Cat 1 Criterium Power

BullGod said:

Am Uk National based in Netherlands racing in Cat 1 - despite being a scrawny climber type am forced to take part in weekly 60km pancake flat criteriums. Last year I struggled to match the speed and was in the straggler group after 15 minutes.

With this in mind I have been power training on a Tacx flow for 3 months and my stats are now as follows - weight 70kg.

1.5 hrs - 360 avge
1 hr - 362w avge
30 mins - 376w avge
5 mins 410 avge
1 min - 680 avge
sprint - 900

Am I gonna get dropped again? My girl's entire family are coming to watch me in the season opener next weekend and I don't want to be off the back.

http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/images/powerprofile_v4.gif

Based on your numbers above you're in the upper Cat.1 area.

Looks good.

One thing though, can you hammer at 600 watts for 10 seconds out of a corner, coast 50 seconds, and repeat for 1 hour? We can have good peak values, but to apply them to racing is a whole nuther thing.

Spunout said:

...
One thing though, can you hammer at 600 watts for 10 seconds out of a corner, coast 50 seconds, and repeat for 1 hour? ...

Or, if getting a result isn't your target but looking good is, go off the front and see how long you can stay out there. :p When you're on a flyer, you can pick your line, don't have to deal w/the accordion effect, etc so your power is much smoother.

BullGod said:

With this in mind I have been power training on a Tacx flow for 3 months...

Mine is wildly inaccurate (but mostly giving a number that's too high). Are you using something else to measure power too (i.e. you've got pretty precise duration numbers)?

shawndoggy said:

Mine is wildly inaccurate (but mostly giving a number that's too high). Are you using something else to measure power too (i.e. you've got pretty precise duration numbers)?

How much (wildly?) higher do you estimate your flow is showing? I mean, if mine is 10% over I should still be Ok right? what's the highest reading you got out of it? in pain terms was it way off?

just tried the 600w sprints every minute (or 2🙄 ) for an hour. Man that hurts. Put out a 5 min effort at avge 433 beforehand too.

I'm sure others can chime in here, but mine is sooooo off, that I don't even look at the power number on the screen anymore. When I was trying to calibrate it for every ride (a year ago now), it was something like 50-75W optimistic (like I'd be really doing 250, and it would say 315). That's a huge difference for me.

Right now what I've done is cranked down the roller so tight that there's no way that it'll slip on my tire. This of course has the opposite effect... showing 225 when I'm really doing 280.

And all that wouldn't be bad if it were at least repeatable, but it seems like every time I pull the bike off of the trainer and put it back on, all bets are off on whether the number is going to be high or low.

I'll screw around with it a bit tomorrow a.m. using the tacx coast-down calibration and take a few digital pics of the Tacx unit next to my PT pro...

Search this forum, someone tested it and found a correct slope setting to use that allows for a bit more accurate readings.

I have a Tacx Flow and I have some experience of comparing to a powertap (I have both).

I found that if you use slope/brake 3, it was pretty accurate at 325 w. Below this the Flow read over (the lower the power the bigger the difference) and above this the Ptap read over. All this was done after carrying out the calibration check - or using the method here:

scientific-coaching.co.ukindex.phpOpen ↗

The I'Magic is pretty similar to the Flow but more fancy/gadgety.

At 0 or 1 Brake the Flow does wildly overread, probably by as much as 50 w at higher powers. However, it is consistent in that if you test yourself today on the power profile test, then again in a month, if you have improved on the Flow then you have improved in real life, and the % improvements are accurate. I did this at the start of the winter and always use the flow at brake level 3. If you go any higher the resistance starts to get 'unreal'

Why do I use the Flow if I have a powertap? I can't be bothered to keep swapping my bike around so the powertap stays on my 'road' bike.

Hope this is helpful.....

[quote="BullGod"]Am Uk National based in Netherlands racing in Cat 1 - despite being a scrawny climber type am forced to take part in weekly 60km pancake flat criteriums. Last year I struggled to match the speed and was in the straggler group after 15 minutes.

With this in mind I have been power training on a Tacx flow for 3 months and my stats are now as follows - weight 70kg.

1.5 hrs - 360 avge
1 hr - 362w avge
30 mins - 376w avge
5 mins 410 avge
1 min - 680 avge
sprint - 900

Am I gonna get dropped again? My girl's entire family are coming to watch me in the season opener next weekend and I don't want to be off the back.[/QUOT

all the data i have on the NRC crits i have done suggests that power ranges from 330 for 1.5hrs to 350 for 2.25hrs, typically its about 350 though. the max i have seen for an hour is 370, but again there are a lot of hard accelartions that really wear you down.

