Either Amazed or getting trolled

Ramp tests aren’t great to begin with, so no loss there. I would do the old Kolie Moore’s FTP test protocol - Training - TrainerRoad

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I’ll give this a look, I appreciate it. Trying to figure this out, as I was a little suspicious, but I’ve never had bad data from my PM before.

You should not test yourself but your power meter for accuracy

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Oooh cool! Well this is exciting then!

Gulp :flushed: :flushed: :flushed:

Well then, let’s hold off on the Ramp test till you get your bike on the Kinetic trainer :face_with_peeking_eye:.

Do you need help figuring out how to do that? If you are having issues, we might be able to help!

Here are our suggestions for testing your FTP Outside: FTP Testing: Outdoors vs. Indoors.

If you feel like sharing how you get on, please do! Consider me curious :upside_down_face:.

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I want to believe, but I’d think you’d be well over 20mph with that power output and that amount of climbing. When I’m noodling around at 150 watts, I can average 17mph on a 2 hour route I have with about twice as much climbing. I’m not as big as you, but I’m about 180lbs, so not a feather either.

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Try it if you want to. The danger is you burn out and don’t actually improve. It’s your call!

I’ll give it a go, and I’ll let you know how it goes. I just can’t imagine that both Trainer Road and college strength and conditioning coaches are too wrong. I’d certainly like to assume both are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to physiology and training.

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So assuming your PM wasn’t having issues and the power numbers are accurate, your thinking is mostly correct. In that case, looking to close the gap between inside and outside power outputs would be a good thing to focus on.

However, if there is currently a big gap (or a massive gap in the case of your 200/300W example) then trying to ride at the higher number would just cause you to blow up pretty spectacularly. Though you would also not get the same training benefit riding for 20min at 200W if you are physiologically capable of doing 300W.

In this case the questions are:

  1. Is the new higher power reading real? For your metaphor, Did you bench 100lbs and then you go back and try to bench 100kg?
  2. If it is real, why the sudden jump and why can’t you do it inside?

Sorry man, but your power meter is definitely way off, possibly double what it should be. Is there any chance you’re doing something like using a two sided PM but it’s set to left only so it’s doubling the values? I’m just a bit lighter than you and I’d do about 21 mph at 240 watts avg, and my routes have a bit more climbing than yours. I don’t make any effort to get aero either.

Is the climb a Strava segment? If it is you can compare to others that have power and around the same time to see what your average power would likely be.

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And if it is not yet a segment you can easily create one

I haven’t done indoor training in over 3 months. I was just extrapolating from someone else’s idea that I should lower the % from 95% to 90% of 20 minute power, if I’m going to use the new results for indoors. I was wondering why I would possibly want to use lower numbers rather than fix the supposed issue that it was mentioned I’d have moving indoors. I personally don’t/haven’t had issues with power transferring indoors in the past on my old bike/PM, but I have only been training for 2 years now, so I wasn’t sure I was right.

Single-sided meter, and it isn’t showing a double at peak, otherwise I’d be showing a top end of ~2000W, so maybe it developed a weird power curve over the weekend?

You can always accept it, then try the workouts. The first few should let you know if you’re in the ballpark.

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if you’re unsure of your “new” ftp just go outside and do a workout with 3x8-10min threshold intervals. You’ll know damn quick whether or not your new numbers are accurate or not. RPE should be 7-8. You should not feel like you are full gas, but you should feel like you are working at a good rate.

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Thanks for the workout suggestion. Everyone keeps suggesting doing a workout or retesting, but not specifying what type of workout/how to retest if the PM is broken. I was going to do a zone 2 tomorrow, but its actually lower wattage than what I was doing, due to workout/progression levels.

Only 8 minutes of it was at a serious effort, the other 12 of the 20 that was reported was incidental going over FTP, with 30 minutes showing a 320+W effort. I too wonder if it is way too high, but I’m not sure where the issue is. I felt like I was pushing 1k watts when I was hitting 1k. If you are looking at total watts average or average speed, that is probably much lower, considering there is a large part of time where I was below my zone 2 at 251W FTP and I didn’t stop the recording for stops in traffic/lights. It’s not a segment. If I make it a segment, will it pull in others records from before, and if so, do I need Strava premium to make a segment?

If your power meter is broken you’re not going to know until you do a workout with a different PM. What I was suggesting with the 3x8-10min efforts will give you a good indication of whether the numbers you put up when you last tested are in fact legit based on your current PM. 8-10min is enough time, if you pay attention to your RPE, to find out if you are in the right ballpark. If you over tested you’ll be on your rivet during 2nd and 3rd interval. If you undertested you’ll be able to go longer without issue.

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And…

There could be something in that :point_up:
If you can, record an effort with Kinetic-»TR & 4iiii-»Garmin, then compare the numbers across intervals. Through-axle bike on a trainer designed for QR has been discussed here, & it looks rather troublesome. Also consider temporarily installing the 4iiii meter on the bike that you were using on the trainer.

When you were doored (sorry to hear that, but good to know you’re back on the bike! :muscle:) did your bike fall on the side with the power meter? It’s possible that could’ve upset its sensitivity too, not just the offset.

If you haven’t already, I would strongly urge you to determine the cause of the blackout, before trying an FTP test on a moving bike. Falling off rollers & crashing in a loungeroom seems more favorable than blacking out onroad & getting rashed up by skidding to a halt, or worse, run over by traffic.

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Ahh gotcha.

I think the 90% vs 95% suggestion was because normally a ‘real’ 20min test includes a 5min blow out interval before the 20min interval. That 5min is done at near max. The idea being that it blunts your anaerobic contribution so that the 20min test is more purely aerobic. So without that blow out interval you should be able to do an even higher power for 20min than the 95% reduction was designed around. So the 90% was to adjust for that.

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Yes, if you make a segment it will pull others in. It may take a day or so though. I don’t think you need premium, but I’m not 100% sure.

If you PM me your Strava, I’ll take a look and see if I can figure out what’s going on.