rode this ride below today and would like some feedback. does anything stand out? Is it supposed to naturally feel harder than a normal street ride? I’m assuming yes in that you may have a little more resistance on the CT and you tend to never quit pedaling during the whole CT workout. I rode the Gulf Coast half iron in May on which is basically part of this course below and averaged 19.5 then, but this ride below kicked my ass a lot harder than that 19.5 avg mph race pace in May?
Finish Time Course File Name Average Speed Peak Speed Average Watts Peak Watts Average HR Peak HR Average RPM Peak RPM Distance Traveled Calories Rolling Resistance Lap One 46:40.7 Florida Ironman 19.28 25.18 177 370 160 173 82 100 15.0006 479 2.00 U 46:40.7
For those of you that have seen significant improvements in your riding, what did you most pay attention to on the CT? Avg Watts? RPM?
indoor rides, whether on a CT or some other trainer are always harder / slower than riding outslde for various reasons. Don’t worry about it. The important thing is to get the ride in.
Did you do the coast-down calibration? It looks like your rolling resistance constant was 2.00, which is the factory default. Did you actually set it to that via the coast-down test or did you just use the default setting? The coast-down test is important for getting a realistic power/speed relationship.
Regardless, I find riding inside exponentially harder than riding outside. It has to do with a number of factors, you can probably find lots of threads on this if you search the archives, but basically the biggest issue for me is heat build-up. I have to ride outside (eg, on the porch) with a fan to get anywhere near my normal outdoor numbers.
yeah, right now I’m just trusting that busting it daily on the CT is going to greatly benefit me when I hit the roads. Because of weather (and time off since IMAZ) I haven’t ridden outdoors since IMAZ! So, I’m putting my trust in their product and literally going to go at it as hard as I can hold up on every workout on there and see what happens the next time I hit the roads.
+1 on what BPQ said.
Also, I find that even when following the calibration process to the letter that there is still some variance in accuracy.
To answer the OPs other questions about what to use the CT for, here is my list (in order of priority):
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Sweet Spot Intervals (those that Coggan says are in the 88-96% range of your Threshold Power). I do these in Erg Mode only and find that these are some of the hardest workouts I do - yet, they are extremely measured and controlled. I like that.
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Strength - Hill repeats - I create my own courses that have .5 to 1.5 mile range of hills - up and down for 6-8 times at varying grades.
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Speed/Pedal Skills - high RPM workouts and mixed in with One-Legged drills.
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Recovery rides and then just endurance rides with some pacing.
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Some testing, although I find it quite hard to give it my best inside. Outside, even alone, I am more apt to deliver a solid TT test.
Rarely do I just go out and ride one of the mickey mouse courses…I just don’t find them realistic or very beneficial.
Yes it is harder. In looking at your data, you did not calibrate the ‘rolling resistance’ as it still shows the 2.00 default. After a 5-10 minute warm-up, press F1 to pause the course. Then press the set button, pedal up to 25mph and then let it coast to a stop. The value that shows should be 2.0 or more. Then press set again, and F1 to start back up. It won’t make it easier, but it will give you a more accurate wattage.
Hitting exactly 2.00 on a calibration setting is next to impossible. I’d have to assume that the OP didn’t calibrate.
FWIW - I calibrate 15 mins into the ride and then I’ll even do it again mid-point during a longer CT ride or in between long intervals.
yeah, that’s kinda what I was thinking.
You’re right about doing it after the tire gets warmed up, you definitely want to do it after at least 5 min of riding.
I did calibrate at around a 2.16. Not sure why it showed up as a 2.0? O well.
What type of average wattage is good to hold? I mean from the numbers above on that course, does a 176 avg watts suck ass or is that decent or what?
I will also say that my average HR was around 160. My max HR is a 188 I believe so staying in that zone at 160 I’m assuming would pretty must toast me when it came to the run.
Thanks again…I’ve never been a “numbers” guy when it comes to avg watts, Hr and all that. More or less have just ridden, but like everyone else I’m trying to bust ass and improve the ride!
make sure to press “set” after you do the coast-down, so that the RR number changes to the number you got from the coast-down. So what happened was the computer thought RR was 2.0 but you were really at 2.16 - not a huge difference but enough to make you go slower for a given power output.
As far as whether or not 176w is good for the course, it depends on what kind of workout you were trying to accomplish and how hard it felt, and also how much you weigh and whether you are male or female. Since the RR number wasn’t right on, I wouldn’t take that Avg wattage as gospel, do another ride and make sure the correct RR number gets in there and then see what happens.
I would recommend doing the CompuTrainer TT course as a fitness test to get a wattage number you can use to set zones - it’s 10k and rolling, and if you do it all-out it’s a good fitness test. Fast guys are in the ~14-15 min range and putting out ~4-5 w/kg for that duration, very roughy speaking. Having said that, the CT algorithm favors bigger riders so if you are smaller your time might not be that good (I always get beat by bigger guys who I routinely kill in road races and TTs).
as far as using the CT to make you faster, the erg mode is pretty useful because it forces you to hold a given wattage for a given period of time; you program in the levels beforehand. If you prefer the courses, it’s probably best to do repeats of some courses at high intensity, e.g. 3x the 10k TT course with short rest in between. mix it up with some shorter efforts and some longer efforts. just make sure you’re goin’ hard, otherwise…
- Buy “training with power” by A. Coggan
- do an FTP test
- delete the Computrainer 3D software from your computer
- do your workouts using Erg mode to maximize your time on the trainer
thank me later…
what he said, except don’t buy the book… just look at power 411 on the trainingpeaks website. all of the useful info is there, and most of the parts of the book about training (written by “that other guy”) are not really that useful.