@Jay Listen to Nemo! I did 2 .5 mile repeats then 2 1 mile repeats and I cannot imagine being able to do an FTP test tomorrow. Wait till your legs are fresh. You will want your test to be on fresh legs so you get an accurate reading so you can get the proper work in every workout.
As has been mentioned the numbers are sudective. I have done 4 workouts with power and did my FTP test week 2 tuesday. This was my first workout with power. My approach was to focus on my HR. I did an ok job 188 first 20 175 second 20'. My only mistake was at the end of the first 20' I decided I could drop down another cog and hammer it for 3 minutes, 20 watts or so extra. This cost me on the final 20' as I could not repeat this and I faded.
I had the smallest window of time to squeeze the ride in tonight...absolutely ridiculous!!
Steve met me at the hospital after I got off to visit his Mom who is still quite sick. Then we followed eachother home in bumper to bumper traffic, uugghh! Got home, threw the bike on the trainer and got riding by 6:11pm. Meanwhile we have a BOD meeting for out tri team at 7:30pm in the next town. I somehow busted out 51 minutes, 10 min w up, 2 x12(3') then 10 min at 85%.
I am currently sweating my a$$ off driving in the car to the meeting. BUT, I made time to download the data!!!!!!!
12 min @ 97% 12 min @ 98% 10 min @ 84%
What got me through was imagining I was just taking my medicine, my dose of FT intervals as prescribed. I did my best and am totally motivated by all of you.
It makes sense for me to switch the Tuesday and Thursday sessions and this week I had to do them on Monday and Wednesday anyway. So Monday's 2x10 at FTP and 24 at 85% was not too bad, but last night's 3x10 and 11 at 85% was a real struggle. Had to give myself a bit of a talking to get through the end of the last 10 and the 85% section. Took the bike off the trainer and tidied up (I have to have the trainer in the kitchen!) and headed out for 25 mins on the windy London streets, not too bad but I'm having a lot of issues with my Garmin at the moment. It takes ages to lock on to the signal and then looses it immediately - I'll check the Garmin website and make sure my firmware is up to date.
Good sessions anyway, particularly with the 2x0.5mile , 2x1mile on Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of the week!
2x12' with both at 103%. Threw in 10' @ 85% at the end before calling it a day to help get kids ready for school. Legs were a little tired to start but responded when called upon to wake up and work.
Figured that since I did 3 x 12 on Tuesday this mornings 2 x 12 would be easy... WRONG. Anyway, i got them done and then did 20 minutes @ 85% and a 30 minute brick run since I didn't do the brick on Tuesday. I'm pretty shelled now and off to work.
It was brutal at 5 am when the alarm went off, the legs didn't want to get out of bed...but the 2 x's are in the books plus an additional 15min. Looking forward to the rest day tomorrow.
Put today in the books as a useless one! Barely made it out of bed got on the bike felt a little sluggish. was struggling to get my Watts up at all even in warm up. About 10 min later I decided it wasnt me there was something wrong with the bike when I decided itw as interval time and I couldnt get the meter over 150 WATTTS! Long story short I warmed up for 10 minutes and spent the next 40 fixing the rear wheel.
Going to try to cram the Main set in between work and my night time MBA classes =( . If not ill just do it tomorrow and use today as an off day!
WOW, Thursday's are tough coming off of the Tuesday and Wednesday hammer sessions! I hopped on the bike about 5:45 a.m....still half asleep and did my normal 15 min WU and 3 X 1' at FTP. Got in my 2 X 12's at FTP but it was really uncomfortable for me! My legs were not happy about the request after coming off yesterday's 3 X 1 session.
Well, I finally got the used Power Tap installed and recorded the data while I hammered to the Tacx Flow FTP wattage from my last test. Tacx said 301 and 309 for the intervals, Power Tap came it at 243 and 246. I hope to have WKO+ pasted in by the Saturday ride. I'll try another round and make sure the Tap is calibrated but I am not sure there is going to be a material change at this point. At least, from here on out, I'll be giving data THAT IS COMPARABLE with real bad as%!es on this team. I will make sure the Power Tap is in place for the next FTP test and until then will continue to run both to ensure I am training against the test data.
