What is more important- hitting FTP #s or outdoor riding experience?
Not sure if this belongs in the power forum or not, but I am posting it here. This is my first season training with a power meter, I love it, but I am finding it very challenging to do the FTP interval workouts outside. I live in a very rolling terrain area, so it's pretty tough to get 15 minutes at my FTP in, pedalling as hard and fast as I can downhill, up hill is not problem, but the hills are not long enough!!
So, this weekend I have 2 rides scheduled, a 3 hour ride with FTP intervals in my mainset, and a 2 hour ABP ride.
I think I would be better off doing the 3 hour ride indoors due to:
1. crappy weather, it will be very cold when I can ride,
2. I find with very focused workouts even 3 hours goes by quickly.
3. I feel like the benefit of getting in the intervals is more important in this workout than learning to ride with power outdoors.
I will be able to do my 2 hour ABP ride the next day outdoors, which in my mind is more applicable to outdoors riding/race simulation anyway. I need to practice holding a set power over a longer time period anyway, still working on that part of riding with power as well.
Am I wrong to think riding the 3 hour ride indoors where things are more controlled will give me a better workout, vs the benefit of learning to ride outside with power? What does everyone else do in this situation?
Comments
I've tried some outdoor stuff and for one the roads around me aren't great and teeth chattering rides just for the sake of being outside don't help me that much especially on the TT bike. I haven't had a lot of trouble translating goal watts to the outside TT bike when at a race. As opposed to just a weekend training ride outdoors a race has no stop lights etc. so I think you will be fine in maintaining your goal watt guidelines.
I use my road bike for my fun 1 day a week outdoor ride the rest of the time is on the trainer where I can stare at the trainer road graphs.
My thoughts:
I agree that without ideal conditions for FTP riding outside (low traffic, wide shoulders, long hills or flat straightaways), it's actually better to do that stuff inside. But some folks here will do 60-90 minutes on the trainer for the FTP intervals, then go outside for their steady state (80-85%) riding right after. Also, short steep hills are an ideal location to do VO2 max intervals.
Good stuff
Understand that riding steady is a skill that, once you get, you can turn it on and off as you need to. For training purposes, it's very valuable to ride very unsteady (ie, crushing hills, etc) because it generally increases the normalized power of the ride, therefore the intensity, therefore the training stress = more training stress applied per hour of cycling time. That's generally a good thing, as long as you have the skill of riding steady and can turn it on for racing and race rehearsals.
However, for IM APBs, I am more steady and just aim for 80-85%.
Okay Coach Rich, now I am confused... I WANT to aim to ride unsteady?? I think I am equating training and racing the same in my head, and I should not be if I read your reply correctly. An example to make sure I understand this then, is I have a 2 hour ride, which i am supposed to be hitting 80-85% as per the plan. lets say the first half of my ride is mainly up hill- the return portion will be mainly down. How hard do I want to push on the uphill portions, knowing that on the way home I'll be able to cruise? How do you recommend learning to ride steady if I am always trying to push intensity on my training rides?
Sorry to have confused you.
Pick a few rides where you practice how to "ride steady." In the end, this boils down to:
This is largely about just looking at the dial in situations where you are most likely to make mistakes -- bottom of hills, sharp hills, crests and downhill -- then just don't make those mistakes. Of course, the usual caveats apply: do the best you can, don't do anything unsafe (ie, don't go bombing down a hill at 40mph just because Rich said so in
) stuff like that.
Once you get it and know how to do it, you got it. Then just ride your bike, hard, and play on it. Don't geek out and miss an opportunity to be the World Champion of This 1 Minute Hill, or take the Pottersville Town Line Sprint or be Inter Galactic Arch-Champion of the 4000ft Elevation Sign.
You Sunday ABP ride is just a toned down version of this, with the goal of finishing with an IF on the .8x's, if the course allows it. This is probably a better opportunity to practice steady riding.
Bottomline: if you want to ride FAST you gotta ride FAST and that means HARD. All hards are good, bonus if you can make it fun. All of my rides are death matches with friends, training partners, Former Me because I have a history of times on a variety of routes, etc. I create for myself situations where FAST is FUN, not work.
But I know how to turn that off and ride crazy Ninja-like steady.
1.No don't aim to ride unsteady, learn to ride steady , once you have learned it you will not forget it. Therefore apply that in your racing. Soooo---
2. Go ahead and ride hard otherwise to boost your fitness, TSS score, hit it hard have fun trashing yourself
on the bike. You recover fast unlike running.
3. Your example of riding , listed above, Go out on your ride as written in your plan maintain your zones for the ride in the out and back. If you have the time , once your work is done, go ahead and push harder if you want to. On your ride you have Learned To Ride Steady .... got it ?
4. If your going out with friends to ride outside of your training plan go and ride as hard as you want it will boost your fitness.
Rich: you should add this quote to the wiki files on the subject. this spells it out so clearly in a way that i have never seen before! Good Stuff!
edit: along with your follow up detail (helps to scroll down before adding comment!)