Occasionally I write blog posts that highlight the beautiful places I ride, filled with sunny photos and interesting commentary. This is not one of them.
I did my first FTP test in 10 months today and, surprisingly after my ‘recovery year’, my power numbers were higher than in March. I’ll include a link to my Garmin Connect stats below, but here’s the main damage:
- 20 minute all-out effort: 263 Watts
- 95% of this is 250, which is now my Functional Threshold Power for the next couple of months.
This 250 W number is now in my Garmin 510 and will determine my Power Zones (think Heart Rate Zones for the analog among you) and I will see these zones as I ride my workouts, ensuring that I’m ‘in the zone’. You might think that this sort of thing reduces riding your bike to just numbers, but unless you’re Chris Froome, it’s still possible to enjoy the view.
Anyway, I’m glad it’s over, but I’m happy I did it. Numbers, in this case, don’t really lie, so knowing where I’m at will help me get to where I want to be…which I don’t know yet, so I better get on it! Here is the test protocol that I used today. The last 20 min interval is the all-out effort.
Pretty pictures coming back in the near future.
The Vicious Cycle 
Hi Gerry. Was your FTP test on the trainer or on the road.
Had a closer look. Good effort on the road.
Stevo, I generally have ‘better’ results on the road. How about you?
Considering that I was expecting a post on the problems of using the File Transfer Protocol, this was surprising but generally quite baffling. I am glad that you are happy(ish)
Nice stats. I wonder if a power meter would motivate me a little more. Once I got over this bloody cold that is. So if I understand this properly, this test means that you could maintain 90% for a good portion of a long ride. Is that right? The one thing I don’t like about Garmin is that they don’t show the grade. How steep is that section you did the test on? And is it best to have an incline or flat during the test? Or does it matter?
It means you can maintain 100% of FTP (i.e your FTP!) for 60 minutes. At least I think that’s what it means. There was no gradient on the route I chose. It was flat, more or less. I would prefer something ‘stable’ for the test, so a little incline would be nice. Or, the trainer…but that hurts!