Slowly but surely getting there. Please keep posting, you guys are pushing me, thanks!
Pushed a bit too hard at the beginning of the first interval then throttled back about 8 minutes in. Was a rolly section of road most of the way. At minute 11 came a small downhill and once I hit 34 mph I had to back off the pedals and lost 2 watts. So came in 2 watts under FTP.
Second interval was smooth and did leap frog with Tom down the road. Not that I am in his league, but I am down in aero and he is sitting up on his road bike. Plus the gradual downhill and my 45 pound weight advantage helped. This is the only time he ever sees MY arse! Was 5 watts over FT this interval and held it there consistently the whole interval. He still smoked me the last :30 back to my house.
Power-Tap #2:
Duration: 11:59
Work: 190 kJ
TSS: 19.7 (intensity factor 0.994)
Norm Power: 265
VI: 1
Distance: 3.884 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 477 265 watts
Cadence: 56 144 92 rpm
Speed: 8.1 35 19.4 mph
Pace 1:43 7:22 3:06 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 605 251 lb-in
John, question, do you think I might have a calibration issue on my used/newly installed Power Tap? It says I have gone 5.01 miles in 11.46 minutes but the avg power is showing 246 vs. 309 from the Tacx?? I have the wheel size correctly set in the computer. Any thoughts?
Pushed a bit too hard at the beginning of the first interval then throttled back about 8 minutes in. Was a rolly section of road most of the way. At minute 11 came a small downhill and once I hit 34 mph I had to back off the pedals and lost 2 watts. So came in 2 watts under FTP.
Second interval was smooth and did leap frog with Tom down the road. Not that I am in his league, but I am down in aero and he is sitting up on his road bike. Plus the gradual downhill and my 45 pound weight advantage helped. This is the only time he ever sees MY arse! Was 5 watts over FT this interval and held it there consistently the whole interval. He still smoked me the last :30 back to my house.
Power-Tap #2:
Duration: 11:59
Work: 190 kJ
TSS: 19.7 (intensity factor 0.994)
Norm Power: 265
VI: 1
Distance: 3.884 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 477 265 watts
Cadence: 56 144 92 rpm
Speed: 8.1 35 19.4 mph
Pace 1:43 7:22 3:06 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 605 251 lb-in
John, question, do you think I might have a calibration issue on my used/newly installed Power Tap? It says I have gone 5.01 miles in 11.46 minutes but the avg power is showing 246 vs. 309 from the Tacx?? I have the wheel size correctly set in the computer. Any thoughts?
Now that I think about, it's got be something to do with the DRAG factor..........we'll keep adjusting.....power readout is probably accurate.....
Posted By mancona (aka Matt Ancona) on 19 Nov 2009 06:56 AM
I made the classic OS mistake again...
Figured that since I did 3 x 12 on Tuesday this mornings 2 x 12 would be easy... WRONG. Anyway, i got them done and then did 20 minutes @ 85% and a 30 minute brick run since I didn't do the brick on Tuesday. I'm pretty shelled now and off to work.
Matt, my legs hurt just reading that! I pushed through the 2 x 12', holding 100%, but it required all of my mental suckitupitude. That was probably the toughest workout of the OS for me yet. Don't think I could have convinced my legs to run if it was my job...
Wow! An exciting bike test this morning. My first with my new PowerTap using my Garmin Edge 705 for the computer. But, the excitement wasn't from my newly established FTP (194). During the last 20-minute interval an electrical storm was approaching and the thunder and lightening (the most lightening I remember seeing in this area) fired me up. THAT'S MOTIVATION to get r done! However, I only got sprinkled on during the TT. About 5 minutes after pulling into my garage a torrential downpour began. Lots of flooding in the area. I was very fortunate indeed today.
