First Crit w/PowerTap!



wattsup?

New Member
Nov 4, 2005
29
0
0
Real race data!

Just did my first crit with a PowerTap (SL) and my C'dale six13. What a sweet ride! I've been intentionally not riding it just so I could feel the exaggerated difference between it and my other bike. The Campy carbon cranks couple with the bottom bracket for a very stiff and responsive ride, yet it is still a very smooth ride and corners like a champ.

But on to the power stuff as this is the power forum...

For the background, this was the 1st Crit of the year here in SoCal. I'm a Cat IV, and I took 5th in the race, which is the best result I've had on this course, and is good enough to get a couple upgrade points. I did what I wanted in a sense as I tried a breakaway, the goal being to try something to disrupt the race, and avoid just sitting in and sprinting. Had some teammates in the race, but no help in the break or blocking. I highlighted this attempt in the graphic. Interesting that the pack did speed up to catch me, so I probably softened the field up a bit with my effort. Notice the short burst at the end of around 800w to get back on a wheel towards the front of the field.

Sprint-wise, if you look at the power data, you can see where I had to let up significantly to get around a guy that killed my momentum. I was still gaining speed at the line, and needed another 25-50 yards to really get my spin and power going. I was passing people quickly after I got it going some, but my cadence at the line was only 103, and should be more around 120-140. I still have some experimenting to do with this.

To date, I've done very little intensity (some L5, very little L6), so there is some big upside here when I start doing the shorter, more intense interval stuff. Of course, that's probably the same story for many of the riders there, so it'll be interesting to watch as the season progresses. I wasn't expecting great things as I did a lot of climbing yesterday (7,000') in final prep for a tough RR next weekend. For yesterday, I more or less did a 2 x 40 in Andy's "sweet spot" (260ish watts for me), and then on the steeper stuff just did MuscleTension at 45-50 RPMs at around 200w. Despite the occasional temptation, I didn't ever go over 300w for more than a few seconds, and I felt great to race today, although it was a pretty short crit (35 minutes). Funny to look at the relatively smooth power files from yesterday and from my warm-up and warm-down today compared to the stochastic power file from the race.

Beyond the numbers, I do feel my race experience played a big part in my top 5 finish. I was shooting gaps and passing in corners - things that I would not have done in my early races, and was really paying attention to where I was in the pack, what was going on in the race around me, mostly always staying in the top 20% of the field of 70-80 racers. In the last lap, I shot a narrow gap to gain some position and bumped a guy who mumbled something as I muscled past him, but that was about the extent of the contact for me today. No wrecks in our race, which is a pleasant surprise.

I am excited and wanted to share, hope you all enjoy!

Here's the file if you'd like a look...

http://tinyurl.com/bhqkh

I welcome any feedback or questions.

Cheers,

Ethan
 
Cool. Congrats. Nice finish. Ain't it fun to be able to look at the ride files afterwards? And, it sounds like you're on the verge of being able to dictate race pace. It's always nice to be in control of race pace.:D
 
wattsup? said:
Real race data!

Just did my first crit with a PowerTap (SL) and my C'dale six13. What a sweet ride! I've been intentionally not riding it just so I could feel the exaggerated difference between it and my other bike. The Campy carbon cranks couple with the bottom bracket for a very stiff and responsive ride, yet it is still a very smooth ride and corners like a champ.

But on to the power stuff as this is the power forum...

For the background, this was the 1st Crit of the year here in SoCal. I'm a Cat IV, and I took 5th in the race, which is the best result I've had on this course, and is good enough to get a couple upgrade points. I did what I wanted in a sense as I tried a breakaway, the goal being to try something to disrupt the race, and avoid just sitting in and sprinting. Had some teammates in the race, but no help in the break or blocking. I highlighted this attempt in the graphic. Interesting that the pack did speed up to catch me, so I probably softened the field up a bit with my effort. Notice the short burst at the end of around 800w to get back on a wheel towards the front of the field.

