I think people may be answering the wrong question or maybe I am reading it incorrectly. I don't take it necessarily as what is fastest for the bike course but what is fastest for your overall time seeing how it is a triathlon and not a bike race. I do not think those have the same answer. For what I am reading your question as, what is the fastest for overall time, would be to ride much more steady in my opinion rather than taxing the legs on the bike only to pay for it exponentially on the run.
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Re: Hilly bike course: steady power or spikes? [Bertrand]
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Re: Hilly bike course: steady power or spikes? [LSchmitt]
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I agree 100%. Obviously power output on the climbs is going to be higher on steep climbs but should be restricted. And soft-pedaling/relaxing on STEEP descents is reasonable. For me the key is being able to hold the power on the flatter or more gently rolling sections of the course - this is where time is made up. I continuously see guys racing up steep hills and holding a gap on the downhills, but then on the flatter sections they can't sustain the power and lose tons of time.
At Chattanooga World 70.3 champs I saw so many guys hammer the hills but on the second half of the course they had nothing left to maintain their speed.
At Chattanooga World 70.3 champs I saw so many guys hammer the hills but on the second half of the course they had nothing left to maintain their speed.
Scottxs wrote:
TH3_FRB wrote:
Scottxs wrote:
You will be faster time wise pushing up he hill and relaxing down he hill.Quicker bike split - possibly. Quicker combined bike+run - More often than not, no.
Scottxs wrote:
Muscles fatigue quicker at a constant power level. Muscles respond to variability....with in reason. If you push 1000w up a hill and 100w down a hill that is a bad thing in the long run.I'm not a physiologist but I'd be willing to bet those who are would take you up on a debate here. By your logic the 1-hr world record should be held by someone who intentionally varied their power. I'd be surprised to see a VI above 1.01. There will always be some variability when out riding on the roads and I don't disagree that a bit of changing it up helps to stay loose and maintain focus, but I don't think powering up the hills and backing off significantly on the downhills is the best approach here. By all means though, continue to do what you do, especially if you are in the M45-49 age group:)
You can't equated a 1-hr world record effort to a 70.3 that was the question in the OP. I said momentum which is time problem......you will be faster time wise if you push up the hill and use a lower power down the hill than maintain the same power up and down. Its about the math and in the long run less fatigue and the effort I talked about is no where near the effort of a 1-hr record. Yes, I will continue to do that but sadly I'm not in that age group:)
If you've got a power target for the race, it will be best to keep a reasonable cap on your climbs. Now if you want to hammer it to ride as fast as possible, you're probably going to also have a higher NP and thus aren't comparing apples to apples. For instance my power plan for Savageman from best bike split doesn't have me going over threshold, but I think realistically i'll need to get a good spike to make it up the Westernport wall, as some have said it was 600 watts plus, but after that back to 280-290ish. VI for that power plan is 1.07
Now for my Xterras, that's a VI of about 1.2-1.25 or more. Due to the shorter nature, there is a definite speed benefit of going over threshold for short and punchy climbs, and on a MTB there's obviously less pedaling downhill.