QA Spreadsheet

frenchyge said:

Has anyone already built a spreadsheet that will take exported .csv files from WKO+ and plot the scatterplot for QA?

Has anyone got an acronym dictionary I could borrow? 😄

The cyclingpeaks guys have provided one on their website:

cyclingpeakssoftware.compower411Open ↗

frenchyge said:

Has anyone already built a spreadsheet that will take exported .csv files from WKO+ and plot the scatterplot for QA?

I have a sheet I did up but it's not an automated process - a bit of cut n paste is all that would be needed but I ain't run a QA analysis for a while. I think someone did one that's a bit more automated - can't recall where it is though.

Now that I think about it - this was before CP produced a back calculated crank torque number for PTs (which lends itself to having QA incorporated into WKO at some stage) - so my sheet took raw hub torque and cadence numbers and does all that hack work as well.

I wonder what the exported csv file contains - hub or crank torque? Can't say I've noticed.... Will check it out tonight.

Bruce Diesel said:

The cyclingpeaks guys have provided one on their website:

cyclingpeakssoftware.compower411Open ↗

Okay, I checked this spreadsheet out and see what you mean - to use this one you have to export to csv format.

Bruce Diesel said:

Okay, I checked this spreadsheet out and see what you mean - to use this one you have to export to csv format.

Here's a couple I did early this year with my attempt at the sheet. I reckon my charts are better looking😉 .

One is from a crit, the other a bit of motorpacing on the track.

Hmmm - my bad before - you don't need the torque numbers anyway, just power and cadence (and crank length).

How do you figure the blue grid lines---"avg pedal force" and "avg pedal speed"

Alex Simmons said:

Here's a couple I did early this year with my attempt at the sheet. I reckon my charts are better looking😉 .

One is from a crit, the other a bit of motorpacing on the track.

Hmmm - my bad before - you don't need the torque numbers anyway, just power and cadence (and crank length).

That's going to be my next project, now that I have discovered a really cool charting control. But, I can't give you a date of availability yet. I have to look into the computations. If it's not too much, I'll rip it off in a few days.

Slightly off topic, but I ran my first QA today to take a look at this information. I raced a hard race over the weekend (road race) - fairly flat terrain with a short sharp climb at around 35km's (total race was 105km's).

The wind was blowing really hard and I missed the split so ended up in a fairly small chase group, nowhere to hide and plenty of gutter riding.

I hit a couple of season PB's (20 min NP and 60 min NP) which surprised me as I had almost 10 days off the bike with sinusitus a couple of weeks ago.

I don't really know what to do with the QA info? What is it telling me in terms of anything I need to change?

Bruce Diesel said:

I don't really know what to do with the QA info? What is it telling me in terms of anything I need to change?

Hmmmm..... it says you need to ride faster to make the split. 😄

Gutter riding in the chase group, what kind of chasing is that? Did you try to organize a working echelon, or was everyone just content to sit on the few leading riders?

Personally, I'm going to use QA during my trainer rides to help make them more specific to road rides. Last spring my power was really good coming off the trainer, and my RR performances were there, but I couldn't reproduce that power during crits to save my life. 🙂

Alex Simmons said:

Here's a couple I did early this year with my attempt at the sheet. I reckon my charts are better looking😉

They always are.

Alex Simmons said:

One is from a crit, the other a bit of motorpacing on the track.

Okay, you were motorpacing on the track and not the road, but that plot certainly belies the claim that motorpacing is a good way to simulate the "stochastic" demands of racing, now doesn't it?

frenchyge said:

Personally, I'm going to use QA during my trainer rides to help make them more specific to road rides. Last spring my power was really good coming off the trainer, and my RR performances were there, but I couldn't reproduce that power during crits to save my life. 🙂

Ironically, I did this myself just the other day. I got bored with riding the Velodyne in ergometer mode, so popped in the 'cartridge' (EPROM board) that has pre-programmed courses and rode the 1986 Worlds race. The quadrant analysis from that workout wasn't identical to that from my typical outdoor ride, but it was a lot closer than my typical isopower training session.

Bruce Diesel said:

I hit a couple of season PB's (20 min NP and 60 min NP) which surprised me as I had almost 10 days off the bike with sinusitus a couple of weeks ago.

You probably wouldn't be (as) surprised if you were using the Performance Manager approach to analyze your training.

frenchyge said:

Hmmmm..... it says you need to ride faster to make the split. 😄

Gutter riding in the chase group, what kind of chasing is that? Did you try to organize a working echelon, or was everyone just content to sit on the few leading riders?

Personally, I'm going to use QA during my trainer rides to help make them more specific to road rides. Last spring my power was really good coming off the trainer, and my RR performances were there, but I couldn't reproduce that power during crits to save my life. 🙂

Too true, too true 🙂

THe race was dominated by a strong team - two of the riders got away, then in the last 15km's some of the other team members attacked to try get the third podium place.

acoggan said:

You probably wouldn't be (as) surprised if you were using the Performance Manager approach to analyze your training.

Ah, but I was, I was, or rather my coach was :-)

I had got in a week of fairly hard training - TSB was in the negative for the race.

So, I have read all of Dr Coggans notes regarding QA, but I am still battling to understand what this plot is telling me that could provide insight into strengths/weaknesses, areas to work on etc?

frenchyge said:

Personally, I'm going to use QA during my trainer rides to help make them more specific to road rides.

Thanks for this wonderful idea.

Specificity is also a concern for me while planning trainer workouts. I was thinking of maybe planning the following :
N x (2min@ 112%FTP - 3min at 65% FTP) to :
1th : simulate some paceline work
2nd : prepare for pure VO2Max that will follow later in the season

I would be using 2min so that it doesn't hurt too much.
Thinking of doing between 8 and 12 reps plus wup/wdown.

Overall np is roughly 100% FTP though I'd expect the workout to be easier than a 60min at 100%FTP.

Your thoughts?

acoggan said:

Okay, you were motorpacing on the track and not the road, but that plot certainly belies the claim that motorpacing is a good way to simulate the "stochastic" demands of racing, now doesn't it?

Well using the powermeter showed me a few things about track motorpacing at highish rpms - and it quickly changed my view of what to use it for (leg speed work only, don't expect to get a VO2 Max workout at the same time). In this instance I averaged about 130rpm IIRC (so enduro speed work, not sprint speed work). It also shapens up the reflexes and bike control, seeing how close you can ride to the roller.

I can't really comment about road pacing - the variability of terrain gradient would make it look at lot less like one shot from an elephant gun I'd imagine. I'd sure love to have a go but the city streets and driver availability.....

I think also it depends on how you use the motorpacer - and how much you poke your nose out into the wind. Getting a few training buddies together would do the same thing I suppose...

Bruce Diesel said:

So, I have read all of Dr Coggans notes regarding QA, but I am still battling to understand what this plot is telling me that could provide insight into strengths/weaknesses, areas to work on etc?

Well by itself, this chart won't tell you anything about strengths/weaknesses. It just gives you a representation of what your cadence is at any power point on the chart. From there you're guessin' how muscles where used during the event(s) covered by the analysis. You may also know if it's demanding on the neuromuscular side too.

That serves perfectly Frenchy's intents because he want's to learn more about the specificity of his events, in order to visually compare it to trainer stuff.

You may learn about your weaknesses maybe by finding data that's inconsistant with the event that got analyzed maybe..

And you can compare training with racing data. Or compare all your 40ks of the season given that you already have data from the same courses.

SolarEnergy said:

Thanks for this wonderful idea.

Moi? I believe that gratitude is a little misplaced, as I merely learned about it from Dr. Coggan. 🙂