MTB Home trainer Software

[seahog32]

I can provide some feedback on the Zwift FTP building plan. I could be wrong but I find the sessions a bit too relaxed to me. I wish I would push harder. I'm afraid I don't get all the benefit I could from the session because the intensity is a bit low.

Maybe you were just slacking a little on your last FTP test. Did you puke at all at the end of your test? Just dicking around. I have no personal experience with Zwift. I feel I would find it a little distracting for the sweetspot/threshold/VO2max indoors training. But then, it may be just my personality. I am the kind of guy who is perfectly happy just to concentrate on keeping my output power within 5 Watts (the closer, the happier) of the prescribed curve. OCD is likely the diagnosis.

[SportingGoods]

You are perfectly correct  I was absolutely not at 100%. it's not easy to determine the proper power you can sustain for 20 minutes.

I know for sure that my FTP is somewhere between 250W and 300W. I have already done a climb that was almost 60 minutes at 251W. Then I had some more strength to keep riding for another 60 minutes (and I did not puke!). But all my numbers show that I'm still <300W. That's Strava power.
Then the next question is: is Strava power accurate?

Well, after watching a GCN video where they ask the same question about Powermeters I get my answer. The short answer is "Yes, Strava power is pretty accurate on pure climbs provided that you have properly logged your weight and bike weight". Don't rely on it for flat or descent.
If you know a climb (length, elevation) that you have timed yourself on, you can calculate pretty accurately your power, here (look in the "hill climbing menu):
http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/
GCN used this tool to validate their powermeter!

[SportingGoods]

This previous post made me think. There is a cool way to use this power simulation. It will answer the following question: "Am I ready to climb l'Alpe d'Huez in less then 60 minutes?"

With 13.2 km, 1071m climb, the simulator tells me that an 81 kg mass (that's me+bike+water+shoes+helmet...) needs to develop 268.4W to climb this in 60 minutes. If I drop 1 kg (let's say my future mountain wheels + a few grams on me) it will then take 265.2W.

Very good! It is doable. That's one of my goal for 2017.

PS: Marco Pantani owns the record. 36 minutes 40 seconds. That would take me 468W   
With Marco's weight (57 kg) and a 6.8 kg bike that's still almost 400W.

[seahog32]

Well, after watching a GCN video where they ask the same question about Powermeters I get my answer.

Yeah, I watched that show too. More important though than the accuracy of your powermeter in absolute terms is its consistency. Of course, if the powermeter is absolutely accurate then it is consistent too. But even if it over- or underestimates your power it is still perfectly usable for training purposes as long as the error of measurement is always the same, and assuming your FTP has been established using a proper methodology AND the same (inaccurate) powermeter.

As an example, my FTP values are with a 99.9% certainty too high (4.75 W/kg, 356W) but I tested twice in two consecutive days and the results differ within the 10 Watts range. So that tells me where my power zones are and as long as I don't try to use them to compare myself to other people, whether in the real or the virtual world, the absolute numbers don't matter. Also, they make me feel quite warm and fuzzy inside looking on them. And I did not puke either and neither did I pass out after the test but sure was not too far from that point.

[SportingGoods]

I've entered into a drawing on Zwift last night. Price is a Specialized road disc brake bike (Roubaix with Ultegra Di2 or the equivalent for women, Ruby model - $6500). To enter the contest all you need to do is a 50k ride. So, as soon as the kids were in bed I jumped on my home trainer and logged 50k. I wanted to do a relaxed ride (below threshold), I sticked to it for 40k but could not help pushing the last 10k 

We'll see if my luck has left me