Data on Race day-include warm-up?

Hmmm...so I guess my question is, what do some of you racers do?

rayhuang said:

Hmmm...so I guess my question is, what do some of you racers do?

Run the PT in interval mode. As you leave home to start your warmup you just need to press and hold the left hand button until the #1 interval is displayed and stays on. Then in the last minute or so before your race starts you quickly press both buttons to start interval #2. Don't try to get the exact second the gun goes off, especially for a crit or TT, just start the interval with 30 seconds or a minute to go. You've got more important things to worry about during a hectic crit start than fumbling with buttons and that extra 30 seconds of zero power and zero speed data won't really change anything. When you finish your race, start interval 3 by quickly pressing both buttons again.

When you get home and upload the file you'll see all three intervals marked on your chart in WKO+ and you'll have summary statistics for each interval. Turn off the visibility icon (the little eyeball) for the WU and CD intervals and the race itself will be highlighted and standout in your chart.

-Dave

dave,

First, thank you, thats what i'll do. On todays and tomorrows training rides I'll mess around with splitting my rides into 3 intervals.

Ray

rayhuang said:

... On todays and tomorrows training rides I'll mess around with splitting my rides into 3 intervals...

Sounds good Ray, I suspect you'll get hooked on running in interval mode. You don't actually need to display the running intervals (the effect of holding the left button down for several seconds at the beginning) you could run in full ride display but still trigger intervals with the quick double button press. That marks them in your file for later viewing. The beauty of running in interval display mode (where the interval number stays lit up all the time) is that all the display readings reflect only the interval you're currently performing. So things like average power, max pwr, avg HR, avg cadence, etc, are all related to the specific interval and not the entire ride.

The other cool thing is you can review your intervals while you're still riding and accumulating additional interval data. Say you finish a hard 2x20 session and you're noodling home on your cooldown. You can scroll till the interval number is active, hold down the right hand button for a few seconds and the interval number will show up with a little black circle with the letter M in the center. That means you're in memory mode and you can scroll through the intervals you've done and for each one scroll through all the readings like average power, average cadence, max pwr, energy expended, etc. This has very little value during a race but I've used it to help dial in my L5 and L6 efforts. Among other things it lets me check to see when I've done too many and am beginning to have trouble holding the desired power for the interval. The PT only stores 9 intervals for display, it actually tags the file with all of them but you can only use the memory playback function for the last 9. When you want to get back out of memory playback, just hold the right button down for several more seconds to toggle back to interval display mode.

Anyway, the PT has a lot of cool features but they take a bit of playing with to figure out if they're useful for your training and racing. I pretty much always ride in interval mode unless I'm just doing a totally unstructured group ride but I'd probably still want to seperate the ride itself from my WU and CD.

Good luck,
Dave

Dave,

I had no idea you could display the interval data while riding. I cannot tell you all the times I wanted to look at just the data from the last interval (especially on the trainer where its ultra boring AND you can be very accurate about your power, Cad,HR, etc.). Thats a great way to dial in as you say your intervals as you do them or just while away the minutes on the same old roads that take you home. I am gald we had this conversation!!

Thanks,
Ray

rayhuang said:

...I cannot tell you all the times I wanted to look at just the data from the last interval ...

Agreed, I was pretty happy to get my head around that feature as well. The memory playback feature is the only safe way I know to evaluate my L7 sprint power during the ride. There's no way I can look at the display while going all out for fifteen or twenty seconds but I can start an interval (no, I don't try to nail the start of a full out sprint, but it doesn't matter if I have a few seconds of low power data at the start and end of an L7 jump) jump hard, spin it out and then end the interval and review it while resting between jumps. It's helped me figure out what gears give me my most powerful jump and how long to stand vs. when to sit and spin it out. No way I'm gonna get that data realtime and the nearly immediate feedback of ridetime data review is really good for evaluating different approaches.

I mean it's all in the manual, but the manual doesn't really give you insight into how you'd use it on a day to day basis. Without the context of how to apply it it's hard for me to learn from just the keystrokes in the manual. I suspect there are other cool features I haven't tripped across yet, it's one reason I always read Alex's posts since he seems to have a real good handle on those features and how to use them.

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

Agreed, I was pretty happy to get my head around that feature as well. The memory playback feature is the only safe way I know to evaluate my L7 sprint power during the ride. There's no way I can look at the display while going all out for fifteen or twenty seconds but I can start an interval (no, I don't try to nail the start of a full out sprint, but it doesn't matter if I have a few seconds of low power data at the start and end of an L7 jump) jump hard, spin it out and then end the interval and review it while resting between jumps. It's helped me figure out what gears give me my most powerful jump and how long to stand vs. when to sit and spin it out. No way I'm gonna get that data realtime and the nearly immediate feedback of ridetime data review is really good for evaluating different approaches.

