Newbz'z summer mentor group is FULL!!!! (Page 86)

my personal pref for a non-race wheel/rider under say 175 is the DT swiss.
very nice wheel, very very easy to match a disk cover on, etc.


As far as how to train with it.
first step as was mentioned, just go do a few rides with it and see how numbers correlate.
at first you'll notice that numbers jump ALL OVER the place. every little thing like wind, cracks, bumps, every, will cause the power ot move around a bit.

One thing to keep in mind is that something like a PT that uses a time based interval to give readings vs an event based one like a SRM/quark is that it tends to jump a bit more. you can smooth out the display by changing the refresh rate to 2 or 3 sec, but dont change the sampling rate or you'll miss data if you are big on reviewing it later. (personally i would not up it to 3 sec but some eopple like that, i want to see whats really going on).

do some harder stuff and see how the power matches up.

Once you start having some idea how numbers add up, its time to do some tests.

The two i like to use/highly recommend are a 20 min test (20 min all out), or an FTP test (FTP is functional threshold power, aka the power you can hold for one hour). that test can be done a number of ways, but the two i would use are either a 1 hour TT (40k works), if you can push HARD for that, or more often, the 2x20 min test. you do 20 min, 2 min easy spin, 20 min. record the ave power for the whole 42 min.

from there you set power zones.

FTP is 100%, zn3/tempo is roughly 80-88% of that, zn5 is roughly 105% and up, etc etc. zones are not set boundries, but rather a range. so one does flow into another rather than having a set line where the workout changes if you go over it. depending on the workout/how you are feeling these ranges change. IE for shorter workouts you could be on the upper border of your zone/into the next one, longer intervals you could be on the other end, or right in the middle.

honestly if you get the power numbers and pay attention (similar to training with HR), there is not a huge list of reasons to download and look at all files (i'd save them for later ref if you need them though).

I think i downloaded/reviewed maybe one in 20 workouts.

zn1 is recovery
zn2 is steady
zn3 is tempo/HIM type pace
zn4 is FTP/hour/40k TT/threshold
zn5 is 20 min power through vo2 max it hurts.

Sort of spur of the moment a few days ago i decided i wanted to do a shorter race this weekend, running or tri, and started looking for something in the area.
Found a semi-local sprint race (keystone state triathlon), smaller race but the front end of the field always has a few fast people so i thought it would make a great no pressure workout/race.

I made it up there race morning and got signed up, and everything set up and ready to go.
got in a nice long swim warm up, and then back to shore and waited for our start.

Swim start went well, and i quickly made my way out in front with the other swim leader. i sat on his feet through the first of two 600m loops, and checked my watch at the end of the loop and was pleased to see 7:12. happy with this i put my head down and started loop two. about 10 feet into the loop though i got kicked square in the goggles and stopped almost dead right away. my left lens was smashed (wtf?) and the right one was leaking badly. I managed to hang out and still hold onto a low 1:20ish pace overall for the swim but i lost a lot of time on the guy i wanted to be out in front of (MUCH faster runner than i am).

Bike was going alright, not steller, not awful, and i think i was in 3rd place at the end of the first loop.
Around the end of loop one i was trading places with another guy, and i had just passed him and was heading up the one big hill on the course then i dropped my chain (i still have NO IDEA what i did here, this is the first time i have done this in years). He came up behind me and saw what happenned and put his hand on my back and pushed while i tried to get it back on, worked, but then came right back off. I quickly jumped off, got it on, and back up the hill.

After the hill things flattened out quickly, and he was maybe 300m up the road from me. I was just about to pick it up when i saw him passing a woman, and as he wasgoing by she turned to look and took the bike with her and clipped him. He tumbled but came up quickly on the chip seal, she face planted.

In the time it took me to stop he had already moved his bike and was next to her. There was blood everywhere, and my first thought was to figure out what was bleeding. The good news was it was just a small gash on her eyebrow and nothing else cut up (no idea how that happend), bad news was that meant she hit her head pretty hard.
The other guy was ok for the most part (just some road rash), so i started talking to her and asking questions, very very quickly became apparent that she probably had a concussion at the least. She kept repeating questions, very randomly changing topics, and then asking the same thing again. As soon as i heard/saw this there was no chance i was going to keep going and leave them here.

Some other racers went on and alerted the people at the next intersection and the park rangers were there within a few minutes, and the EMTs within a few after that.

The race director showed up along with them and we got the bikes and everything loaded up and then left when the EMTs did.

I rode back with him and the guy that was involved as my race was over at this point anyway, and we both decided to just go out and do the run course.

On an upside i had a GREAT run and came through in 16:30, so very very happy about that.

