Thanks for the reply. No, not incomprehensible.
I don’t have the book. I was following the protocol from the website.
The Monthly Test: 20minute warm-up, which is just riding along at a moderate pace, about 65% of your max HR. Then do (3) fast pedaling efforts for 100rpm for one minute each with one minute between each. Then 3 minutes easy… Then Go for it - (1) 5minute all out. Punch it and hold it! Make sure that you start at a high pace, but not soo high that you die at the end. You should have a little in reserve to kick it to the finish line in the last minute.
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You need to do a separate test on another day for a solid 20-minute effort as hard as you can go. Same warm-up as above, including the fast pedaling intervals, but now just do the 20 minute Time Trial.
I certainly didn’t go all out for 5min during my warmup, but I think for a period of time I was probably above 65%. I’m not so concerned, because it seems that there are as many different approaches for estimating FTP as there are coaches. I’m more focused on figuring out a method that I’ll continue to use time after time.
I understand NP, but obviously I don’t have WKO+. I probably should just plunk down for it and be done. Anyway, I did average some 30-odd points just by moving the time bar throughout the 20mins to get a number.
-you’ll plunk sooner or later… 
I don’t suppose there are any free analysis programs, huh? -not that I know of. If you have a csv file of the power data you can calculate it yourself using excel. It’s a pain in the ass and after doing it myself for a week I bought cyclingpeaks (the predecessor to WKO). I won’t take the time now to detail how to do the calculation, but if you want to pursue this angle PM me.
Thanks for the CP assessment guidance. Shouldn’t the 5min interval be done in the same session as the 20min interval? Or, if I do some warmup and spinning like yesterday and then hammer for 5mins, then that’s going to be fine?
-you are correct in that there are many ways to estimate FTP. One could broadly categorize the quickie ones into 1) single tests that involve hard efforts shorter than just doing a 60-minute trial with some correction factor to get to FTP, and 2) methods that require all-out efforts at shorter intervals than 60 minutes, and you extrapolate a line to get an approximation of 60-minute power. The one in the Allen/Coggan book is an example of (1) and the critical power methodology is an example of (2). For way (2), you need to do each one fresh to get real all-out efforts. (Although people sometimes do 1’ and 5’ tests in the same workout. The idea is that they are truly all-out efforts.)
My only other question refers back to the rest of “The Monthly Test,” and I suppose that WKO+ again comes into play here. For now, they would only serve as a benchmarkers from month to month, and WKO+ would somehow work them into a finer FTP estimate, yeah? -I’m not sure exactly how to answer this, probably because I was too lazy to carefully reread “The Monthly Test”. In order to hide my laziness behind a facade of scholarly detachment, let me ask you some questions. Why do you want to know your FTP? Will you use it to build workouts? To build race strategies? To keep track of how much progress you are making? If it’s the last one, then any repeatable test will serve. Are you a bike racer? If so you’ll care about tracking capabilities for shorter efforts like 1’ and 5’. (Or maybe if you’re an ITU guy and have to cover a break.) If you’re solely a triathlete, the shorter benchmarks won’t matter as much. I guess my point is agonizing over true FTP only matters if you’ll use it for something. Just some things to think about… -and with regard to heart rate, even though I admire his contributions to the 200W/<30min20K thread, I’m going to disagree with Grant and say that heart rate is individual enough that only you can know if you went all-out in your 20-minute test. edited to fix formatting – we’ll see if it worked… It didn’t work…I give up.