Power Profile: Very Low 5s and 1m

Anything short where you are (or should be) out of the saddle, you are leaving watts on the table indoors. There comes a point indoors where preserving the bike starts to limit mega watt efforts. At least for me, my 5 second power is about 175 watts higher outdoors. Being able to move the bike while standing plus not being terrified of ripping your bike off the trainer or cracking the framer is worth a number of watts. And if you’re not going that hard, you aren’t at your true 5 second max.

As for 1 minute,I’ve gotten close on Zwift but my highest 1 min numbers are all outdoors on hard group rides, generally on short 1-2 minute climbs I hit while fairly fresh. Again, these are out of the saddle efforts… Races are have efforts like that but I’m not fresh when we hit them.

Once the efforts get long enough that I can remain seated, I don’t see much difference between indoors and outdoors.