To complete my day on the way home i managed to make a wrong turn, pulled into a parking lot to turn around and heard my front tire blow out, got out to change it, got the tire off and was about to put the new one on and my car collapsed. it was so hot that my jack sank into the asphalt and fell over.......

Luckily a few min later a guy that lived down the street stopped and went back and got a bigger jack from his garage and helped me quickly get on the way.
Thanks Fred!!

interesting day all around.

Thanks for all the info.  I guess I'll just ride a week and wait on the tests to get a feel first.  Nothing sounds less fun to me than a 2x20 min or 60 min all out on a trainer.  have you heard of doing a 5 min and 20 min test and extrapolating to find 60 min power?  I believe jorgeM advocates this test protocol.  The engineer in me says two points are better than one, but still not statistically significant (and that's also assuming the power vs. time curve is linear....which is it??).  If the curve goes non-linear, my guess is it's more towards the low end of time, so 5 min may not be valid (or maybe its linear down to 30 seconds...i have no idea).  Maybe i just need to do 30 sec, 1 min, 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 45 min and 60 min tests and plot them all to see for myself...or maybe not...

When you ride, do you/would you average zeros?  For the most similar instantanious measurement I can think of (cadence) I wish it didn't count zero's because 99% of the time I'm not pedaling it's because I'm not able to (terrain, stops etc) not cause I'm resting or anything, so i want to see my average cadence while actually pedaling, not including stops I can't control.   Which is better for power?  or is it the classic "it depends"?

Has

SRM didn't (and may not still) have the option to take out zeros, it included everything from when the power output starts.

I personally would include them, because it gives a much better idea of what happens for hte total ride.

the only reason to keep them out would be to raise your overall ride ave (sort of pointless no?)

i never kept track of overall ride ave, as it was pretty meaningless. i would mark/watch intervals or harder sessions, but not worry about the long haul.


I tried the 5 min and 20 min test, and the issue with me is i am WAY faster over 20min/under, so it gave a pretty bad idea of what my FTP looked like.

now that said, within reason most people have an FTP of approx 95% of their 20 min power. so for training reasons on the trainer, a 20 min test is often plenty to work from (and with the distance of intervals on the trainer, ie normally in the 1-10 min range, going slightly harder wont kill you, unlike basing a HIM off of a 20 min test numbers).

If you plan to train on the trainer, test there. retest for outside.

FWIW people's numbers on the trainer will be all over the place compared to outside, some similar, some very far off. trainer style, tire, heat, amount of ventitlation will all effect what you see inside vs out, but its almost always lower inside.

that said, trainer numbers are MUCH steadier due to static condistions.

also depending on your trainer, you may notice similar indoor and outdoor numbers at lower power levels, but it drops off much faster inside (as an example my 20min power outside last year was 312, that same effort on a trainer hardly had me hitting 290).

but againm it differs from trainer to trainer and how cool you are.

Thanks again.

Well, definitely - chicks dig watts.  My fiance already said the wedding is off if i can't put out 250 watts.  Certainly, during an interval zeros don't matter, just try to make the numbers on the screen show what they are supposed to when you are pedaling (and pedal as much as possible).  It would be useful to me, especially to start, to look at the averages for an interval after the fact to see if the average i actually hit is similar to the average i thought I was hitting while watching the instantanious (or 3 sec smoothed, w/e) numbers on the computer.  i see this as a much bigger deal outside than inside, due the the consistenty of a trainer you mentioned.  If I have to coast for some reason, that may make it artificially low?

Then again, I know you get "scores" and "factors" and other scientific sounding things from your powermeter (though i do not know much about them yet).  TSS or IF are things I don't know but think I remember hearing.  I've seen plans that have a target for those numbers too.  Can I assume that zero's need to be included to make that comparison between actuall and target scores?

I like your approach of the 20 min indoor and longer outdoor.  I can handle the 40 min or 60 min outdoors much better.  I won't lie,  I am curious to see what a plot of the funcitonal power at different times looks like for me, so I may play around a little.

So are people generally not able to put out as many watts inside due to the conditions?  Otherwise, i would think the powermeter captures purely your output regardless of external factors (other than factors that affect your ability to produce watts like heat, obviously).  So things like trainer type, tire, etc should be meaningless? 

As far as zero averages, it doesn't matter to me because my software (wko+) calculates both power with and without zeros.  So I know either way.

TSS is your training stress score and the IF is your intensity factor.  Intensity factor is based on your FTP.  If your FTP is 200, and your normalized power (taking zero's out) is 180 for a ride, your intensity factor is 0.9 (180/200).  Your TSS takes your IF and calculates it based on time to see how much "stress" you actually put on your body.  If you did a 30 minute ride at 220 watts, your TSS may be about 40.  If you did a 6 hour ride at 170 watts, your TSS may be closer to 400.

