Help pacing a Gran Fondo with Power

salsamuffin204

I'm riding my first Gran Fondo with a power meter in 2 weeks. It's a mountainous Gran fondo with about 2,000 metres of climbing over 106km.

I've been training and riding with a power meter this year and would like to use it to pace the ride.

There are three significant climbs in the race, 6.5km @ 7%, 4.5km @ 10%, and 2km @ 8%.

I'm curious about what strategies guys use to pace this kind of ride with a power meter.

My FTP is 236 Watts.
On a good day I can hold 280 watts on a climb for 15ish minutes.
On an Endurance miles ride my power nearly always comes out at 160-170 watts.

I'd love to do this ride in about 4 hours. How should I approach it? 160 on the flats then go hard on the climbs and hope to recover on the descents?

All advice gratefully received. Thanks in advance.

cycleclinic

Well you know your ftp so stay below that mostly keep your effort on hills under 300w for several minutes and you wont steuggle at the end. In fact forget power ride on feel. What power does for me is tell what i have done after the event and allow better interval training. When it comes to grand fondo's or road races like todays race i just ride on feel. What the power meter reads is whatever it reads you dont really have tkme to look at it and keep an eye on the road and other riders at the same time.

cougie

It's all well knowing about the hills but I'd be amazed if it means anything in the real world. I've tried comparing a route I was racing to one that was similar on strava near me. Completely no comparison.

I think I'd be inclined to ride on feel too.

napoleond

Ride on feel. Record the power but don't have it on show. Or hr for that matter. Just enjoy the ride then analyse.

phreak

Will you be doing any riding in the area before the event? That might enable you to better feel what pacing for climbs of that distance is like. It would be a shame to ride somewhere beautiful and be looking at your stem the whole way

stueys

I'm not sure I agree on feel, power is absolute, feel varies on any number of external factors which could be completely unrelated to how you could perform.

If I wanted to set a good time on that sort of distance I would be aiming to hit the hills at 95-115% of threshold and sitting in upper tempo on the flats. If I just wanted to get around then sweet spot on the climbs and zone 2/early zone 3 on the flats would make for a nice day out. Watch your tsb going into the event

salsamuffin204

Stueys wrote:

I'm not sure I agree on feel, power is absolute, feel varies on any number of external factors which could be completely unrelated to how you could perform.

If I wanted to set a good time on that sort of distance I would be aiming to hit the hills at 95-115% of threshold and sitting in upper tempo on the flats. If I just wanted to get around then sweet spot on the climbs and zone 2/early zone 3 on the flats would make for a nice day out. Watch your tsb going into the event

Thanks! That was kind of what I was thinking. It'll be a bit of both feel and power to be honest but I think it's always good to have a good idea of what numbers to look for.

napoleond

Power may be absolute but if you're not feeling it and you aren't quite up to it the trying to hit absolute power figures may cause you to get knackered out.

On the flip side you might be having a no chain day and actually you could be going harder but because you're sticking to power you aren't doing yourself justice.

AK_jnr

Yep. Power is absolute but does vary sometimes. Just because your ftp is so and so, it doesnt mean you can rides to those zones every day.
You will know if you are going to hard or easy

supermurph09

No experience of GF's but surely you will find yourself in a group at some stage. You may surprise yourself by being able to hang on for longer. Conversely you may find the group is too quick so you'll blow up. Just enjoy the scenery.