Anyway, I was able to complete my first ever bike test using power (new PowerTap). I was surprised and somewhat disappointed at my FTP of 194. I have a lot of WORK to do now. At least there's plenty of room for improvement.
Do these figures look okay (consistent with good PowerTap data)? I'm not sure how I managed a max cadence of 201 unless it was going down a hill and I shifted the wrong way (that happened a couple of times). I know the "engine" needs work!
Duration: 42:00 Work: 459 kJ TSS: 70.1 (1.001) Norm Power: 194 VI: 1.07 Pw:HR: -1.17% Pa:HR: 2.46% Distance: 13.652 mi Elev. Gain: 935 ft Elev. Loss: 929 ft Grade: 0.0% (6ft) Power Min 0, Max 425, Avg 182 watts Heart Rate: Min 140, Max 164, Avg 152 Cadence: Min 45, Max 201, Avg 95 Speed: Min 8.1, Max 31.3, Avg 19.5 Pace: Min 1:55, Max 7.22, Avg 3:05 Altitude: Min 94, Max 245, Avg 138 Crank Torque: Min 0, Max 445, Avg 163 lb-in.
Wow! An exciting bike test this morning. My first with my new PowerTap using my Garmin Edge 705 for the computer. But, the excitement wasn't from my newly established FTP (194). During the last 20-minute interval an electrical storm was approaching and the thunder and lightening (the most lightening I remember seeing in this area) fired me up. THAT'S MOTIVATION to get r done! However, I only got sprinkled on during the TT. About 5 minutes after pulling into my garage a torrential downpour began. Lots of flooding in the area. I was very fortunate indeed today.
Anyway, I was able to complete my first ever bike test using power (new PowerTap). I was surprised and somewhat disappointed at my FTP of 194. I have a lot of WORK to do now. At least there's plenty of room for improvement.
Do these figures look okay (consistent with good PowerTap data)? I'm not sure how I managed a max cadence of 201 unless it was going down a hill and I shifted the wrong way (that happened a couple of times). I know the "engine" needs work!
Duration: 42:00
Work: 459 kJ
TSS: 70.1 (1.001)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.07
Pw:HR: -1.17%
Pa:HR: 2.46%
Distance: 13.652 mi
Elev. Gain: 935 ft
Elev. Loss: 929 ft
Grade: 0.0% (6ft)
Power Min 0, Max 425, Avg 182 watts
Heart Rate: Min 140, Max 164, Avg 152
Cadence: Min 45, Max 201, Avg 95
Speed: Min 8.1, Max 31.3, Avg 19.5
Pace: Min 1:55, Max 7.22, Avg 3:05
Altitude: Min 94, Max 245, Avg 138
Crank Torque: Min 0, Max 445, Avg 163 lb-in.
Nice Job Jay. The data looks good to me. Don't worry about the max and min cadence as the PowerTap just estimates cadence so those are not very accurate.
The one thing you can work on is getting you VI a little lower to make sure it is a steady effort, however if you lots have stops or turns in the route you chose, a low VI will be a challenge. Don't worry about this for now, but just keep it in mind on future tests.
Wow! An exciting bike test this morning. My first with my new PowerTap using my Garmin Edge 705 for the computer. But, the excitement wasn't from my newly established FTP (194). During the last 20-minute interval an electrical storm was approaching and the thunder and lightening (the most lightening I remember seeing in this area) fired me up. THAT'S MOTIVATION to get r done! However, I only got sprinkled on during the TT. About 5 minutes after pulling into my garage a torrential downpour began. Lots of flooding in the area. I was very fortunate indeed today.
Anyway, I was able to complete my first ever bike test using power (new PowerTap). I was surprised and somewhat disappointed at my FTP of 194. I have a lot of WORK to do now. At least there's plenty of room for improvement.
