20 minute FTP

StillGoing

ugo.santalucia wrote:

okgo wrote:

Which probably doesn't matter too much wholesale in this country, given its pretty flat. Hence I always find it amusing people pay as much attention to w/kg as they do. Just because team Sky bang on about it doesn't make it all that relevant to you when you're not riding steeper long climbs often.

Speak for your flat county... you can climb 20-30 mt/km in Wales or up Norf... :roll:

Plus on the continent, they tend to have the roads meander their way up the side of a mountain/hill, whereas here in the UK, we simply go straight over the top.

Vslowpace

From my experience you don't need much of a hill to ascertain who has the better w/kg if you hit it at speed.

AK_jnr

I dunno about that. In road races I struggle on the bits I should in theory be ok on. The hills. 70kg and 307 FTP but on the 3/4/5 minute climbs I can find myself distanced. 5 minute power is roughly 400 at my peak, but I think the pure horsepower of the bigger guys hauls them over the hills and leaves me struggling despite being lighter.

ugo.santalucia

AK_jnr wrote:

I dunno about that. In road races I struggle on the bits I should in theory be ok on. The hills. 70kg and 307 FTP but on the 3/4/5 minute climbs I can find myself distanced. 5 minute power is roughly 400 at my peak, but I think the pure horsepower of the bigger guys hauls them over the hills and leaves me struggling despite being lighter.

Depends how steep the climb is... if it's only 4-5%, then aerodynamics probably balances out gravity and you might still win with more power than more power per kg. If the climb is steeper, then you are either overestimating your power per kg or underestimating others'

It seems strange to me that you can do 300 for 20 min and 400 for 5 minutes... that's 33% more... seems a lot

I can probably (estimate based on VAM) do 260 for 20 min and 300 for 5... about 15% more

okgo

The point being is that there's not many long and steep climbs in the UK in the grand scheme. Certainly not to warrant paying huge attention to w/kg over training to make as much power as possible, and eating to be lean which is a fairly simple way to go by I reckon.

svetty

ugo.santalucia wrote:

It seems strange to me that you can do 300 for 20 min and 400 for 5 minutes... that's 33% more... seems a lot

I can probably (estimate based on VAM) do 260 for 20 min and 300 for 5... about 15% more

Depends if you train for shorter high intensity efforts a lot - the guy races so likely does specific work-outs for this, hence the difference?

stretchy

If you wanted to be complete surely you'd want to worry about W/cda as well as W/Kg and Watts. W/Kg is important but there is a reason Froome would (and does) smash Quintana in a time trial despite their FTP W/Kg being apparently close.

okgo

Which is why having more watts as a general rule of thumb in a country with fairly flat terrain is preferred.

Froome I should think has worse CdA than Quintana. But has likely around 100w higher ftp.

thomasmorris

The thing is with sub 5 minute climbs is not that w/kg don't matter, if it were just a 5 minute hill climb it would be critical. But no climb in a race can be considered in isolation, and the shorter the climb the more this is true. Positioning, effort expended before the climb and momentum massively out way the differences in racers potential w/kg. However, on a longer 30 minute+ climb it becomes more about w/kg.

Climbs (corners and cross /tail winds) are the selective parts of the race, so regardless of personal strength they'll be where it'll feel tough.

thomasmorris

ugo.santalucia wrote:

AK_jnr wrote:

I dunno about that. In road races I struggle on the bits I should in theory be ok on. The hills. 70kg and 307 FTP but on the 3/4/5 minute climbs I can find myself distanced. 5 minute power is roughly 400 at my peak, but I think the pure horsepower of the bigger guys hauls them over the hills and leaves me struggling despite being lighter.

Depends how steep the climb is... if it's only 4-5%, then aerodynamics probably balances out gravity and you might still win with more power than more power per kg. If the climb is steeper, then you are either overestimating your power per kg or underestimating others'

It seems strange to me that you can do 300 for 20 min and 400 for 5 minutes... that's 33% more... seems a lot

I can probably (estimate based on VAM) do 260 for 20 min and 300 for 5... about 15% more

305/400 seems right to me. Although sub 6w/kg on a 5 minute climb wouldn't in my experience make short climbs in UK 2/3 road race comfortable and I could easily see getting dropped if attacks went and you weren't ideally positioned and recovered.

ugo.santalucia

okgo wrote:

Froome I should think has worse CdA than Quintana.

CdA... in my world that's Candelas x Ampere, which is a way to measure luminous efficiency in an LED

AK_jnr

ugo.santalucia wrote:

AK_jnr wrote:

I dunno about that. In road races I struggle on the bits I should in theory be ok on. The hills. 70kg and 307 FTP but on the 3/4/5 minute climbs I can find myself distanced. 5 minute power is roughly 400 at my peak, but I think the pure horsepower of the bigger guys hauls them over the hills and leaves me struggling despite being lighter.

Depends how steep the climb is... if it's only 4-5%, then aerodynamics probably balances out gravity and you might still win with more power than more power per kg. If the climb is steeper, then you are either overestimating your power per kg or underestimating others'

It seems strange to me that you can do 300 for 20 min and 400 for 5 minutes... that's 33% more... seems a lot

I can probably (estimate based on VAM) do 260 for 20 min and 300 for 5... about 15% more

No, its 300 for an hour. 325 ish for a 20 minute test.

DavidJB

My penis is this |........................................................| big.

Edit: Damn actually quite small on the screen...:(

svetty

DavidJB wrote:

My brain is this |........................................................| big.

Edit: Damn actually quite small on the screen...:(

FIFY