NP from Crit

NP is meaningless IMO. If I actually followed NP instead of REAL power, I could say my FTP is 420. When you coast and have zero watts, you are recovering, so of course you will be able to produce more power when you actually pedal.

One day when I have a powermeter again, I'm going to do a ride with a NP of 600+watts, just to show you all how ridiculous it is. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast...

fergie said:

Would the pedalling and some very slow corners affect the 30sec rolling ave that NP is based on?.

Yes, there are lots of zeros going into the NP calculation when you coast.

fergie said:

Also I can't see an easy way to determine the exact cadence ranges from the race in CyclingPeaks without cutting out my warm up and cool down from the file.

Yes, you are correct to my knowledge. If you only need the min, max and average, that's easy. If you want to get the dsitribution, you need to save as a copy and wipe out the portions that you don't want to include.

velomanct said:

NP is meaningless IMO. If I actually followed NP instead of REAL power, I could say my FTP is 420. When you coast and have zero watts, you are recovering, so of course you will be able to produce more power when you actually pedal.

One day when I have a powermeter again, I'm going to do a ride with a NP of 600+watts, just to show you all how ridiculous it is. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast...

a 1 hour ride with NP of 600+ ???

velomanct said:

NP is meaningless IMO. If I actually followed NP instead of REAL power, I could say my FTP is 420.

Over what period of time are we talking here?

velomanct said:

One day when I have a powermeter again, I'm going to do a ride with a NP of 600+watts, just to show you all how ridiculous it is. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast...

I didn't realize that Lance had moved to Connecticut. Who knew?

velomanct said:

NP is meaningless IMO. If I actually followed NP instead of REAL power, I could say my FTP is 420. When you coast and have zero watts, you are recovering, so of course you will be able to produce more power when you actually pedal.

One day when I have a powermeter again, I'm going to do a ride with a NP of 600+watts, just to show you all how ridiculous it is. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast...

I hope that means you have files showing an NP of 420 (i'm assuming this is well above your FT) and that they're not of the type that are considered "NP Buster" rides?

Personally, I think it's sort of insulting that you think we all blindly follow NP without any sort of verification, and that you apparently have all the answers...

fergie said:

Set a new FTP from a 60min NP in a hilly training ride and then on the weekend raced in a 20min + 3 lap criterium. RPE was frigging hard but NP was 30watts off. I notice that cadence was 0-20 for 27% off the file. Would the pedalling and some very slow corners affect the 30sec rolling ave that NP is based on?

Also I can't see an easy way to determine the exact cadence ranges from the race in CyclingPeaks without cutting out my warm up and cool down from the file.

Any ideas.

I had a similar thing happen in a really technical crit, it seemed crazy hard but NP was low. I think that the bursts are so short in a techincal crit, and theres so much time spent not pedaling, that you simply can't generate that much power when you are pedaling. IOW, those types of races are really difficult from a neuromuscular perspective, but not from an aerobic/metabolic perspective.

fergie said:

Set a new FTP from a 60min NP in a hilly training ride and then on the weekend raced in a 20min + 3 lap criterium. RPE was frigging hard but NP was 30watts off. I notice that cadence was 0-20 for 27% off the file. Any ideas.

What sort of power profile do you have?
Perhaps the crit demanded more from your "weaker" attributes and less from your strengths, pushing RPE up but NP down?

I never set FTP based on NP but I do use NP to tell me if I may have improved FTP. I always use average power from formal testing (since I don't do TTs of approx 1 hour).

You can simply mark a range for the crit, then by right clicking the range name, select Edit Range, then Copy and Paste it into a new workout (say in your Spare athlete).

fergie said:

RPE was frigging hard but NP was 30watts off

NP was 30 watts off what? FT?

I think that's why race NP is so far down the list of ways to determine FT. Power output isn't really self-selected. And at 20 mins +3, you're not exactly meeting the criteria (which is a 1 hour road race)

[quote="Coggan"][font=Geneva]
1) from inspection of a ride file.
2) from power distribution profile from multiple rides.
3) from blood lactate measurements (better or worse, depending on how it
is done).
4) based on normalized power from a hard ~1 h race.
5) using critical power testing and analysis.
6) from the power that you can routinely generate during long intervals
done in training.
7) from the average power during a ~1 h TT (the best predictor of
performance is performance itself).
"
[/quote][/font]

Or by Ric's testing protocol 😉

whoawhoa said:

I hope that means you have files showing an NP of 420

What... do you doubt for just one second that he can perform a 60min at 100% FTP with a VI of 1.20 given an FTP of 350?

I'm a little more sceptical with a 60min at 100% FTP with a VI of 1.5 given an FTP of 400w 😉

whoawhoa said:

IOW, those types of races are really difficult from a neuromuscular perspective, but not from an aerobic/metabolic perspective.

That was my experience last year as well. I could not get maintain anywhere near FTP in the training crits that I raced, even though I was getting dropped after 20-30 minutes.

velomanct said:

One day when I have a powermeter again, I'm going to do a ride with a NP of 600+watts, just to show you all how ridiculous it is. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast...

LOL! I wished I lived up there just so I could loan you my PT and let you show us how it's done. 😄

In fact, I'd bet you the cost of a powermeter that you couldn't produce 600w+ NP for 1hr using any method of your choosing. 🙄

30 watts off FTP for a 22min event. But after pasting the file into another date found it was 33% of no pedalling. It's the hardest I have gone all season. Would have been nice to see some PBs come from it at any duration.

I should be glad at 35 that it's 40-50 year olds that are beating me up unlike last year where it was 50-60 year olds. I have set myself a timeline of three years to get back on terms with riders my own age. Looks like it's not going to be far wrong.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

frenchyge said:

LOL! I wished I lived up there just so I could loan you my PT and let you show us how it's done. 😄

In fact, I'd bet you the cost of a powermeter that you couldn't produce 600w+ NP for 1hr using any method of your choosing. 🙄

Can I take that bet??

I will need to zero the torque first, though (while pedalling).....

RipVanCommittee said:

Can I take that bet??

I will need to zero the torque first, though (while pedalling).....

Wouldn't that have the opposite effect to what you're thinking it will? setting to zero with negative torque applied might do the trick....

Alex Simmons said:

Wouldn't that have the opposite effect to what you're thinking it will? setting to zero with negative torque applied might do the trick....

Hmm, I'm not sure?? I thought that's what I did before my 40K 460Watt effort.....

I'm going to check that tomorrow...

[quote="fergieand then on the weekend raced in a 20min + 3 lap criterium. .[/QUOTE"]BTW, where do I find these 20 minute crits!!:eek:

I'm sure if that would be easy--or really, really hard.??

RipVanCommittee said:

BTW, where do I find these 20 minute crits!!:eek:

I'm sure if that would be easy--or really, really hard.??

I think as far as I've seen, the amount of time/laps are generally determined by racing category.

For example:

Cat 4/5: 20 minutes + 3 laps
Cat 2/3: 40 minutes + 3 laps
Cat 1/Pro: 75 minutes + 5 laps

or something such

Even so, 20 minutes does sound really short. 😉

-Eric

It was a small event in the C grade category. Probably Cat 4or5. A grade was 40min + 3 laps but only 12 starters.

A longer crit would have been better for me. But good training for National Masters 1 Points Race in 8 weeks!