Power meter data doesn’t lie. For a bit over a year now I’ve been struggling with a painful paradox…a truism: it’s the short, hard stuff that improves power.
That could certainly be taken out of context cause for sure going long has changed everything about cycling for me, and all for the better. Well mostly. It’s just that with a chronic disposition, it’s so easy to be that dogsled mutt flogging myself for hours on end. A couple of those a week and there isn’t much room or desire for the short hard power increasing sort of work. Back to back 3-4 day camps with Yuri and Camp Lynda…coming not too long after the November Trans Utah explorations (can you say 1000 TSS weekends?) which came on the heels of 24 hours of Moab which came on the heels of …
See what I mean? Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
Since Camp Lynda I’ve been good. The chronic has been chained to his doghouse and the power meter has been on board to keep me in check and on track. Part of the plan has been group rides. It’s been fun to get out and be sociable on bikes.
Riding a SS helps. SS requires fresh legs – with gears you can always go a bit easier. Not with SS. It forces you to be fresh, so to speak, cause if you aren’t you won’t want to ride.
SS being the new learning focus this year, we’ve been trying new things. It’s working. The past coupla weekends we’ve had some wow rides on the SS. We’ve tossed about ideas, put them to the test and these files don’t lie. We’ve both pushed our PB MMNP curves upwards in the 2-5 hour region. Sun was 65 miles of big dirt climbs and headwinds in 5 hours flat. Is that possible? It made us both giddy at times.
It was sorta funny. Scott joined us for the ride. He flew in for the weekend so was on a borrowed bike. In the first few miles as we’re warming up I look over at Lynda and she was positively exuding crack. Pure and unfiltered. A twinkle in the eye, position on the bike, smile in the corner of her mouth. I just started laughing…I know my gal and Scott was about to get a front row seat to the crack show.
2008 is looking sooo good. 2 Epic but not too epic, just right.
Dave, I am curious, what is your average tss/minute for the SS rides since you have had the power meter on the bike?
Hi Bob –
TSS/minute, hmmm haven’t thought of it in those terms before. I’ll answer that question, but first there are a lot of confounding factors.
For one, TSS is dependent on functional threshold. For several years now I’ve taken roughly 90% of road FT and used that value for MTB FT for the purpose of MTB TSS calcs. That isn’t working for SS – I seem to put out more power on the SS.
Next thing is TSS/minute will only give a partial picture. A defining characterestic of SS rides is high VI – pnorm/pave. Chillin & drillin, a result of being overgeared and undergeared on the same ride. So there are long sections where IF is close to 1, while other sections it’s below .5.
So…to answer the question, TSS/min on average is 1-1.25 depending on ride length. But to get a feel for that you also have to take into consideration that VI is typically in the 1.3 range. Those values are based on my road FT.
No, I understand and thanks for that explanation. I was treating your data like a long term SS study since you are riding for extended periods of time over various courses. I was using 1 TSS/minute and often felt like I was underestimating at times. But, I am normally not doing races linger than 2.5 hours and much of that is on courses that involve short laps (7-10 miles). Anyway, it is highly variable and specialized but I am working off of PE so I was curious. Keep it rolling!
what I wanna know is what you think the TSS is for grand loop on the single is?
=p
Always fun to read your enthuism though the geek chat and squigly lines!!
Group rides are just way to much fun!
“SS requires fresh legs – with gears you can always go a bit easier. Not with SS. It forces you to be fresh, so to speak, cause if you aren’t you won’t want to ride.”
Dave H in group rides? What in the name of Brigham Young is in the water down there? They got you smoking something funny? You hit your head on a rock? You been licking toads?
Mommy he’s scaring me……….
“…be that dogsled mutt flogging myself…”
Good one.
Ed
Do you really got enough power to spare that you just sit back and take pics while people are pacelining on the group rides. Give me some of that crack!