Just got an old PT---getting some baseline numbers

A friend of mine "loaned" me an old wired PT. It's pretty late in the season but I'm hoping to at least get some power numbers to work from for next season.

Naturally the first thing I did when I got it mounted was go out and try and see how high I could get that thing to go---yee ha.

The only real test I've done was an attempt to get an FTP. 30min TT with the 20min average.

Aside from that I've just done a few rides like I would have before the PT (roughly about 110 miles). I'm confident that I have a fairly accurate 5" and 20' time but beyond that I think most others are not very accurate at this point.

I'm only planning on doing 4 more races this season, 2 crits, a 40mi RR and a 10k TT. Would those be the best place to get these baseline numbers or are there other specific tests?

I see 5" 5' 20' 60' times referenced a lot...

-The 10 mile TT should be a very good estimate of long interval power although it might be a bit on the low side relative to your road bike if you run an aggressive TT bike position and suffer from some power loss in that position which is fairly common.

-You might hit a 5 second peak in one of your races, particularly if you contest the sprint

- It's very unlikely that you'll hit your best possible 1 minute power during a race. It almost always takes a dedicated testing effort to max out one minute power unless you happen to race the kilo. A full bore 1 minute effort almost always leaves you ready to puke and with nothing left in your legs for several minutes at least. Try it midway through a race and you'll almost certainly get dropped as you try to recover, try it in the last minute of a race and you likely won't hit your potential after all the racing that led up to that minute.

- You may hit your best 5 minute power during the road race if it has a climb or very hard section of approximately that length, but again it doesn't happen all that often if you're riding tactically.

So basically I'd suggest using the TT to estimate 'long interval' power, try to max out your sprint in the crit or RR and set aside testing days for the other durations.

-Dave

Add a 1' max effort and you can view your "power profile." That's fun and can be illuminating.

Unlike heart rate, power responds instantly to changes in intensity (in fact, by definition changes in power output are changes in exercise intensity). You therefore don't need to discard the first 10 min, but instead can use the average for the whole effort (although even that will likely overestimate your functional threshold power by 5-10%).