ouch. I think I have a bit of a sun burn. Oh, well. We all must suffer our own training burdens.

Thanks. With the rain in there this is actually excellent hypothermia weather if not careful.

I was going out for a run yesterday, BAM! 4 inches of snow.

When is this going to stop ?