Sprint-wise, if you look at the power data, you can see where I had to let up significantly to get around a guy that killed my momentum. I was still gaining speed at the line, and needed another 25-50 yards to really get my spin and power going. I was passing people quickly after I got it going some, but my cadence at the line was only 103, and should be more around 120-140. I still have some experimenting to do with this.

To date, I've done very little intensity (some L5, very little L6), so there is some big upside here when I start doing the shorter, more intense interval stuff. Of course, that's probably the same story for many of the riders there, so it'll be interesting to watch as the season progresses. I wasn't expecting great things as I did a lot of climbing yesterday (7,000') in final prep for a tough RR next weekend. For yesterday, I more or less did a 2 x 40 in Andy's "sweet spot" (260ish watts for me), and then on the steeper stuff just did MuscleTension at 45-50 RPMs at around 200w. Despite the occasional temptation, I didn't ever go over 300w for more than a few seconds, and I felt great to race today, although it was a pretty short crit (35 minutes). Funny to look at the relatively smooth power files from yesterday and from my warm-up and warm-down today compared to the stochastic power file from the race.

Beyond the numbers, I do feel my race experience played a big part in my top 5 finish. I was shooting gaps and passing in corners - things that I would not have done in my early races, and was really paying attention to where I was in the pack, what was going on in the race around me, mostly always staying in the top 20% of the field of 70-80 racers. In the last lap, I shot a narrow gap to gain some position and bumped a guy who mumbled something as I muscled past him, but that was about the extent of the contact for me today. No wrecks in our race, which is a pleasant surprise.

I am excited and wanted to share, hope you all enjoy!

Here's the file if you'd like a look...

http://tinyurl.com/bhqkh

I welcome any feedback or questions.

Cheers,

Ethan

Well done - great race and good to read about it - can feel your excitement. I hope I get that sort of result this season. Got a 19th on Sat but was a real buzz and I look forward to a top 10.
 
peterwright said:
Well done - great race and good to read about it - can feel your excitement. I hope I get that sort of result this season. Got a 19th on Sat but was a real buzz and I look forward to a top 10.
Thanks for your comments RDO and Peter. Next week is a tough RR with 3,000 feet of climbing per lap for 2 laps. That'll be an interesting power file, really curious to see the watts for the sustained climbs, see how it matches up with that chart that I posted earlier on. Like RDO found out in his race, I think the wattage might be lower than we think. I'll post the same for the next race next weekend, unless I get dropped.:)

What a dilemma...get the power data, or use the lighter (and beautiful) Ksyrium ES rear wheel? I guess I'm more of a power junkie than a weight weenie as the decision was pretty easy for me, at least until my target races later this year. Then the decision will be a bit more difficult.

Cheers,

Ethan
 
wattsup? said:
Thanks for your comments RDO and Peter. Next week is a tough RR with 3,000 feet of climbing per lap for 2 laps. That'll be an interesting power file, really curious to see the watts for the sustained climbs, see how it matches up with that chart that I posted earlier on. Like RDO found out in his race, I think the wattage might be lower than we think. I'll post the same for the next race next weekend, unless I get dropped.:)

What a dilemma...get the power data, or use the lighter (and beautiful) Ksyrium ES rear wheel? I guess I'm more of a power junkie than a weight weenie as the decision was pretty easy for me, at least until my target races later this year. Then the decision will be a bit more difficult.

Cheers,

Ethan

It's a no brainer - just do what I did and have an SL built into a light carbon rim. My Reynolds Cirro KOM with SL still weigh in at less than 1200gm for the set ;)
 
Somebody want to analyze this file using Hunter's definitions of a "match", and see if the results correspond to Ethan's recollection of the race as it played out?
 
acoggan said:
Somebody want to analyze this file using Hunter's definitions of a "match", and see if the results correspond to Ethan's recollection of the race as it played out?
I'll do it, Andy. BTW, I couldn't figure out how to get the horizontal lines in CP that Hunter had on his chart. Is there a feature I don't know about. I'm thinking about just having wattsup email me his wko file and export it to use other analysis tools.
 