Do these figures look okay (consistent with good PowerTap data)? I'm not sure how I managed a max cadence of 201 unless it was going down a hill and I shifted the wrong way (that happened a couple of times). I know the "engine" needs work!
Duration: 42:00
Work: 459 kJ
TSS: 70.1 (1.001)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.07
Pw:HR: -1.17%
Pa:HR: 2.46%
Distance: 13.652 mi
Elev. Gain: 935 ft
Elev. Loss: 929 ft
Grade: 0.0% (6ft)
Power Min 0, Max 425, Avg 182 watts
Heart Rate: Min 140, Max 164, Avg 152
Cadence: Min 45, Max 201, Avg 95
Speed: Min 8.1, Max 31.3, Avg 19.5
Pace: Min 1:55, Max 7.22, Avg 3:05
Altitude: Min 94, Max 245, Avg 138
Crank Torque: Min 0, Max 445, Avg 163 lb-in.
Good work. We don't have thunder and lightning here in NorCal. Just earthquakes.
Good work and welcome to the world of Power. Great way to train.
Anyone else out there using a Garmin Edge 705 with the PowerTap? I didn't bother getting the yellow PC since I have the 705.
The reason I asked is that I had my Edge 705 set to monitor "Power" on the display for the first few days, but it bounces around so much (says that'll happen in the "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" book I'm reading and have read that in EN as well.) So, this morning before doing the bike test I changed it to show "Avg Power". I guess I could monitor both, but that's overkill. Today I noticed monitoring the Average Power output it stayed steady and was in the 170s, etc.
I'm curious what others monitor during your workouts. Especially if you're using a Garmin Edge 705 as your computer. I've always trained by heart rate so power is new for me. (I'm gonna like it too!) My Heart Rate Zone was consistently in Z5 today (except when I turned around after feeling some rain drops) during the bike test, which made me happy.
Thanks!
Jay And, as Mike said earlier, TGFIADO! I need it. After the 6x 1/2 mile repeats yesterday and the TT today my legs are tired.
Thanks Matt and John for the feedback. You've set my mind at ease.
Earthquakes! Now I'm sure that would shake you up on a ride. ;-) Thankfully we only have light tremors here in southern Spain.
In ref to VI, I only had one turnaround on the course, which was and out-and-back course on a two-laner with a good shoulder to ride on. So, it was go, go, go. Rolling hills though so I had to WORK.
@Jay - The only time I look at Average power is once or twice during a race as a back up to make sure I'm not nuking my race. For racing, having the screen set to Average Power you will not be able to see real time watts which is what really matters. We want to see and avoid any huge power spikes.
During training and racing, I only care about real time watts. If you have power agent or the yellow CPU (not sure about Garmin) you can set your display to show the 3 -5 secs average real time watts which will lower the bouncing of the neddle. I think power agent is a free download, since it comes with the pt.
Yes, I have confirmed that the Garmin Edge 705, as of firmware 2.9, has added the following Power smoothing options you can have on the "Display": Power - Moving Average 30 second and Power- Moving Average 3 second. It was just added in this last firmware update, which I have loaded.
I'll have to experiment with them to see. Having the real time power on the display is great, but maybe 3s smoothing would be acceptable.
@Jay - Congrats on doing your first test. I am only about a month into training with power so I cannot give any advice on IF, VI etc. Listen to the vets as they give god advice. As for you FTP, I wouldn't worry about that. You should be able to eclipse that number after a few sessions training with FTP. I wasn't happy with mine, 223, but feel I could probably test again and have another 10-15 watts. You will learn so much in the coming weeks about how to ride with power. I do most of my riding on the trainer which allows me to watch the watts constantly. That is good because I am still not totally there with feeling what certain watts feel like. When I rode outside I had trouble maintaining certain watts because I needed to actually look at where I was going and I didn't have that feel for it yet. It's a big learning curve and we are still at the bottom.