I mean it's all in the manual, but the manual doesn't really give you insight into how you'd use it on a day to day basis. Without the context of how to apply it it's hard for me to learn from just the keystrokes in the manual. I suspect there are other cool features I haven't tripped across yet, it's one reason I always read Alex's posts since he seems to have a real good handle on those features and how to use them.

-Dave

I use the interval mode almost exclusively, but have a question. I know you can only see the last 9 intervals, but can you create more than 9? Especially when we are doing short sprints <15sec, I like to stop and start for each interval. I haven't tried this when I know I am going to go over 10, but I think it should work.

Has anyone tried this?

Flash

The Flash! said:

I use the interval mode almost exclusively, but have a question. I know you can only see the last 9 intervals, but can you create more than 9? Especially when we are doing short sprints <15sec, I like to stop and start for each interval. I haven't tried this when I know I am going to go over 10, but I think it should work.

The Pro and SL computers can handle more than 9. The displayed interval number shows 0 at interval ten, and then repeats 1-9 for 11-19, but when you download they will show 1-99 as applicable.

frenchyge said:

The Pro and SL computers can handle more than 9. The displayed interval number shows 0 at interval ten, and then repeats 1-9 for 11-19, but when you download they will show 1-99 as applicable.

Just to validate - on the CPU you can only see the last 9 intervals (i.e. interval #10 will wipe #1 from being able to be viewed on the CPU) but all intervals will be retained in memory and available when downloaded. Of course in CP you can mark as many intervals post hoc as you like.

I don't see 0 on my display for interval #10. I wish it did. Would make interval counting easier, at the moment #10 becomes 1, #11 becomes 2 etc.

For Ray - another way is to not touch the intervals at all until the start of the race. Make sure the display marker is not on the upper Watts line (I like to keep it on the lower line) and then on the start line while the officials are telling you things you should know (kinda like the flight attendant instructions before you take off) hold down the mode button for 2 secs. That will instantly put you in interval mode and start the first interval, which will be your race. I set the display to show either time or distance, depending on the type of race (some races based on distance, others based on time). Tap both buttons quickly just after the finish but don't sweat doing this straight away, especially if you are going hard - it can be easy to hold 'em down too long and wipe the memory!

Wait 'til you've got your senses about you, don't want to accidentally erase anything!

You can then use memory mode after the race to view the data.

Alex Simmons said:

I don't see 0 on my display for interval #10. I wish it did. Would make interval counting easier, at the moment #10 becomes 1, #11 becomes 2 etc.

D'oh! I misspoke and you are correct. :o

Wishful thinking, I guess..... 🙂

Alex Simmons said:

Just to validate - on the CPU you can only see the last 9 intervals (i.e. interval #10 will wipe #1 from being able to be viewed on the CPU) but all intervals will be retained in memory and available when downloaded. Of course in CP you can mark as many intervals post hoc as you like.

I don't see 0 on my display for interval #10. I wish it did. Would make interval counting easier, at the moment #10 becomes 1, #11 becomes 2 etc.

For Ray - another way is to not touch the intervals at all until the start of the race. Make sure the display marker is not on the upper Watts line (I like to keep it on the lower line) and then on the start line while the officials are telling you things you should know (kinda like the flight attendant instructions before you take off) hold down the mode button for 2 secs. That will instantly put you in interval mode and start the first interval, which will be your race. I set the display to show either time or distance, depending on the type of race (some races based on distance, others based on time). Tap both buttons quickly just after the finish but don't sweat doing this straight away, especially if you are going hard - it can be easy to hold 'em down too long and wipe the memory!

Wait 'til you've got your senses about you, don't want to accidentally erase anything!

You can then use memory mode after the race to view the data.

Excellent. I did go ahead and put in 5 intervals on my ride tonight and it was a piece of cake.

Alex, I am trying t decide what to put in the middle display actually. I have had cadence in my middle display for 6 or 7 months now. To be honest I dont expect to look at my powertap much, unless they dont put out lap cards on the start finish, then I'll have to go by distance.

I too did think that erasng all the data is quite posssible if I try and hit the buttons in an oxygen deprivation state after the final sprint!!

It worked great!! I forgot to start the cool down interval till a mile or more of the cool off lap, but it shouldnt make a big difference. My first race in 15 years (3/4 field) and I was on the front going into the field sprint and came in 10th. I havent looked at my data yet, but I am sure I set all time records in every single category!! It was a fast circuit race, so fast and on a race track (mid-Ohio Sports Car course) it might as well have been a crit!!

THANK YOU!!
Ray

Nice result, well done🙂