Coggan power zones monthly test

cshong88

Ok, I figured I'd just start a new thread, not to be obnoxious, but because the situation has changed for me a bit.

I am set on using Dr. Coggan's training zones based on the 1 hr TT. Unfortunately, there are no places around here where I can do a flat 1 hr TT, so I did a lot of driving around today and mapped a 1 hour course north of me.

The course is very undulant. Other than a few stretches of .5-1.0 mile flats, it is rolling. About half the hills are 5-10% grade, but there are at least 4-6 big hills that are as long as a mile long, and avg. grade 10-15%.

Of course with the uphills come downhills.

So my question is this: Can my monthly test be doing this course as hard as I can with the threshold power being my normalized power?

I will not just be coasting on the downhills. I will try to have the least amount of variance in my power data, but like any hilly TT, I will use downhills to recover somewhat and go hard again on uphills.

Is this a good strategy? Or should I really be looking for a flatter course? I could probably find a flatter course in that it won't have the big hills, but still, it will be very undulant.

Thoughts? Thanks.

RapDaddyo

I have to LOL at what you are describing as a problem because the course you described is what all of my rides look like, variable power over undulating terrain. I ride all of my rides at variable power and test my fitness with variable power rides. If I had a velodrome right outside my back door where I could ride 1 hr tests every week on a perfectly flat course with no wind, I probably wouldn't even bother because I can't think of many things more boring than riding at a constant power for an hour on a flat course. Call the undertaker because I would die from boredom before I could finish the hour. Yes, you can use NP as a proxy for constant power on a variable power ride. Your main problem is figuring out at what power you can ride the uphill (or upwind) segments in light of the max power you can maintain on the downhill segments. Depending on the grade, it is absolutely more difficult to maintain power on the downhill or downwind segments. I don't even worry too much about what my full hour MP is from week to week. That's because all I really care about is what power to ride my intervals at and the formula I follow is 90% of my MP for that duration, whatever the duration is (other than for L7 intervals where I just ride at 100% of my MP). But, take note that this is my personal approach and I am not advocating it in lieu of Andy C's FT schema. Follow the guru's advice. I'm just a guy who rides a bike.

Thorman

I think you're on the right track with using np to determine ftp on a rolling course. I've done similar analysis with race data from a rolling course, but generally I do my testing on a fixed trainer. I'm guessing you don't like riding a trainer so you're not considering that approach, which I feel is the best environment for testing.

peterpen

The rolling course sounds fine to me, but why do you need to test monthly? The rest (and loss of training time) required to make a threshold test accurate seems like it wouldn't be worth adjusting zones the <5 or 10watts you might see in a month.

cshong88

Well, we'll see if I can do it monthly. As for the trainer, yea, it is boring as hell to do an hour on the trainer!

I had a pretty good guess that my threshold was at 200W, and after doing the TT today, I got a NP of 198W...pretty close to me. So, I'll be using 198W as my threshold power. Attached is the cyclingpeaks software file for the ride, let me know what you guys think.

Thanks.

PS I had a major crash on the way down this huge hill...I'm pretty sure it happened between the 1:04-1:05 mark. It was pretty ugly, but I got back on within 10 seconds and rode through the pain, , nothing like a broken collarbone or anything though!