Power Meter and Pacing

I've got a HED Jet 50 with 28 spokes laced to my Powertap SL. I ride it everyday with no issues. They'll take your hub and build it up on a new wheel for the price of the normal rear wheel, around ~$635. To some that's pricey, to me it was worth it from my results this year so far.

As for the pacing strategy, I found out the same thing you have. I used to go out way to hard and die. I found that after a few rides of learning how the pace is, make sure not to limit yourself with your powermeter. I started riding paying too much attention to my powermeter. My rides, were significantly faster than last year and within a couple seconds of each other. Then one night I dropped my chain at the start and was mad about that I just relied on speed and cadence for that ride. I bumped up my cadence about 5 rpms. I ended up riding a full mintue faster than before. I thought it may have been a fluke. The following week I did the similar time. Because of increasing the cadence from 92 average to 97 average speeds were faster and suprising to me my power output average with within a few watts of the earlier rides. It is a short course though 6.8 miles flat out and back.

On a hilly course this past weekend I took second on a rolling 12.5 mile course. The only thing I really tried to make sure I didn't blow up on the hills. I still managed 297w average.

Hi Mark

Funnily enough, I was thinking of emailing you to see what your average power was last night .... !

Well done on your effort. What was your normalised power ?

I managed an average of 263 (NP 273) over the course, which translated into 41.46 (per the PT, although the starter added about 15 seconds on!) for the 15. I'd estimated about 250 for my FTP so this was ahead of prior form, which is good progress.

Agree the power info was useful for pacing, as was looking at the power profile in CP afterwards, where I can see that there were a few places I pushed it a bit hard and a few where I let the power drop off too much .... probably also not as aero as I could be

But was my first TT so a good learning experience.

Ken

Hi Ken,

I wandered if you might have been reading this forum. I managed 279 average and 281 normalised. I think i could have gone a bit harder, like you my positon is not good, i just threw those tri-bars on before i went over to the TT. I'm going to do the 10 next week if i get home in time. What time did you do?

Mark

rjjasick said:

I've got a HED Jet 50 with 28 spokes laced to my Powertap SL. I ride it everyday with no issues. They'll take your hub and build it up on a new wheel for the price of the normal rear wheel, around ~$635. To some that's pricey, to me it was worth it from my results this year so far.

As for the pacing strategy, I found out the same thing you have. I used to go out way to hard and die. I found that after a few rides of learning how the pace is, make sure not to limit yourself with your powermeter. I started riding paying too much attention to my powermeter. My rides, were significantly faster than last year and within a couple seconds of each other. Then one night I dropped my chain at the start and was mad about that I just relied on speed and cadence for that ride. I bumped up my cadence about 5 rpms. I ended up riding a full mintue faster than before. I thought it may have been a fluke. The following week I did the similar time. Because of increasing the cadence from 92 average to 97 average speeds were faster and suprising to me my power output average with within a few watts of the earlier rides. It is a short course though 6.8 miles flat out and back.

On a hilly course this past weekend I took second on a rolling 12.5 mile course. The only thing I really tried to make sure I didn't blow up on the hills. I still managed 297w average.

i've also found that i can maintain a higher power output with a higher candence of around 100 to 105.

Looking at the wheels i wanted to get some clinchers so i can use my powertap all the time. Looked at some Zipp 505 rims (used on the 404 wheels, work that one out!!) They're are really nice and i've found a place selling them for $450 so not too expensive. Problem is they weigh 600g, my current rims are 440g, that seems a lot of extra weight, the tub 505 zipp rims are on 330g, but i really don't want tubs. Still working it out.

thanks for the info, i'll have a look at the HED ones as well.

Regards,

Mark

My time was about 41 minutes 46 seconds, based off the WKO+ analysis, but I think the official time was about 42 minutes (not sure how that worked out!).

mac_220 said:

i've also found that i can maintain a higher power output with a higher candence of around 100 to 105.

Looking at the wheels i wanted to get some clinchers so i can use my powertap all the time. Looked at some Zipp 505 rims (used on the 404 wheels, work that one out!!) They're are really nice and i've found a place selling them for $450 so not too expensive. Problem is they weigh 600g, my current rims are 440g, that seems a lot of extra weight, the tub 505 zipp rims are on 330g, but i really don't want tubs. Still working it out.

thanks for the info, i'll have a look at the HED ones as well.

Regards,

Mark

If you'd like some Zipps on a Power Tap hub or system, please give me a shout. We're doing 10% off during the TdF!

As regards the price you're quoting above, which you'd presumably be importing from the States, don't forget you have to add on import duties, and VAT.

Ric

mac_220 said:

The other question was does anyone know of 28 hole deep section rims you can buy, i've been thinking of upgrading the rims on my powertap wheel?

Regards,

Mark

http://www.wheelbuilder.com/thumbnail.asp?offset=0&deep=1&cid=24

I recently completed a short TT (8 mile) with the watts covered on my PT cpu. I did this to pace myself on PE to see how it compared to pacing on power and I was suprisingly close to what I would have done had I used Power to pace. I analyzed my data post race and I ended up 102% of threshold. It was a combined flat and uphill course with 5 miles of flat and 3 miles of rolling and flase flat up. I equalled or bettered all my best power figures form 5 to almost 20 minutes. didnt blow them away, but beat them by 3 to 4 watts.

My conclusion of this experiment is that once youve done enough time trials and power training I think its possible to go faster than if you paced on power alone.

This may not always be the case for example in a flat 40k time trial, putting it on a power number and forgetting the rest can be very effective. But on a shorter or hillier course where you need to go pretty hard, but not hard enough to blow up and varying power requirements, going without power can allow you to get every last drop of energy out of your body.

I will experiment more in local short TT's and hope to do a very competitive (170+ entry) 20k TT in September without power as well.

rayhuang said:

I recently completed a short TT (8 mile) with the watts covered on my PT cpu. I did this to pace myself on PE to see how it compared to pacing on power and I was suprisingly close to what I would have done had I used Power to pace. I analyzed my data post race and I ended up 102% of threshold. ...

What would your target power(s) been if you had been pacing with power?

I think I would aim for an AP something higher than 102% of FTP, particularly for the uphill portions. (Note that this FTP would be the one specific to my TT position, which is lower than my road position. If I did 102% of my road FTP for ~20min. on my TT bike, I'd be pleased.)

peterpen said:

What would your target power(s) been if you had been pacing with power?

I think I would aim for an AP something higher than 102% of FTP, particularly for the uphill portions. (Note that this FTP would be the one specific to my TT position, which is lower than my road position. If I did 102% of my road FTP for ~20min. on my TT bike, I'd be pleased.)

My ftp (on a road bike-which I used) is 284.
My ave power for the flat 5 miles was 271 (see below) and my ave power for the uphill 3 miles was 315 watts for an average of 291 watts.

It is important at this point to note that the TT was a 2-man TT so my power on the flat was a mix of 300 to 320+ watts while in front and much less (sorry-forgot) while drafting. Had I been on my own I am assuming I would have been above ftp the whole way. I am doing this course again in two weeks on my TT bike solo so I hope I have similar results.