Saturday, March 07, 2015

Guesstimating Climb time from power

If you have access to a power measure and are planning a ride involving lots of climbing or if you just want to measure yourself up against the pros then this application may be of interest.

http://bikecalculator.com/index.html


By plugging in some basic info about yourself and the climb it comes with an estimate of the time to climb. I have found it to be remarkably accurate. 

By way of illustration the table below shows some numbers for a variety of different riders on the principal climbs used on the Marmotte. (The "pro" is David Lopez, data from the 2013 TDF stage where they climbed the Alpe twice, shows the difference between "tempo" and taking it "easy")

The difference between actual and calculated is small. Even where they are "wrong", on the Glandon, it illustrates an interesting point. This climb as a vicious little V valley midway up that will slows you up. It is also the first climb in the event so it gets congested and time is lost working your way through the field. Those going faster and/or starting at the front suffer less from this.


Rider Kg Climb Distance Gradient Power Act Time Calc Time Difference
Pro 67 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 360 45 43 2
Pro 67 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 288 55 52 3
RiderA 74 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 313 54 52 2
RiderB 71 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 222 70 69 1
RiderC 70 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 247 64 65 -1
RiderD 70 Alpe D'Huez 13 8 263 58 59 -1
RiderA 74 Galibier 18 6.6 306 66 65 1
RiderB 71 Galibier 18 6.6 224 84 81 3
RiderC 70 Galibier 18 6.6 223 82 81 1
RiderD 70 Galibier 18 6.6 241 74 75 -1
RiderA 74 Glandon 23 4.8 331 64 62 2
RiderB 71 Glandon 23 4.8 254 83 74 9
RiderC 70 Glandon 22 4.8 274 74 69 5
RiderD 70 Glandon 23 4.8 245 81 75 6
RiderA 74 Telegraph 12 6.9 335 40 41 -1
RiderB 71 Telegraph 12 6.9 250 50 51 -1
RiderC 70 Telegraph 12 6.9 259 50 49 1
RiderD 70 Telegraph 12 6.9 241 48 52 -4

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Criss Cross Progression

Did third criss-cross of 2015 yesterday and showed some nice progression

Ride here 
https://app.strava.com/activities/249537733/overview

Cut the rest interval and extended the work ones, especially the last so that it took just over 60 minutes. For focus I concentrated on the calves, really pushing through to the bottom of the stroke and "scraping the mud off the cleats". I expected at some point they would burn but didn't even on the overs, upper leg gave the biggest pain. Will push them even harder next time.


Comparing to first one

Latest session
Interval Time  9:25 (last 13:15)
Interval Power 283W/328W avg 300W
Hour stats: 279W/290NW HR avg 152bpm HR peak 161bpm

First session
Interval time 9:11
Interval power 280W/325W avg 294W
Hour stats 259W/278NW HR avg 152bpm HR peak 168bpm

So power up and HR down, latter reflected in fact that latest session felt easiest yet. Average power for the workout was enough for a sub 60 minute ascent of Alpe D'Huez.

 

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

CrissCross - favourite turbo workout

Over the course of the last 10 year or so I've tried lots of different workouts. There is one that stands out, both because it works and is enjoyable to do. It's especially good for turbo sessions and I would recommend everybody try it out.

This is the "crisscross" or OU workout. See here for a basic guide http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/3-top-indoor-cycling-workouts-under-1-hour



There are a number of reasons why it's excellent:
  • It's at threshold. There is no getting away from the fact that if you want to improve your power you need to spend time in this zone. The standard workout for this is "2x20" or variant that requires you to hold threshold power steady for an extended period of time. When done on a turbo I find these pretty mind numbing. This workout is more fun since it breaks the long interval down into more manageable "very hard"/"slightly less hard" chunks. In terms of the end result the average power/training benefit will be the same.
  • It's very time efficient. In terms of training stress/minute or calories burned/minute it's amongst the highest. Because the first part is slightly under threshold you can get away with a short warmup (or even skip warmup altogether and do the first 2 minutes as a fast ramp up to threshold. The first 5-6 minutes will feel very tough but by the end of the first interval you should feel normal). Also if pushed for time you can cut recovery, the description recommends 4 minutes, I find 3 is more than enough.
  • It's good race preparation.  The article mentions one, working in a small race group, but that's not the only example there are others. In the real world any course  will have some bits that are tougher than others. The best way to pace these once they start requiring 20 minutes or so+ of effort  is go a bit harder on the hard bits and a bit easier on the less hard bits. In the case of TTs the reason for this is basic physics, for long climbs its better not to change gear every time the gradient shifts since this wastes  power.Also starting slightly under threshold is not a bad idea for events 20 minutes and up. You are unlikely to win them during the first 60 seconds but may lose them if you go off too hard and have nothing left for the hard bits/end.
  • It's good mental training. Since it's more like real life its possible to imagine doing a real ride. If there is a particular course, e.g, a 10TT then you can set the O/U to correspond to its contours. 
  • Also the U sectors will feel, comparatively, easy. This helps with pacing as you can push harder for a bit if you know you will have a bit of a "rest" shortly. Having this in mind is also handy for the inevitable occasion when you pop during a threshold effort. If you can fall back to an effort that's still comparatively  high then you finish better than if you crash right down to your endurance pace. You can see this happen on long climbs when some riders apparently drop off  but then claw back and rejoin.
  • It's hugely adaptable. You make lots of tweaks to keep the sessions varied/interesting and/or extend the area being changed. Just some e.g.s
  • > Make the U lower (around top of Temp) and the O higher (well above threshold).This really will feel like being in a tiny group trying to get to the finish ahead of the pelaton.
  • > Make U high sweetspot and O low threshold and increase the length of each work interval and reduce/eliminate  rest. Eventually it's possible to do a full 60 minutes this way, I have found this to be the "easiest" way to do a sol one hour at close to FTP. 
  •  > Make some of the Os much higher than the others and imagine you are in a race. The first could be first is trying to get a gap with a couple of others then hold it. The last is the final effort to hit the finish first. 
  • You can use the different sections to work on other things as well. E.g. varying cadence. One set can be done by keeping cadence constant and increasing resistance. The next vice versa. Or start the first section at 50rpm then increase 5 rpm each time until you max out. Or try getting the extra power for the Os through a specific muscle group, e.g. push harder with your glutes or concentrate on "scraping the mud of your soles" a la Some combinations may feel more comfortable than others, which ones may surprise you. Even if not just doing this will  make the time pass quicker.
 As an example here is a recent example. The main session consists of 5x9 minutes criss-cross. Power ranged from 90% under 105% over, so not too extreme as main objective was just to accumulate threshold time and set a benchmark for the future. I'll include a session like this each week, firstly increasing to 5x12minutes then reducing recovery with target being non-stop 60 minutes.

The first set of 3 was done increasing power by increasing cadence, then a second set of 2 keeping cadence more constant and varying resistance (which felt easier). Interestingly the HR for each set shows how each U has a bit of recovery following it being pushed up by the O. Quite apart from anything else this gives a handy check of my current FTP guesstimate. 

https://app.strava.com/activities/243530337/analysis/1574/5150