I’ve just recently started training on a trainer that measures power. I don’t really know what kind of wattage I should be shooting for. I know that pro cyclists can hold around 500 for an hour, but that’s a joke to me. I’ve been able to hold 225-250 for long periods (an hour) and 330-350 for short periods (15-20 minutes). i weigh about 160 lbs.
how am i doing?
what might be some good goals for me?
How many watts do others on the forum hold?
I don’t have too much expierience with power meters, but have some a few rides with one. I am 172 pounds and can average roughly 175-180 watts for an hour or so. I would use the power meter as both a measure of effort and improvement. As for what to shoot for, how about slightly better average power output over time? I would guess that is the goal.
Assuming your trainer is accurate, that is excellent power output. However, if you are able to hold 330-350 for 15-20 minutes, you should be able to hold much higher than 225-250 for an hour. It is important that you do some benchmarking workouts. There are some good sites that go over how to estimate CP60, and then how to get other critical power numbers from that number. Check out cyclingpeaks.com and look at Coggan’s article. Once you have a profile (you’ll need to do like 6’, 12’, 18’ tests and then you can interpolate from there), then you can set-up other workouts accordingly.
Your goal is really that you want to keep your wattage consistent within a workout. Like if you set out to do 15-20 minutes at threshold pace, you don’t want to have a drop-off in your power over the workout.
The power should really be used as a pacing tool. That is its primary value. Both pacing in terms of intensity (i.e. that you really are at threshold pace, or IM pace, or 1/2IM pace, etc.) and also in terms of continuity (that 30 mins at 260 watts is 30 mins at 260 watts +/- 5 watts, not say 15 mins at 300 and 15 mins at 220).
Hope that helps.
Also, what trainer are you using?
ok, I am 140lbs. I averaged 192 watts at my last 20k TT. at a 40k TT I averaged 181 watts. I use a Polar power meter, so take the numbers with a grain of salt, but I guess they can compare to each other at least.
thanks for the info, rappstar. i’m not at home right now, so i can’t look at my training records. i do know that the 225-250 watts for an hour is right because i did it yesterday. i think my average yesterday was 237. i don’t remember specifics for shorter times and i was guessing on the 330-350 for 15-20 minutes. it could very well be lower than that, maybe closer to 300. i remember that early on (a few months ago) i did 15 minutes at 314 watts. i’m not in fabulous cardiovascular shape right now since my workouts rarely go past 1.5 hours.
my trainer is the Tacx Flow Ergotrainer. it’s only a few months old. is there a way to figure out if it’s accurate?
i’ll check out cyclingpeaks.com and i think Tacx has training and testing info and even online programs that calculate (approximate) things like lactate threshold.
thanks again.
my trainer is the Tacx Flow Ergotrainer. it’s only a few months old. is there a way to figure out if it’s accurate?
Buy a PowerTap and use it on the Tacx. Compare. 
ha, i wish i could afford a powertap. if i could afford a powertap, i wouldn’t have gotten a trainer with power.
For a triathlete, about 4 watts per kilo of body weight is doing pretty good (for 60 minutes). 5 watts per kilo and you’re elite. Masters guys can race very well on 3.5-3.7 w/kg. My best so far is ~3.2, but I’m not very good.
While training wattage is all relative, I will tell you that I have a tacX ergoflow trainer and that the wattage function when compared to a power tap is significantly different. I went along last season thinking I was doing an hour at 295 watts. Then I started hearing stories about the accuracy on the TacX which raised some questions which of course I then used as an excuse to purchase a Powertap SL. Needless to say the first time on the TacX with the Powertap was an eye opening experience. The tacX said I avg’d 276 for a 1.5hour ride while the powertap said I avg’d 212…Pretty big difference. Anyway, what I’ve noticed most with the TacX is that at any resistance level below about 5 it gives you a break (makes it easier) once you hit your desired wattage. For example if you were ramping up to 275 watts the TacX will be accurate on the fact that you hit 275 watts but when you try to hold the 275 watts the “real” or Powertap wattage shows that the wattage drops significantly(like to 190) while the tacX is still showing 275. Also if you try just dialing in the wattage there are much bigger discrepancies there due to the same effect. It has to be something with the breaking mechanism because the resistance is less the faster you get the wheel spinning however when the resistance is dropping so is your wattage. Anywho, just sharing my experience. I’ve also checked my TacX and Powertap against a Dura-Ace SRM my buddy rides with and the Powertap and the SRM are spot on with The TacX not really in the ball park for any length of time. However, Besides the wattage function everything on the TacX checks out i.e cadece, speed, and time and I consider it a good training tool.