Is my power device broken

Can you do that wattage for 30+ minutes in a TT position? He also has years of experience dialing in his position using wind tunnel time and professional fitters. Power isn't everything. You can be very powerful, but an aerodynamic brick wall.

koger said:

I just read this link: http://www.saris.com/athletes/PermaLink,guid,28be9b70-d456-4c2d-8a40-5f42532d8d59.aspx.
David Millar performed an average of 400W over 36 minutes. According to my power meter I can do 350W for the same duration, and I'm not a good time trialist, I have never performed well an a TT race.
Even with David Millar already having done 3 hard race days prior to this day. It seems unlikly to me that I my best is only 50W worse than David Millar and to make things even more unlikely I'm a few pounds lighter than him.
What do you think, is he not completly honest about his power, so he was really riding harder than 400W or is the difference between us weekend warriors and the pros really not that big in a short timed event, but it's their endurance that's where the big difference is.

i think you don't have a concept of how much of a margin a 50 watt increase in power is... how long have you been using a power meter? 50 watts is a huge difference in power. go out tomorrow and try to ride at 400 watts for 36 minutes and see how long you last (i'd guess not much more than about 10mins or so)... report back. RPE goes up big time (exponentially) as you go up, over FTP. the amount of training required to raise you FTP 50 watts is enormous if you are starting from a fairly trained/weekend warrior state... also you have to consider that Millar is doing 400W in his time trail position i.e. head lower than his butt, shoulder even with butt... see if you can hold that position for 36 min at even 350 watts...

Yes for me 50W more is probably impossible, even in normal position in the drops and after a couple of years more training.
But still 400W is only 14% more than 350W, I would just have expected it to be a lot more that 14%. And as you say I don't know how much I can perform at a ultra aero position, since I don't have a real TT bike.

doctorSpoc said:

i think you don't have a concept of how much of a margin a 50 watt increase in power is... how long have you been using a power meter? 50 watts is a huge difference in power. go out tomorrow and try to ride at 400 watts for 36 minutes and see how long you last (i'd guess not much more than about 10mins or so)... report back. RPE goes up big time (exponentially) as you go up, over FTP. the amount of training required to raise you FTP 50 watts is enormous if you are starting from a fairly trained/weekend warrior state... also you have to consider that Millar is doing 400W in his time trail position i.e. head lower than his butt, shoulder even with butt... see if you can hold that position for 36 min at even 350 watts...

koger said:

Yes for me 50W more is probably impossible, even in normal position in the drops and after a couple of years more training.
But still 400W is only 14% more than 350W, I would just have expected it to be a lot more that 14%. And as you say I don't know how much I can perform at a ultra aero position, since I don't have a real TT bike.

Yes, I fully understand what you are saying. True 50W is big increase and 400W maybe a distant dream. But still, I can hold 400W for 10 minutes and even that I am over 10kg heavier than Millar the difference in speed is just unbelievable! And looking back eg. Italian nationals TT was won by Pinotti with ~350W (yes he's very small but again the difference in speed is so huge).

I think besides the obvious huge difference in aerodynamics the pacing plays big part, not just in "macro" level that Alex has modelled but also in a micro level, how they can keep the speed up in gusting wind and small changes in terrain powering up in exactly right timing to keep the speed up instead of losing speed and using the same power to accelerate.

You can download Millar's PowerTap file from Saris site and see how he really pushes when the speed starts to drop and "holds back" (well it's all relative of course) when the speed goes up.

koger said:

I just read this link: http://www.saris.com/athletes/PermaLink,guid,28be9b70-d456-4c2d-8a40-5f42532d8d59.aspx.
David Millar performed an average of 400W over 36 minutes. According to my power meter I can do 350W for the same duration, and I'm not a good time trialist, I have never performed well an a TT race.
Even with David Millar already having done 3 hard race days prior to this day. It seems unlikly to me that I my best is only 50W worse than David Millar and to make things even more unlikely I'm a few pounds lighter than him.
What do you think, is he not completly honest about his power, so he was really riding harder than 400W or is the difference between us weekend warriors and the pros really not that big in a short timed event, but it's their endurance that's where the big difference is.

What kind of PM do you use?