It's killing me but..........



Originally Posted by swampy1970

You can't beat VO2 work for getting better on hills - at least that was my experience when feisty fit.
Than maybe I might have hope on some hills coming up soon. :)

Typical looking training for me lately. It's been brutal, but I am having fun. Of course it may be that my FTP needs to be bumped up a tad being that I am doing 4 x 10's and 4 x 8' that are registering in the L5 area. I have tested the Kickr against my Quarq and it is very close after I do a warm up on the Kickr, then do a spindown in the TrainerRoad program and then start the workout.



Oh.....and that spike in the first interval while I was already to scream out loud and then the Kickr puts the brakes on spiked the pain level. Wasn't expecting that spike while I was already suffering enough.
 
Looking good there Jesse - love that you cranked it up for the last one as well! Glad TR and the Kickr is keeping you honest ;)

Swampy - Vars was a bit of a tough beast. Its one of the few climbs of the week that was constantly changing gradient around every bend. The 2nd half of the climb after the village of Vars itself, was particularly challenging. It ramps steeply for a while to about 10-12%, then dips, then undulates and has some very deceptive sections that stretch out in front of you and dont look too bad until you get on them.... After doing Montgenevre right from the front door and then Izoard in the middle, we all agreed we were really pleased to see the back of it as we rolled down to Jausiers and the start of the Bonette the next day.

I've not seen Grannon and only driven the Telepgraph, so plenty more for a future trip. Current plan for 2015 is the Picos mountains in N Spain and some Vuelta action. Can anyone say Angliru & Covadonga !!!!!!
 
I live a few minutes away from a climb that Jonathon Vaughters called a "mini Angliru" - it's a pig of a climb. The first few miles isnt too bad, meandering between 7 and 10% with some short steeper sections. Too keep the watts where they need to be I have to change gears a few times a minute. In the last couple of miles it's 13%+ and the steepest one mile section of road in California. It's not the absolute gradient that's a killer, it's that the gradient is never constant...
 
I recently joined the ranks of Kickr owners. I have to say that while I love the feel of the resistance and the "set-it-and-forget-it" nature of erg mode, I am experiencing a dramatic difference between power readings between it and my other power meter(s).

I have owned a Powertap for ~8 years and used to do all of my indoor training with that. Last year I got a Stages because I wanted to have power during time trials with an aero rear wheel. The power measured by the PT and the Stages always seemed pretty close to me but I confess I never actually tested the two side by side.

I am experiencing roughly a 40-50 watt difference between the Kickr and the Stages. The difference is most dramatic when I am at steady state. When I am accelerating on the Kickr the difference is minimal, but when I get to steady state the power as measured by the Stages drops off while the Kickr stays at the level I have set it.

I have done calibration after calibration and spindown after spindown (when the Kickr is warmed up and not) and I have put fresh batteries in the Stages. None of it seems to make any difference. I also tried favoring my left leg to the point the two agreed to see if the difference could be about my pedaling symmetry.

Reviews I have seen (DC Rainmaker) suggest that the Stages tracks a little lower than the PT and the Quark tracks a little higher than the PT. If the Quark and the Kickr track pretty closely (which is what Felt and others have found) then it makes sense that the Stages would be lower here but 40 watts is a lot. DCR has also done a direct test of the Stages vs. the Kickr and found the Kickr to be higher but seemingly less than the amount I am seeing.

All of this doesn't make me like the Kickr less, it just means I am going to have to keep two sets of power estimates. One for the PT/Stages and one for the Kickr. That won't be a problem most times but will be when/if I do trainer workouts indoors during the outdoor riding season which I know I really need to do.

It also means I am going to have to test more regularly on the trainer. I do short and/or long TT's almost every week during the season and so I always used those to estimate my FTP for training purposes on the trainer with maybe one test sometime after the holidays. I won't be able to do that any longer.

This weekend I am going to take the PT and the Stages on a punchy group ride and see how the two compare.
 
Brian, I bet Wahoo will get this worked out because there is plenty of discussion about it and they want to be as solid as Computrainer. Have you seen where there are allowing rental of a calibration tool and there is a Youtube video showing how to calibrate the Kickr. I haven't watched it yet and I saw one post that talked of Wahoo building something into the application to make an adjustment to match up with the user's powermeter. Not sure if that is true or not, but it would be nice.

Although mine seem to average out for NP, AP and TSS for the ride total during my test, I still feel (RPE wise) that the Kickr seems easier compared to using the eMotion rollers and the KK fluid trainer. From this it makes me think the Kickr is reporting higher than either my Powertap G3 and the Quarq. I still think it is pretty close based on barely making it through some typical top of threshold workouts. On those 4 x 8's I was just barely able to make it to the end of each interval, which is what I would expect. Now that my fitness is improving I am having to bump up by a % or two, which is showing up in Vo2max level.