The cool thing about TSS is that it's like a mileage calculator.  I download all my rides, so instead of looking at how many miles I rode each week, I look at my cumulative TSS for the week.  Obviously riding 200 flat miles at a moderate pace is very good.  But TSS will tell you if riding 120 very hilly miles at a hard effort is actually better.

What comes around goes around.  It sounds like your concern for others paid off immediately when you needed some help yourself.  It's to bad you couldn't finish the race the way you would have liked but the good deed was more important.  Nice job on the run!  I am hoping to get my 5k time down to under 20 next season.

JS - I like your style and will now attempt to buy a powertap using that same logic....and then blame you when it does/does not work.

Newbz - that's awesome dude.  There needs to be more people in this world like you.  As a MOP athlete, I can only give you so much feedback, but I do have three things.  Sorry to hear about the goggles...stop trying to mount other swimmers.  Stop downshifting going up hills, (that's just cheating) and your chain won't drop.  I'm just going to assume that the run was 2 miles, so that's faster than I run, so good job buddy.  You're number 1 in my book my friend.

Keep in mind TSS is only telling you the math side of the equation and not 100% what is going on with your body.

oh...no doubt.  I just think that using TSS is much better than using mileage or time by itself. 

i think i spent too much time around rowing before getting into power meters, i used mine more like an erg (rowing machine) in that i did the tests, did the workouts based off it, and went from there.

Never bothered with training peaks (although they have some great software).

Don't poke too much fun at those of us that only train by time;-)

This is all very interesting...TSS sounds like a good way to compare my less hilly rides where I can avg about 20 mph to the really hilly ones where I work my butt off for 17 or 18.  Hopefully the book(s) will explain more and give me an idea of how to structure workouts and/or a plan around TSS too.

Quick question for anyone with carbon or Cervelos: I've developed major creeking in my P2C.  It's not the BB, I greased the threads and re-tightened.  Is it just the carbon?  I've heard maybe it's the carbon/carbon interface, so maybe the seatpost to frame.  It creeks when I shift weight and when I give it some power (especially downhill, interestingly) and when standing up.  I've noticed that over time, one of the screws that adjust the wheel placement in the horizontal dropouts slowly turns in, so after awhile it's screwed way in and not touching the skewer.  Is this normal?  Could not having that screw to rest against be causing the skewer to creek against the frame?  Can I use something to make it stay (though I swap out for race wheels which require adjusting those, so they can't be locked)?  With the new PT, I'll always have the same wheel, but the race vs training tire could affect clearance and require adjustment.

if its doing it out of the saddle too that probably rules out the seatpost.

assuming your sure it is not the front end, BB, cranks, and chainrings would be my first thought.

After that check the saddle/rails/seatpost.

possibly the pedals as well.

i know just what you wanted to hear, "hey it could be half the bike!"

JS, you know I have the same bike and have zero noises.  One of the main reasons why I love the bike. 

Can you make it happen when you push hard with both feet?

The downhill thing makes me think that it's in the front end.  Try standing out of the saddle and pushing hard on each pedal.  Try not to put much weight at all on your hands.  Does the noise get better or worse? For which pedal?

As far as that screw, I would get some loctite.  It's important that this screw doesn't move.  I don't think it's the culprit of the noise though.

David - sounds like you had a crazy race day.  Good on ya for helping out!  Wow - and your run time is extremely impressive! I just hope to get under 30 minutes at my next tri.

Had my longest run today - first ever 10k. Felt reaaaallll goood!!!! 

David,  sounds like one helluva day.   The jack incident sounds scary.   

my car is pretty low to the ground so its not as bad as it sounded, but not good either.



Robin, nice job on the run!




at john, no never seen one, and honestly this was the first time i have dropped my chain in YEARS, honestly think it was from coming down one hill and trying to downshit to the small chainring while spinning at like 130rpm (hit the bottom of the hill, turned, and downshifted while in a gear that was already too easy due to bombing down the hill, chain just flew off).

awww, man, that sucks!  Sorry to hear that dude.

dude that sucks, but keep at it, there are more races, and more time to get faster. on the upside, you'll be better prepared next time!

Yeah, sucky part is this was the last race of the season.  I can only hope they reschedule...I'm hoping that it rains cats and dogs with 30 mph winds this Sunday...that might make me feel better

bummer.....seems like they should be trying hard to reschedule.   

missing a race you have been training for would def SUCK!  For my HM this year they were calling for the possibility of strong storms in the morning that had me worried about a race cancellation and if they cancel you're out the money and everything according to the race site, so I wasn't liking the thought of it at all.  Mine worked out it was just pretty windy for the race.  But to have put all the time into the training and not be able to race is a huge let down.  Hopefully they reschedule.