FTP shenanagins

[mtechnica]

Does anyone else think there’s a lot of shenanagins happening with regards to FTP numbers? I’m seriously skeptical about a lot of numbers I’m seeing online especially on forums. Beyond that, it appears that people come up with an FTP number then aren’t even able to replicate their supposed full FTP for 15-30 minute efforts, based on their power numbers on strava. I know performance varies day to day and over the course of a ride, but I have to say I’m skeptical that most people I see posting an FTP number can really do it for an hour. I’ve estimated my own FTP from ride data, not by any kind of FTP test, and my numbers relative to what I see people claiming are terrible, however my strava times seem to place me on par with people I shouldn’t be able to keep up with. Are there really that many people out there that can ACTUALLY maintain 300 watts continuously for an hour? The internet seems to think so however strava indicates that’s pro level performance and if I could do that, I could have near-KOM times even in the 170lb overweight range I’m in now, on popular (2500-5000 time) segments. Is there something I’m missing here? I’m sure I’m not underestimating my power or anything but I don’t understand how I can do a 20+ average on a normal road bike averaging in the low 200’s when people on slowtwitch are claiming a 280 watt FTP and barely going faster than I can go on a fixie, when they’re on a full on tri bike.

Thoughts?

[54ny77]

For security, I'd recommend using sftp protocol.

Oh wait, wrong forum.....

[MattTuck]

Lots of things you're not considering. Firstly, drive train losses. Secondly, tire related losses. Thirdly, most of those guys ride around with a drag chute behind them for extra aero resistance. Fourthly, people on the internet are prone to exaggeration.

But more seriously, if you prepped and did a true FTP test, you may find yours is quite a bit higher than you think.

[superbowlpats]

LOL. it does seem that everyone over on Slowtwitch has a FTP north of 300W. I think the number is really only important to you with respect to training with power. There are number of testing protocols but for the most part I think most people could not actually hold their FTP for a full hour. And to do that requires that either you ride on a track or on a TT course that has no stop signs, cars to avoid, is flat etc. I use the Trainerroad Ramp test because the results seem to correlate with other rides I've done and its over the quickest of any other protocol. And I just use it for my TR workouts in Erg mode.

What is probably a better metric is W/kg. or W/CdA for a TT rider.

But like a lot of things, people think size matters and in this case Watts

[ergott]

There are definitely riders that "perform to the test" (my quote). Just means they are good at taking ftp tests.

I know for me my best ftp results are from virtual mountains on Zwift (Alpe and Epic KOM) It's harder to hold a power in bigger gears riding flat terrain and I don't have mountains anywhere near me. I did replicate my performance at Bear Mtn a couple summer ago so I think climbing indoors and outdoors might as well be the same for me (100% on the smart trainer).

If you look at the ftp modeling in WKO4 it takes into account multiple efforts at different lengths of time. Not only does it spit out a very repeatable ftp, it lets you know the contribution of aerobic vs anaerobic engine to that ftp. Routinely that means that my actual ftp is around 5W lower than Zwift or others estimate.

In the end, ftp is only good for setting up training zones anyway. If someone actually trains with zones and overestimates their ftp it only hurts them. It's a recipe for burning out and training overload. I say let them. Then blow their doors off by training correctly.

[ergott]

Originally Posted by superbowlpats

workouts in Erg mode.

At the suggestion of coaches smarter than me I'm slowly getting away from ERG mode for a lot of workouts. It forces you to pay attention to putting out the power yourself instead of relying on a machine to provide the resistance. Makes a difference when trying to duplicate efforts IRL. ERG has it's uses, but I think it's relied on too much for most.

[benb]

Perhaps. Everything is suspect on Strava. Lots of funny math in their software I think.

My FTP is in the 260-270 range when I'm fit.. I'm 41. A long long time ago I did OK in Cat 5 and Cat 4. I had a contract gig when I was a 5 that had zero stress & restricted hours. No responsibilities in my life. Crushed that season, I won one race with a solo breakaway that was like 10 miles. Then I got a startup job that fall and never have trained like that again. Life got in the way, I didn't want to be chronically single, had some health/diet issues that were way harder to figure out than they should have been. I met my wife 18 months after that Cat 5 solo breakaway... I'd be divorced for sure if I trained like that again.