Just about every forum discussion I have seen so far there is sentiment and concern for the users matching Kickr power to their particular PM power, but just about every case users like us still like using the Kickr. I have kind of settled down now about my concern as I am getting into the groove. I just set a PR this past Sunday out on the road using my TT bike and I feel like my fitness is improving.

Keep at it and I would like to hear back how it is working out for you when you get some more time using it.
Let's hope the folk at Wahoo get a new firmware of application update to balance this out.
 
I read that too about a potential app that uses a force measuring PM to control the KICKR (though in my case it means i will have to knock out 40 more watts at steady state on the Kickr which will be hard). My old trainer was a Cyclops magneto. The resistance was variable like a wind or a fluid trainer. Compared to that it seems definitely like you can "get on top" of the Kickr. I.e. once you are done accelerating it seems to get easier. Its a little similar to the old magnetic resistance trainers (which is I believe how the Kickr does resistance as well). Also, because erg mode keeps watts constant regardless of cadence the resistance gets a little easier if you pedal faster. A little counter-intuitive but might raise my natural cadence over time which wouldn't be a bad thing. It also suggests that the way to program the Kickr is to always be accelerating or decelerating. I.e. 2x20's are a series of 1 minute efforts where the erg-mode watts are always changing slightly. This is more like outside anyway (at least where I live). I am going to try this in the next few days as well and see how the Stages reported watts tracks.
 
Originally Posted by Felt_Rider

Than maybe I might have hope on some hills coming up soon. :)

Typical looking training for me lately. It's been brutal, but I am having fun. Of course it may be that my FTP needs to be bumped up a tad being that I am doing 4 x 10's and 4 x 8' that are registering in the L5 area. I have tested the Kickr against my Quarq and it is very close after I do a warm up on the Kickr, then do a spindown in the TrainerRoad program and then start the workout.



Oh.....and that spike in the first interval while I was already to scream out loud and then the Kickr puts the brakes on spiked the pain level. Wasn't expecting that spike while I was already suffering enough.
Go find a 5 to 8 minute long hill ( or a convenient section of that length on a longer hill) and "enjoy" if you want to get good in the hills. Mix up the rpm as the gradient changes. It's one thing to suffer through a steady state 8 minutes of death, it's another the keep the wattage there when you're on a hill where the gradient varies even just a little bit on a nearly constant basis. Doing it on the trainer should provide good fitness gains too but you don't get used to the rhythm of climbing at that level of effort.

It's something I need to do in order to bring the fun and interest back into my cycling. As usual I'll be using WKO+ but I'll also be using either Strava or Garmin Connect to track progress on the local hills. I was becoming complacent doing longer rides and somewhat relying on easily gotten gains from some simple aero testing to make the long rides much easier that way. Of course on some of the rides like the Death Ride that really doesn't help and it showed. LOL. That said, my threshold is currently somewhere around 2.4w/kg. On the upside, gains should come fairly easily :p and I think I've figured out what has been causing my lower back and hip woes - now I just need help fixing it and not relearning bad habits.

Good work on adding more higher end work though. I've not really been following this thread in detail but I remember you were a L2 and L3 beast and progressed to adding more L4. Personally, I think you'll see some good gains with the L5 and some L6 work. I used to find it quite shocking how good short L6 intervals were and bringing on the last bit of form when you have a nice base of training. 6 to 9 weeks was all it took and
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970

Go find a 5 to 8 minute long hill

Good work on adding more higher end work though. I've not really been following this thread in detail but I remember you were a L2 and L3 beast and progressed to adding more L4. Personally, I think you'll see some good gains with the L5 and some L6 work. I used to find it quite shocking how good short L6 intervals were and bringing on the last bit of form when you have a nice base of training. 6 to 9 weeks was all it took and
I tried to get to a really good climb nearby my work, but it did not work out this year.

Thanks and you are right that I was down there putting in volume in that lower range until January 2014. Then I started putting in more dedicated L4 time and increased it substantially over past years, but I struggled to get to L5. I was trying to overcome a few issues of heat management in the room, soreness from lifting and difficulty holding near target wattage in short intervals on eMotion rollers. Though the rollers have magnetic resistance I would wear myself out mentally and physically on just about every training session. For instance I did rack up a lot of L4 time this year, but in order for me to keep it in L4 or to hope to average at least 91% I would actually need to be up into L5 some because I could not hold the power steady on the rollers. It is probably the user and not the equipment. I do like the rollers, but I needed to see if I could take my training to the next level. So I made the investment in the Kickr.