RapDaddyo said:
I'll do it, Andy. BTW, I couldn't figure out how to get the horizontal lines in CP that Hunter had on his chart. Is there a feature I don't know about.

There are two ways you can do it:

1) To set a single horizontal line, position your cursor over the numbers on the axis, hold down the left mouse key, then move the cursor over the graph itself. A dashed line of the appropriate color (e.g., yellow for power) should appear, which you can raise or lower to where you want before releasing the mouse key to lock it in place (note that the exact value will be displayed in the lower left corner of the screen while you're doing this). If you want to add more lines, just repeat the process.

2) Alternatively, you can double-click on the axis scale to bring up a dialog box that will allow you type in the values at which you'd like horizontal lines to be placed.

In general, I prefer method #1 when I'm analyzing somebody's file to try to identify their functional threshold power, and method #2 when I want to have multiple lines and/or lines at exact values (since the resolution of both the screen and the movement of the mouse are limited, sometimes you can't get the exact value you want using method #1).
 
acoggan said:
There are two ways you can do it:

1) To set a single horizontal line, position your cursor over the numbers on the axis, hold down the left mouse key, then move the cursor over the graph itself. A dashed line of the appropriate color (e.g., yellow for power) should appear, which you can raise or lower to where you want before releasing the mouse key to lock it in place (note that the exact value will be displayed in the lower left corner of the screen while you're doing this). If you want to add more lines, just repeat the process.

2) Alternatively, you can double-click on the axis scale to bring up a dialog box that will allow you type in the values at which you'd like horizontal lines to be placed.

In general, I prefer method #1 when I'm analyzing somebody's file to try to identify their functional threshold power, and method #2 when I want to have multiple lines and/or lines at exact values (since the resolution of both the screen and the movement of the mouse are limited, sometimes you can't get the exact value you want using method #1).
Cool.:cool: Are these features documented or is this just one of the benefits of knowing the guy who wrote the code?:D
 
RapDaddyo said:
Cool.:cool: Are these features documented or is this just one of the benefits of knowing the guy who wrote the code?:D

No, they're documented (or at least they should be). In fact, I don't know of any features that aren't.
 
I will gladly submit my file for the benefit of research!:D

This is so cool!

You guys can probably extrapolate more than is obvious to me from my race data, but if it helps in the calcs, I estimate my FT to be around 285w based on a 30min TT a few months back where I had an AP of 310w. I honestly don't think I used all my matches in this race, but I'll be curious to see how many I did use. Thanks, RDO, for taking the time.

Next task is to learn how to use all or more of my matches to better my chances to win. I loathe the "go around and around, sit in, and sprint" mentality. I am willing to do anything to change it up, which I did in my own small way on Sunday. You can see by my numbers that I'm not a great sprinter, although I was gaining on everyone at the line. I dropped down three gears going into the sprint, and probably lowered my cadence to much to maximize my acceleration. My strength is probably my 5min power as that is my highest category on the power profiling chart. I want to figure out how can I use that to my benefit in races. I know I can get away stuff in the IVs that I won't in the IIIs, so I need to get smarter fast. All of my weaknesses will be exaggerated when I upgrade.

All right, I'm getting off topic here. What can I say? I'm excited to have re-invented my body, to be in shape, and to be racing, and this taste of near-podium has got me all fired up again, especially knowing I was one wrong move from possibly winning. I am excited for this weekend, that will be a real test.

Cycling rules!

Cheers,

Ethan
 
acoggan said:
No, they're documented (or at least they should be). In fact, I don't know of any features that aren't.
Yes, it is documented. It is in the User Guide > Help > Graph Page > Zones > Create a Gridline. Very nice feature.
 

Similar threads