Ok so maybe not actually kill me, but 3 ramp tests in 18 days
So a little back story…
Raced at a reasonable level ( Cat2 Uk )
Had a knee operation November 2021
Nothing too serious but time off the bike.
Came to TrainerRoad after getting bored of Zwifts canned training.
So having started a criterium plan.
Did my ramp test, only to find my ftp had gone down from 300+ to 200 ( 350 when race fit )
Ok, so I’ll just have to suck it up and rebuild.
Enter adaptive training.
Assigned me another ramp test Wednesday, which I managed to get done Thursday morning. Went down to 193 but kept my 200 ftp, as that feels too low anyway.
Only to find its assigned me yet another ramp test on Saturday
What gives ?
I came to TrainerRoad to escape the need for ramp tests.
Not sure how long you had to take off the bike (so comment below could be totally wrong)
I’d be surprised if this was a real decline in FTP, more likely your anaerobic capacity has decreased significantly, owing to the lack of training (with some aerobic capacity declining too, of course - again, this depends on the length of the break).
If you’re a short power rider, then FTP derived from ramp tests could be inappropriate and perhaps move to a longer format test?
I’m not so much concerned about my decline in fitness, these things happen.
I’m more curious about TrainerRoad’s adaptive training scheduling me multiple concurrent ramp tests.
That just seems broken.
My hope was by inputting years and years of previous ride date, adaptive training would go some way towards setting my level, without the need for multiple ramp tests.
You’re also correct, I am a short power (sprinter) style rider. But I was hoping by uploading historical ride date, that would be taken into account ?
It does sound weird/ broken perhaps contacting support might be the best way to get an answer support@trainerroad.com Perhaps you’ve been recalculating the plan often, I think that can regenerate a ramp test at the start of a plan.
FWIW You can use AI FTP Detection in place of a ramp test to get a FTP value, it looks at your past and recent history etc I believe to come up with an accurate number. There are limitations over how often you can substitute a ramp for a detection (maybe once every 28 days).
Even if your plan had several ramp tests, you don’t have to do them. With the whole adaptive training you simply choose the option where it progressively figures out your FTP the day it puts the ramp test on your calendar. You have to enable it in your options.
In your case coming back from time off the bike would be a good thing to have more times to reassess your FTP. Your legs have memory and your return would more than likely have a steeper FTP growth curve.
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This is something I think a lot of people are leaving out of the discussion when it comes to AI FTP. Once you tell TR what kind of rider you are (crit, XC, century, etc) the catalog of workouts available becomes more limited as the system always tries to give you an appropriate workout at an appropriate duration.
So, if you tell it you’re on a Crit plan and you start smashing workout after workout, at some point there aren’t enough 1 to 1.5 hour workouts for you to make progress. (Example, a 1 hour endurance ride can’t be made harder because then it becomes a tempo ride.)
You could also be someone that doesn’t ramp test as well as you workout. In this case, your ramp test results are too low, then you start marking workout after workout as “easy”. The system quickly runs out of workouts at the level you need and the only option is to ask you to do another ramp test to reset the levels. (Again, you can’t make the sweat spot harder or it’s not sweat spot.) The fact that you dropped in FTP just make the AI FTP even more confused.
I’m willing to bet, if you just used the AI FTP and didn’t do ramp tests, you’ll find your training FTP to be much higher than you can test your FTP to be. This would make some sense coming back off an injury, too.
If you tried to use AI FTP on those days I think it would just tell you either you dont have enough rides yet or its not long enough since your last change. How the ramp test got on your plan will be irrelevant I think.
This is definitely a bug! We would not expect AT to suggest another Ramp Test if you’ve completed one recently, especially as recent as within the last week! I’ve reached out via Private Message to get more detailed information, so that we can fix this bug!
In the meantime, please do reach out to support for assistance on getting your training plan out of the current state.
Looking at this more closely, it looks like you have a custom plan that originally started on May 10 with a scheduled Ramp Test on the plan, which was not completed. The plan now shows a start date of May 20, and a manually added (and completed) Ramp Test on May 19. If you added a new plan starting May 20 after completing the Ramp Test on May 19, we would expect AT to suggest a workout in place of the Ramp Test on May 20. It will help us a ton to understand the sequence of events leading up to this state, so we can prevent things like this from happening in the future!
I’ve just seen Ambers support reply, it seems it’s not quite working as expected, so I passed the details of what I’d done to break it I the hope it’ll stop it happening to someone else
I the hope it’ll stop it happening to someone else 