Went for an outdoor ride; first in several weeks, to knock out the Thursday bike workout. Tried to mix in intervals during approx 50mile ride along coastline. I do not know wattage info yet as my daughter is hogging the laptop. I was feeling a little fatigue towards the end of the ride. Beautiful day in So. Calif.
did my bike intervals on the mt bike!! finally got warm today and sunny! and a record was set for me = 10 miles on the mt bike so that gives me confidence about my 9.8 beginner mt bike race! I can finish it! I didn't run today but did swim so I feel great and moving Sunday's run to tomorrow and resting on Saturday!! m
That was the greatest video!!! I loved it and felt like I was outside with you at the ocean!! instead I was on the trails and I didn't see John's mojo!! that is what I like about this place, the support and the humor and creativity!!! way to go guyz, (even if "y'all) have an accent!!!
Thanks! Yep. Know what you mean. November 15th was the first ride with my new PowerTap installed. It's great! I'm gonna like this power stuff. Just have to make that transition from watching my HR zone to the Power readout on my display. I have the readings (Power and HR) side-by-side now so it's not that difficult. I can get a clear idea of the correlation between the two that way. I definately didn't get a chance to watch the power readout today during my test. I was too busy watching and listening for the big trucks. I didn't want to end up in the ditch, or even worse, slammed in the back of the head by a truck mirror (in the aero position that'd be hard to do). I'll have to see how it is on the trainer. Haven't ridden on the trainer yet with power.
Comments
Today's workout: 2x12'(3') @ FTP
1--267 watts, 2--263 watts
I have gained 2 pounds this OutSeason. Waddup wid dat??? Food=yum. Guess I have contracted hand-to-mouth disease.
Jay,
As has been mentioned the numbers are sudective. I have done 4 workouts with power and did my FTP test week 2 tuesday. This was my first workout with power. My approach was to focus on my HR. I did an ok job 188 first 20 175 second 20'. My only mistake was at the end of the first 20' I decided I could drop down another cog and hammer it for 3 minutes, 20 watts or so extra. This cost me on the final 20' as I could not repeat this and I faded.
Gordon
Steve met me at the hospital after I got off to visit his Mom who is still quite sick. Then we followed eachother home in bumper to bumper traffic, uugghh! Got home, threw the bike on the trainer and got riding by 6:11pm. Meanwhile we have a BOD meeting for out tri team at 7:30pm in the next town. I somehow busted out 51 minutes, 10 min w up, 2 x12(3') then 10 min at 85%.
I am currently sweating my a$$ off driving in the car to the meeting. BUT, I made time to download the data!!!!!!!
12 min @ 97%
12 min @ 98%
10 min @ 84%
What got me through was imagining I was just taking my medicine, my dose of FT intervals as prescribed. I did my best and am totally motivated by all of you.
XO Carrie
It makes sense for me to switch the Tuesday and Thursday sessions and this week I had to do them on Monday and Wednesday anyway. So Monday's 2x10 at FTP and 24 at 85% was not too bad, but last night's 3x10 and 11 at 85% was a real struggle. Had to give myself a bit of a talking to get through the end of the last 10 and the 85% section. Took the bike off the trainer and tidied up (I have to have the trainer in the kitchen!) and headed out for 25 mins on the windy London streets, not too bad but I'm having a lot of issues with my Garmin at the moment. It takes ages to lock on to the signal and then looses it immediately - I'll check the Garmin website and make sure my firmware is up to date.
Good sessions anyway, particularly with the 2x0.5mile , 2x1mile on Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of the week!
Squeezed my ride in before a very busy day at work. Had to meet sub contractors early so Just the Work today and 5 min. @ 85%
1st 12min = 257watts
2nd 12min = 255watts
Last 5 min = 220watts
You have to love EN workouts when you don't have time you still get all the work in!!
great wwork Carrie. I'm feeling betterr and will try and get my 2x12 done today.
2x12' with both at 103%. Threw in 10' @ 85% at the end before calling it a day to help get kids ready for school. Legs were a little tired to start but responded when called upon to wake up and work.