Last season on more than one occasion I successfully hit 300w for 10 minutes doing intervals. Didn't get a single successful attempt at a 20 minute interval for a test all season. I have one particular loop near my house where I can do 10 minutes without any traffic controls. It has several downhills which hurt the # but it's the best I have. But you can't do 2 loops of it for 20 minutes as there is a dangerous 4 way stop at the end of the loop. 20 minutes without a really successful loop could take me through 2 different town centers where I live. Just not easy to find good places at all.

Two things I've noticed:
- My #s are way lower on a trainer unless you stick it in a wind tunnel. I am personally pretty susceptible to overheating. I have a hard time on the hottest days of the summer too, especially on really long rides. So really high #s achieved on the trainer seem more suspicious to me. For a 1 minute or 5 minute interval no problem, for a 20 minute interval.. I'd need a really really good setup. Otherwise I can feel my core temp go up and my HR starts to skyrocket while power goes down. Something that definitely doesn't happen outside.

- In the real world you're not going to actually do an uninterrupted 1 hour interval unless you're in a closed road course flat TT with a headwind the whole way or something or you have easy access to a world class mountain road.

I find it almost impossible to even find a good stretch of road to do a 20 minute interval for an FTP test in my area. No ride I've ever done where I tried to do a test was a really high quality test. There's always at least one of:
- Stop sign or light that you can't figure out a route around
- A really tight corner you have to stop pedaling
- A downhill that you can't seem to keep your power up during
- Wind that either helps you too much to keep your power up or throws you around to the point you can't pedal steadily enough

Not sure where you are, I very rarely will average 20+ mph for 1 hour completely solo. I might attempt to do that once a season or so as an alternate workout, and I can do it when I'm fit, but my average power is meaningless for that.. there is probably no place within a hundred miles of my house where you could do that as a steady effort because of all the factors I mentioned, meanwhile you will need to hammer out 400w up some of the hills to keep your average speed up, and I'd definitely coast down some of the hills to conserve energy too.

The only places I can think any of these rides/tests can be done meaningfully for me is major mountain climbs that would probably be near "HC" in the European systems. I could get a really good # if I paid $500 for a hotel room and an entry in the Mt. Washington hillclimb. There's pretty much no break going up that and it will take an hour for basically anyone who isn't a pro level climber and/or on EPO. But I've done it 2X and both times I had to stop pedaling at one point or be blown off the road! I could also drive 1 hour + into NH and did Rt. 101 up to Pack Monadnock. The actual Pack Monadnock summit road doesn't take 20 minutes to ride up. I rode up there once last year but I had rode 55 miles into a headwind with like 3000ft of climbing by the time I got up there, I was way too cooked to do a test once I got out there to a hill big enough to do it on.

Average speed with other riders is totally meaningless obviously.

For me chasing FTP with too many intervals is pretty dangerous in terms of burnout too. I would really like to say I got to 300 but it's a stretch. It does give me a training goal and something to chase since there's no way I'm racing again married with a kid, it'd be safer to take up skydiving or buy a motorcycle and go back to the racetrack.

[crankles]

Originally Posted by 54ny77

For security, I'd recommend using sftp protocol.

Oh wait, wrong forum.....

damn...beat me to it ya big nerd ;-)

[Bentley]

I trained at a local VQ studio for a couple of years and took the every other month FTP test. Let’s say it was NO FUN. Generally, with hard work I could improve my FTP 3-5 watts every couple of months, but there were a couple of plateaus, I had one month I did a bit more, but it was a lot of work to get small gains. If you were losing weight, maintaining was tough.

I can say we had a few guys pushing close to 300W, big guys, and a couple of young strong guys.

I know the pros push bigger numbers, but for a person with a life, 250W is not a bad number and it’s not a sign of weakness.

Ray

[FlashUNC]

I realize some of this is the marketing schtick, but I think there's something more to what Sufferfest is pushing with their multi-variable length power profiles. Tells a fuller story than just, how many watts can you hold for x amount of time.

And yeah, it's the Internet. Just assume everyone adds 30-50watts and 3-5 inches.

[benb]

I should add I do know a couple riders who have never bought a PM who I suspect are over 300w....

Riders who I would suspect are in that category meet most of these:
- Made it to Cat 1 or 2
- Have won races that were Pro/1/2, beating all the Pros
- Probably would have easily gone Pro if they had started racing younger
- Don't do anything else in life.. though some can manage to hang onto a family
- Probably don't own a car so they get extra miles commuting 100% of the time in any weather
- Absolutely fanatical about diet
- Got their bike fit nailed down really early, no issues like assymetric stuff going on with their bodies
- Ride around 10,000 miles a year every year for many years
- Average 19-20mph on "easy days" for 50 miles solo.

