In the past three months, I have managed to put in about 115 hours on the bike. This morning as an experiment, I cruised for an hour at my projected half-ironman heart rate. The result, once I downloaded the ride, was a power output equivalent to my 50K race output (duathlon) from last spring at a heart rate that averaged 20 beats less per minute. I expect on race day it should be even better since I won’t have a 19-mile run with a 5K race at the end in my legs from the day before.
I think the value of the power meter can be seen from days like today. It was very windy and the course was hilly so had I observed my average speed then it would not have been too awe-inspiring. However, with power I had some positive feedback.
I can also say that the simple act of riding your bike for an average of 175 miles per week for the last six weeks has made an unbelievable difference. I never do intervals and the average heart rate from my rides is about 68-72 percent max heart rate. Other than a weekly big-gear power workout, I just go out and ride according to how I feel.
Careful Chad…the evidence you give only supports the value of high volume training you’ve done. As you know, I’m a big fan of power training. Tell the masses about how you USED the power meter to help you during these 115 hours of training.
Incidently, I’d like you thoughts about how to use power to ride the Quantico area. I’m having huge issues riding with NON-power equipped folks around here. One of my best friends is here, having just come from SoCal. I’d guage us at about the same riding level, given recent race results. But if I try to ride, say, a long weekend ride with him and use the strategies I’ve learned from riding with power, he’ll ride away from me on the uphills. I’ve got to spike up to about 400w(???) to stay with him on the uphill. But if I keep my watts spike reasonable on the uphills, and keep the power constant on the downhills, I never make up enough ground before the next hill. These hills are just too steep and numerous to ride like that. If I just ride with him, I feel fine (for distances up to 80 mi so far). But if I ride as I’ve learned, I quickly drop off his pace. The REALLY wierd part is that either way, on a 50-60mi ride, my avg power ends up at about 210-225, or right in my 1/2 IM range right now. The only thing that is apparent is that Bob (my friend) has been riding the hills in SoCal while I’ve been on the flats in Norfolk VA for 3 years.
In truth, during aerobic training, which is about all I do, the power meter is mostly a post-ride analysis tool. It let’s me know what wattage I can ride at my aerobic heart rate and I can track how it improves. Over time though, as you observe how power fluctuates with various cadences, you also get a feel for how you should ride or not ride to avoid big spikes. For one thing, I never ride out of the saddle–or at least almost never. This is hard to do on PowerCranks anyway, but even on regular cranks it creates huge (inefficient) power spikes.
The power meter was also good to help me realize that racing on PowerCranks was a bad idea. I came to this conclusion after I put my normal cranks on for a long ride with a friend and managed 210 watts for 5 ½ hours of hilly, hot, windy riding here in the beautiful Morongo Basin. I rolled in feeling very strong and normally I am dying after five hours on the PCs. I realized that a higher cadence (in theory, less efficient because I didn’t have to lift the pedals and spin ‘circles’) was more powerful. I could still feel myself bringing the hip flexors and other “PC muscles” into play, but when they fatigued by the end of the day, I could just push with the quads.
It is just about impossible to ride the Quantico (read: MCB 1 to Upshur) hills without spikes. I would just use them in different ways. On easy recovery days you sit and spin them in your lowest gear, which needs to be pretty low (like 39x24or25). On the other days you just stay with Bob and ride the hill evenly.
Here’s my example-on two occasions I rode nearly the entire portion of a short duathlon cycle leg with Doug Marocco. He rarely shifts out of his big ring so initially on the hill he would zoom past me and jam up the hill, mostly out of the saddle. As I sat and spun he would gap me until he finally sat near the crest. The inevitable letdown in power from standing would start to close the gap and nearly every time I would pass him just over the top or on the way down the next hill. Both times I got off and outran him, though that is likely more an indicator of run speed than anything.
I think most people ride hills this way: Jam at the bottom to maintain your speed. Shift down but then stand again for power. As the top nears they sit because their legs are toast and the work’s almost done. They roll over the top without a lot of momentum.
By sitting, spinning and gearing down to avoid a huge power spike, (big increases are inevitable but you want to keep it reasonable) you actually climb faster and have much more momentum over the top of the hill.
Ok, that was long and I have to go to the commissary for groceries.
I use an SRM and when I ride with my brother, he definitely falls back on the flats and gains on the uphills – when I try to hold power steady. However… I acknowledge that, in competitive circumstances, you SHOULD NOT hold power steady. You should hammer the uphills and take it easy on the downhills. Remember you get way more bang for your extra watt on an uphill – you’re working against a constant force, i.e. gravity. On the downhill, you’re powering into exponentially increasing air resistance.
What seems like an unreasonable spike to you really isn’t. If your average power is, say, 300 watts, it’s not unreasonable to go up to 400 watts on steep hills.
Disclaimer, I do not ride with power except inside on the CT, and even then I dont pay that much attention. I would like a power meter though, tri is expensive.
That being said…Is your freind a roadie? Triathlon is about steady power applied to the duration of a course, hopefully saving your legs for a run. Road riding (racing) is about steady power on the flats and powr spikes on hills and coming out of corners, power spent and then recovered. 2 totally different riding styles.
When I ride with roadies, they sit on my wheel on the flats. On the hills they are able to leave me pretty easily. Of course my bike is also heavier.
No, elund, Bob is not a roadie, but has done plenty of riding with them in SoCal. He rides like a roadie more than a triathlete. I suspect that’s why he’s been less than fully successful on IM courses like the Great Floridian with it’s short steep hills.
My long ride days are done at avg power 200-210 for up to 5 hours. Right now I allow my watts to spike up to about 300 on the shorter steeper hills. On the longer, but less steep I’ll keep the power down at about 250-260 and hold that. Either way, I try to keep the watts down sufficiently to allow me to hold avg watts over the crest and downhills. (My non-powermeter friends have that inevitable slack over the crest and tend not to cruise the downhills.)