Figured that since I did 3 x 12 on Tuesday this mornings 2 x 12 would be easy... WRONG. Anyway, i got them done and then did 20 minutes @ 85% and a 30 minute brick run since I didn't do the brick on Tuesday. I'm pretty shelled now and off to work.
Put today in the books as a useless one! Barely made it out of bed got on the bike felt a little sluggish.
was struggling to get my Watts up at all even in warm up. About 10 min later I decided it wasnt me there was something wrong with the bike when I decided itw as interval time and I couldnt get the meter over 150 WATTTS! Long story short I warmed up for 10 minutes and spent the next 40 fixing the rear wheel.
Going to try to cram the Main set in between work and my night time MBA classes =( . If not ill just do it tomorrow and use today as an off day!
Well, I finally got the used Power Tap installed and recorded the data while I hammered to the Tacx Flow FTP wattage from my last test. Tacx said 301 and 309 for the intervals, Power Tap came it at 243 and 246. I hope to have WKO+ pasted in by the Saturday ride. I'll try another round and make sure the Tap is calibrated but I am not sure there is going to be a material change at this point. At least, from here on out, I'll be giving data THAT IS COMPARABLE with real bad as%!es on this team. I will make sure the Power Tap is in place for the next FTP test and until then will continue to run both to ensure I am training against the test data.
Slowly but surely getting there. Please keep posting, you guys are pushing me, thanks!
SS
John, question, do you think I might have a calibration issue on my used/newly installed Power Tap? It says I have gone 5.01 miles in 11.46 minutes but the avg power is showing 246 vs. 309 from the Tacx?? I have the wheel size correctly set in the computer. Any thoughts?
Up and done. Looking forward to that rest day tomorrow.
2x12 as 200 + 202 and then 15' @ .896
Entire workout (174 watts):
Duration: 1:00:26
Work: 632 kJ
TSS: 83.5 (intensity factor 0.91)
Norm Power: 182
VI: 1.04
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 16.203 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 290 174 watts
Cadence: 44 116 75 rpm
Speed: 3.3 19.9 16.2 mph
Pace 3:00 18:13 3:43 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 346 197 lb-in
Now that I think about, it's got be something to do with the DRAG factor..........we'll keep adjusting.....power readout is probably accurate.....
Matt, my legs hurt just reading that! I pushed through the 2 x 12', holding 100%, but it required all of my mental suckitupitude. That was probably the toughest workout of the OS for me yet. Don't think I could have convinced my legs to run if it was my job...
TGFIADO! (thank God Friday is a day off)
Mike
I LOVE THAT!!! Another possible TEAM Name
CC
Anyway, I was able to complete my first ever bike test using power (new PowerTap). I was surprised and somewhat disappointed at my FTP of 194. I have a lot of WORK to do now. At least there's plenty of room for improvement.
Do these figures look okay (consistent with good PowerTap data)? I'm not sure how I managed a max cadence of 201 unless it was going down a hill and I shifted the wrong way (that happened a couple of times). I know the "engine" needs work!
Duration: 42:00
Work: 459 kJ
TSS: 70.1 (1.001)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.07
Pw:HR: -1.17%
Pa:HR: 2.46%
Distance: 13.652 mi
Elev. Gain: 935 ft
Elev. Loss: 929 ft
Grade: 0.0% (6ft)
Power Min 0, Max 425, Avg 182 watts
Heart Rate: Min 140, Max 164, Avg 152
Cadence: Min 45, Max 201, Avg 95
Speed: Min 8.1, Max 31.3, Avg 19.5
Pace: Min 1:55, Max 7.22, Avg 3:05
Altitude: Min 94, Max 245, Avg 138
Crank Torque: Min 0, Max 445, Avg 163 lb-in.
Nice Job Jay. The data looks good to me. Don't worry about the max and min cadence as the PowerTap just estimates cadence so those are not very accurate.