Basically found a way to live & train like a Pro while not being a Pro.

[Joxster]

I know my FTP because I test every month and I have done since I got my first SRM in 1990. There's discreapancys on Zwift and they are trying to manipulate users to use their power meter (more money to them) If you are using the same PM in your training and it's not too incosistant you'll be fine. Just don't use Stages or InfoCrank, the are consistantly inconsistant. FWIW my max Power is 2414W ans yes my SRM are callabrated correctly

My average speed on a training ride was 28mph, my get me home speed after I had blown 3 times was 22mph. When I was training properly I would ride at 31mph with a HR of 178bpm

[bigbill]

I've bought a KICKR over the winter so I've been tracking my FTP as it moves up in my profile and I gain fitness. In December it was 200 and now it's 229. I used to do sustained efforts on my old computrainer in erg mode at 270-300 watts for an hour at 85-90 rpm but I was still in my 30's. I think if I could get it up north of 250 I'd be happy and know I just need to lose weight to get faster.

As far as the Zwift world and guys blowing by you at 5w/kg until they're out of sight, they're likely the same guys that are averaging 52 mph on the slight uphill sprints and 25 mph on the steep climbs.

[Mark McM]

Some years ago, before power meters became common, I calculated a "real" FTP based on a real performance. I had just completed in the Mt. Washington Hill Climb race, and I knew my officially recorded time, the weight of me and my bike, and the USGS heights of the bottom and top of the Mt. Washington Auto Road. The laws of physics said that I couldn't have climbed that high in that time without averaging at least 215 Watts applied to the road for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Estimating additional losses for rolling resistance, air resistance and drivetrain losses, the power at the pedals was probably closer to 230 - 240 Watts. I only weighed about 142 lb. at the time, and my placing in the race was only middling. I can easily believe that a bigger and more talented rider can generate 300 Watts at FTP.

In recent years, the Mt. Washington Hill Climb add a Clydesdale category for the weight challenged climbers (190 lb. or more). The winning time in this category last year was 1:19:33, in a climb of 4780 feet. If you assume that the rider + bike weight must have been at least 200 lb (probably more), then this rider must have produced over 300 Watts for over an hour. Also consider that when Pro racers have done this race, they've typically done it under an hour. So the Clydesdale winner was some big guy (190+ lb) who climbed over 30% slower than a pro, who still put out a true 300+ Watts at FTP.

[echappist]

300W for an hour is not that uncommon; been there, done that, have the cat-3 (by definition mediocre) results to prove it. Most cat-3s are there or thereabouts, at ~70kg. The 40-min plus breaks I sustained saw me averaging ~260W for the duration, though granted one race was extraordinarily hot and humid, and the other had significant coasting. I did this on FTP of ~315-320W.

Maintaining 300W for two hours. now we getting somewhere. Cat 1/2 level, and doing well.

300W for three hours, even more rarified

what almost no one talks about is how is that power applied, and can one punch with the best in the group when needed. FTP doesn't help much there

btw, most of these are quite off

Originally Posted by benb

I should add I do know a couple riders who have never bought a PM who I suspect are over 300w....

Riders who I would suspect are in that category meet most of these:
- Made it to Cat 1 or 2
- Have won races that were Pro/1/2, beating all the Pros

these two are very different. Making it to cat-2 is relatively easy; making it to cat-1 is a lot harder. Beating pros requires another level or two of commitment

- Probably would have easily gone Pro if they had started racing younger

not me

- Don't do anything else in life.. though some can manage to hang onto a family
- Probably don't own a car so they get extra miles commuting 100% of the time in any weather

also don't apply to me

- Absolutely fanatical about diet

you should see how much sweets i ate back then; though i will say, i burned enough calories that it didn't matter that much

- Got their bike fit nailed down really early, no issues like assymetric stuff going on with their bodies

perhaps; though my old position now bothers me

- Ride around 10,000 miles a year every year for many years

most i did was 7,500 miles one year; otherwise averaged ~6-6.5k/year

- Average 19-20mph on "easy days" for 50 miles solo.

Easy would be putting around at 60% FTP; i could do 19-20 mph on relatively flat loops at 70% (when it's nice out), but no way 60%