I know on a 5+ minute climb I could get in a good dose of L5, but now that I have the Kickr I am slowly evolving into doing the higher intensity work inside. I guess I am drifting more toward polarized training and changing my indoor equipment has help me move that direction. So more intense efforts during the weekday and then nice long endurance level efforts on the weekend kind of makes the week a bit more polarized. It is nice to have that bike locked into place, grit your teeth and go for it. I have been entertaining the thought of going even shorter burst and even higher intensities on at least one day of the week, but I am patient to slowing meander or evolve. I am not in a rush and it is slow enough to give me time to evaluate if I can recover fast enough to keep training consistent. So far so good
 
I think its important to also remember the mental aspect of the training patterns. One of the things I've read many times recently since the concept of 'polarised' training suddenly hit the headlines this year, is that lots of L3/SST/L4 is basically draining over time, and I think this applies both physically AND mentally. I know its been true for me in the longer term for sure.

As Felt mentioned above, I find it mentally, as well as physically, refreshing to plan a few longer and easy rides that will mostly be L2 work and then actually look forward to a ride where I can beast myself on a few hills or the Kickr. If I'm feeling good and the legs are up to it then I can push on a little or on other days just roll around a lot more without much focus other than getting in 2-3 hours, but not having the self imposed stress of having to get 245w done for 2hrs and constantly watching the Garmin and pushing myself every session has really helped. I was surprised how long its taken me to undo the habits of the last 4-5 years though!
 
I've spent a good amount of time camped out one particular discussion on wattage concerning polarized training. I am sort of just drifting in that direction, but have to admit that I am not following polarized completely as directed. At least not yet. It was very interesting to see sort of two camps (threshold and polarized) going at it. There were some guys stating that no one can make gains in threshold training, but I cannot see how anyone can make that statement. I have seen many show with data that they improved FTP using SST/Threshold over a period of months. So I am still very neutral on the subject and mainly glad I am a recreational level cyclist that rides mostly solo (I am not concerned with crossing the finishing line first. I just need decent enough fitness to get from point A to point B longer distance and not feel trashed when I get there).

But then again I am drifting toward higher intensities mainly because I like it. Way before I started cycling I was doing HIT and Tabatas at the gym on occasion or when I had to lean out to get to my weight class. So I have never disliked the thought of L5 or higher. With my body type I actually do better at fast hard sprints than I do on the long haul endurance. The nice thing about labeling myself as recreational in lifting and cycling is that I get to train like I want while understanding that I may not get the gains or that I may be inefficient with training.

Is it okay to sit in both camps of training? Probably not, but I will say I like both. :)

More on the subject

http://www.tradewindsports.net/training/polarized-training-rip-threshold-training/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3912323/

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2013/12/hard-easy-training.html

http://jap.physiology.org/content/114/4/461
 
yep - been following the polarised discussions (more like tribal warfare) on Wattage and Slowtwitch and a few other places. Frankly have lost interest in Wattage as every interesting discussion this year seems to turn into personal attacks and leave the useful stuff behind, but there is certainly some good research lost in there and some useful ideas. I havent been very structured in my change of focus, but have concentrated for the last 12 months on big increases in my my volume of easy miles and added in supra-threshold (105-120% FTP) work which i havent really done before. I've all but dropped deliberate tempo and SST work and just let it accrue when it happens naturally on general riding - which is lots of small doses on club rides in particular.

I keep seeing reference to the 80/20 rule but havent structured anything deliberately around that yet. Early this year I made an effort to incorporate 2 intensity sessions per week in the build up to the start of TT season, and just rode very easy the rest of the week, but that slipped a little mid-season. Late summer I hit a very intensive block of high L4/L5 work in preparation for the Alps and pretty much dropped the easy stuff for a few weeks, and that certainly didnt hurt.

The next 12 months I'm thinking about something broadly like this and hopefully it will roughly reflect 80/20:

Sept-Xmas: 1 session of intensity per week (fairly unstructured Sufferfest/thrash on the hills or similar), everything else easy with as much volume as possible

Jan-March: 2 sessions of structured SST/L4 per week, as much easy outdoor miles as I can

April-June: TT focused structured plan - typically 2 sessions of 105-120% per week

July-Aug: whatever.....

Sept-Oct: Prep for the Picos - intensity
 
Originally Posted by Bigpikle
Frankly have lost interest in Wattage as every interesting discussion this year seems to turn into personal attacks and leave the useful stuff behind, but there is certainly some good research lost in there and some useful ideas.
I thought Wattage would be somewhat sophisticated with guys that train, race and coach at a much higher level, but you are right there are a few there that turn just about everything into an argument between one camp or the other. Perhaps "Polarized Discussions" as they seem to have it out for each other. My take on it shows there is more than one way to skin the cat since both sides seem to do well competing at high levels with different training philosophies.