I could never do what you do. Wasn't fast enough with last year's training of 3080 miles.

What's the fastest avg speed you can maintain over a distance of 10 miles or 16 km? I weigh 149 lbs (67.58 kg).

What your top speed in the flats with no wind?

the holster said:

all the data i have on the NRC crits i have done suggests that power ranges from 330 for 1.5hrs to 350 for 2.25hrs, typically its about 350 though. the max i have seen for an hour is 370, but again there are a lot of hard accelartions that really wear you down.

Ouch! Is that Pnorm of Pave? Also, if you don't mind me asking, which NRC crits were these? Were you especially active? I'm curious because I train with some riders who can consistently finish NRC crits, and I can't imagine their FTP is anywhere close to that.

the holster said:

all the data i have on the NRC crits i have done suggests that power ranges from 330 for 1.5hrs to 350 for 2.25hrs, typically its about 350 though. the max i have seen for an hour is 370, but again there are a lot of hard accelartions that really wear you down.

No way dude! I don't think so - way too high.

redlands, mclane, central valley and more. its completely accurate, i obsess over the accuracy of my srm, i check the slope monthly and offset many times a day. its all normal power averages.

yzfrr11 do you have files that suggest otherwise

yzfrr11 said:

No way dude! I don't think so - way too high.

without stating the obvious--how do you do know that, without knowing how much he weighs??? That may not be THAT high....(unless you know he's 64KG or something--in which case I take it back!!)

FWIW, I've done most of those crits too--on an Ave. of about 260-270 watts...but at 61-62KG, that's pretty hard! BTW, I don't think my nose saw the wind for a second second in any of those!

yzfrr11 said:

No way dude! I don't think so - way too high.

you must understand that the raw power is normally 260-290, but there is so much coasting and hard acclerations, it yields a high NP.

downsland said:

I have a Tacx Flow and I have some experience of comparing to a powertap (I have both).

I found that if you use slope/brake 3, it was pretty accurate at 325 w. Below this the Flow read over (the lower the power the bigger the difference) and above this the Ptap read over. All this was done after carrying out the calibration check - or using the method here:

scientific-coaching.co.ukindex.phpOpen ↗

The I'Magic is pretty similar to the Flow but more fancy/gadgety.

At 0 or 1 Brake the Flow does wildly overread, probably by as much as 50 w at higher powers. However, it is consistent in that if you test yourself today on the power profile test, then again in a month, if you have improved on the Flow then you have improved in real life, and the % improvements are accurate. I did this at the start of the winter and always use the flow at brake level 3. If you go any higher the resistance starts to get 'unreal'

Why do I use the Flow if I have a powertap? I can't be bothered to keep swapping my bike around so the powertap stays on my 'road' bike.

Hope this is helpful.....

Thanks for the tip - I've been doing my speed training with the setting on brake level 2 or 3 - so the innaccuracy shouldn't be too major. Certainly not enough to mean that it said 360w and it was just 180!

JTE83 said:

I could never do what you do. Wasn't fast enough with last year's training of 3080 miles.

What's the fastest avg speed you can maintain over a distance of 10 miles or 16 km? I weigh 149 lbs (67.58 kg).

What your top speed in the flats with no wind?

I do about 18,000km a year. 16km? never tested, but I'd be disappointed to be under 29mph. The fastest I ever went on the flat was in an elite / cat 1 crit last year with some guys from Rabobank continental and APAC (Dutch pros) on the front - until I dropped out after 5 laps we were averaging 49kph per lap, and there were numerous tight bends. I think we were doing 65kph in the straits. Pain.

Just a shot in the dark, but you'll probably have to do better than 900w for a sprint (finish) if you want to podeium unless you attack at just the right moment and break away before the final sprint. I couldn't even finish, let alone win a cat 1 race, and i can do a 15 sec 900w burst at the end of a hard ride.

Krazyderek said:

Just a shot in the dark, but you'll probably have to do better than 900w for a sprint (finish) if you want to podeium unless you attack at just the right moment and break away before the final sprint. I couldn't even finish, let alone win a cat 1 race, and i can do a 15 sec 900w burst at the end of a hard ride.

That high end power may actually be the problem. I often see readings over 900w just during surges, jumping small gaps, etc. Sprint power for contenders is probably at least 13-1400w, even at the end of a hard race (flat crit). It may be that you're maxing out several times in the race and burning those matches.