The one thing you can work on is getting you VI a little lower to make sure it is a steady effort, however if you lots have stops or turns in the route you chose, a low VI will be a challenge. Don't worry about this for now, but just keep it in mind on future tests.
The reason I asked is that I had my Edge 705 set to monitor "Power" on the display for the first few days, but it bounces around so much (says that'll happen in the "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" book I'm reading and have read that in EN as well.) So, this morning before doing the bike test I changed it to show "Avg Power". I guess I could monitor both, but that's overkill. Today I noticed monitoring the Average Power output it stayed steady and was in the 170s, etc.
I'm curious what others monitor during your workouts. Especially if you're using a Garmin Edge 705 as your computer. I've always trained by heart rate so power is new for me. (I'm gonna like it too!) My Heart Rate Zone was consistently in Z5 today (except when I turned around after feeling some rain drops) during the bike test, which made me happy.
Thanks!
Jay
And, as Mike said earlier, TGFIADO! I need it. After the 6x 1/2 mile repeats yesterday and the TT today my legs are tired.
Thanks Matt and John for the feedback. You've set my mind at ease.
Earthquakes! Now I'm sure that would shake you up on a ride. ;-) Thankfully we only have light tremors here in southern Spain.
In ref to VI, I only had one turnaround on the course, which was and out-and-back course on a two-laner with a good shoulder to ride on. So, it was go, go, go. Rolling hills though so I had to WORK.
Thanks again!
Jay
@Jay - The only time I look at Average power is once or twice during a race as a back up to make sure I'm not nuking my race. For racing, having the screen set to Average Power you will not be able to see real time watts which is what really matters. We want to see and avoid any huge power spikes.
During training and racing, I only care about real time watts. If you have power agent or the yellow CPU (not sure about Garmin) you can set your display to show the 3 -5 secs average real time watts which will lower the bouncing of the neddle. I think power agent is a free download, since it comes with the pt.
I believe the Edge 705 has a smoothing feature as well. I'll also check out power agent. First I've heard of it.
Jay
I'll have to experiment with them to see. Having the real time power on the display is great, but maybe 3s smoothing would be acceptable.
Jay
As for you FTP, I wouldn't worry about that. You should be able to eclipse that number after a few sessions training with FTP. I wasn't happy with mine, 223, but feel I could probably test again and have another 10-15 watts. You will learn so much in the coming weeks about how to ride with power. I do most of my riding on the trainer which allows me to watch the watts constantly. That is good because I am still not totally there with feeling what certain watts feel like. When I rode outside I had trouble maintaining certain watts because I needed to actually look at where I was going and I didn't have that feel for it yet. It's a big learning curve and we are still at the bottom.
Here's a little something (sorry for on-side viewing angle. we didn't know iphone records based on horizontal position).
did my bike intervals on the mt bike!! finally got warm today and sunny! and a record was set for me = 10 miles on the mt bike
so that gives me confidence about my 9.8 beginner mt bike race! I can finish it! I didn't run today but did swim so I feel great and moving Sunday's run to tomorrow and resting on Saturday!! m
That was the greatest video!!!
I loved it and felt like I was outside with you at the ocean!! instead I was on the trails and I didn't see John's mojo!! that is what I like about this place, the support and the humor and creativity!!! way to go guyz, (even if "y'all) have an accent!!! 
Thanks! Yep. Know what you mean. November 15th was the first ride with my new PowerTap installed. It's great! I'm gonna like this power stuff. Just have to make that transition from watching my HR zone to the Power readout on my display. I have the readings (Power and HR) side-by-side now so it's not that difficult. I can get a clear idea of the correlation between the two that way. I definately didn't get a chance to watch the power readout today during my test. I was too busy watching and listening for the big trucks. I didn't want to end up in the ditch, or even worse, slammed in the back of the head by a truck mirror (in the aero position that'd be hard to do). I'll have to see how it is on the trainer. Haven't ridden on the trainer yet with power.