It was that way in lifting as well, but the guys and gals didn't argue like this. They just did their own thing and let their performance speak for itself at competition. We had quite a few Olympic and world class lifters in that same gym and I observed several go on to set world and national records with their own training style. Which to me speaks a lot for having prime genetics for a given sport.

It was a joy to be an onlooker to your training rides this year. Your plan and effort this year seemed to peak you just about right for your epic event.

Bgoetz was banned on one forum for merely mentioning that he liked SST/threshold training at certain parts of the season. I looked at the discussion and that was about all he said. It was the same few guys on that forum that stir up a lot on Wattage against SST/threshold.
 
Originally Posted by Felt_Rider

I thought Wattage would be somewhat sophisticated with guys that train, race and coach at a much higher level, but you are right there are a few there that turn just about everything into an argument between one camp or the other. Perhaps "Polarized Discussions" as they seem to have it out for each other. My take on it shows there is more than one way to skin the cat since both sides seem to do well competing at high levels with different training philosophies.

It was that way in lifting as well, but the guys and gals didn't argue like this. They just did their own thing and let their performance speak for itself at competition. We had quite a few Olympic and world class lifters in that same gym and I observed several go on to set world and national records with their own training style. Which to me speaks a lot for having prime genetics for a given sport.

It was a joy to be an onlooker to your training rides this year. Your plan and effort this year seemed to peak you just about right for your epic event.

Bgoetz was banned on one forum for merely mentioning that he liked SST/threshold training at certain parts of the season. I looked at the discussion and that was about all he said. It was the same few guys on that forum that stir up a lot on Wattage against SST/threshold.
Effective written communication is an elusive creature.

Felt, I imagine some of your discussions on lifting were back in the day when we actually conversed face to face. Ironically I suspect some of the fellas we have arguments with over the internet we may actually get on with in person and those we agree with may find to be genuine pricks. It's easy to find solidarity over an idea but comaraderie goes way beyond agreeing on some talking point, which is what the internet facilitates. It seems being respectful often looses to 'being right'. When discussions turn into personal attacks in person, there is always the potential for real violence so there is usually a modicum of good grace. On the internet, guys often feel tough when they can stand behind there little cliques and massive post count especially when squaring off against a relative noob on the forum.

I have been off the bike a bit this summer but hope to find my legs soon and possibly return to the "friendly" exchange of training ideas we here at Cycling Forums are famous for, or at least this thread ;)
 
Originally Posted by danfoz

I have been off the bike a bit this summer but hope to find my legs soon and possibly return to the "friendly" exchange of training ideas we here at Cycling Forums are famous for, or at least this thread ;)
Yeah, I will stick to this place and chat with you guys on this thread. :)
 
I did some comparison testing of my 3 power measuring devices over the weekend.

On Saturday I took both my Stages PM and my Powertap (a older 2.4 SL that has been upgraded to ANT+) on a group ride. When I analyzed the data there were some variable time leads/lags in the data which I haven't gotten around to correcting for just yet so I don't have analyses of average power and the differences over time but this is a typical 10 minutes segnent of the ride.



as you can see the PT and the Stages track pretty closely with each other except for the time differences (you can see one at ~25.5 minutes). As I said in a previous post this is consistent with my sense of the two PM's form training and racing with each of them this past season.

Then I did a ride with the Stages on my Kickr where I recorded the power from each. This is the result of that session.



As you can see, after about 10 minutes the Kickr is consistently higher than the Stages by about 17% of the power stated by the Kickr.

I have years of power files form my PT so I really want to use that as a reference. I am probably going to simply overstate my FTP on services like Trainer Road and IMobileIntervals and just use my Stages data collected with my Garmin 500 as the training data of record.

Thoughts welcome.
 
Originally Posted by spdntrxi

You can get the special app from kickr ppl and adjust the cal. I had the opposite problem
What app would that be? I am familiar with the Setup utility for IOS and the Wahoo Fitness App which was used to record the Kickr data above. I've also seen the ~$100 kit you can use to calibrate the Kickr to what it was as it left the factory, but I am unfamiliar with an app that will allow you to apply a consistent offset to the watts as reported by the Kickr.

Do tell.
 
It's more than the setup.. It allows you to change the slope of the calibration. I just updated my phone and noticed it's not on my new phone... So I don't have the exact name .
 
Originally Posted by spdntrxi

It's more than the setup.. It allows you to change the slope of the calibration. I just updated my phone and noticed it's not on my new phone... So I don't have the exact name .
Where did you get it? Is it on the Wahoo site somewhere? Did you get it from support? Give a few more specifics so I can track it down.

ETA: I searched the Wahoo site pretty extensively and found the calibration app that goes with the calibration kit but that is pretty much all I could find.