RD pacing special

rmur17 said:

The PM can certainly show you postscriptively when you've gone out too hard, taken a hill too hard and blown on the false flat over the top ... things I've never done of course 🙂 {maybe not in some parallel universe}

One of the problems with either pre- or post-ride analysis is that real-world grades are constantly changing. Looking at a 3-mile segment with a net 5% grade and calling it a 5% grade climb is equivalent to looking at a rolling, closed-loop course and calling it flat.

RapDaddyo said:

One of the problems with either pre- or post-ride analysis is that real-world grades are constantly changing. Looking at a 3-mile segment with a net 5% grade and calling it a 5% grade climb is equivalent to looking at a rolling, closed-loop course and calling it flat.

it depends how finely you want to slice it. IMO anything much less than 100m or 10 seconds on the road isn't worth the effort,

For our local TT course, I have +/- 1m accurate GIS road XYZ data on a 20 by 20m grid. When I looked at the data closely, I decided to filter it down to every 100m. Even that's pushing it ... as well all know our systems are programmed to automatically push harder to get over a short grade or slack off on a short dip. Plus we have 1/2 mv^2 to help us along too.

I look at my TT's pretty closely but on average my road segments are about 500m in length.

When your pacing gizmo is sorted out, I could send you a profile of our most variable 50k TT course plus one SRM TT datafile for a close to windless day and you can tell me how badly I paced it 🙂

rmur

rmur17 said:

When your pacing gizmo is sorted out, 🙂

rmur

I'm sorry, your use of the word "gizmo" is not allowed in these forums. All further replies will be banished to the pay site. I'll send you the details of my paypal account :p😠

rmur17 said:

it depends how finely you want to slice it. IMO anything much less than 100m or 10 seconds on the road isn't worth the effort

I agree. I am actually tentatively working against a constraint of minimum duration of 15secs at a given power and minimum power changes of 5w. But, testing will reveal whether these artificial rules are effective and actionable. It may be a dual constraint such as, if power delta is greater than 10w, then slice it as finely as 10secs, if greater than 5w but less than 10w, then slice it to 15secs, otherwise slice it no more finely than 30secs. Since I'm plowing new ground here, I have to invent all of this.

rmur17 said:

For our local TT course, I have +/- 1m accurate GIS road XYZ data on a 20 by 20m grid. When I looked at the data closely, I decided to filter it down to every 100m. Even that's pushing it ... as well all know our systems are programmed to automatically push harder to get over a short grade or slack off on a short dip. Plus we have 1/2 mv^2 to help us along too.

I look at my TT's pretty closely but on average my road segments are about 500m in length.

When your pacing gizmo is sorted out, I could send you a profile of our most variable 50k TT course plus one SRM TT datafile for a close to windless day and you can tell me how badly I paced it 🙂

It'll be easier than that. I only need a GPS tracking file, preferably with the new Garmin Edge bike computer (due to the quality of the GPS receiver in the Edge). Ride the course once at a moderate and relatively constant speed (e.g., 15mph) and that's it. There are no windless days (well, maybe once or twice a year), so it would be nice to have the wind data (direction and velocity) as well. You can probably look it up in the meteorology stats.

beerco's alias said:

I'm sorry, your use of the word "gizmo" is not allowed in these forums. All further replies will be banished to the pay site. I'll send you the details of my paypal account :p😠

yeah I'm losing it with Gizmotechreview.com ....
Blatant censorship doesn't sit well with me 😠

rmur

RD, the meterological info for windspeed will be largely useless. Ground level winds can vary dramatically from the official numbers which are measured a set distance above the ground to avoid all the variables present down there where we ride.

Curious how long you have been riding since you said your feel is terrible? After 25 years of riding I found my feel was very good when I got a PM, but maybe that's all good genes (for once) and being old enough not to have spent my childhood playing video games and failing to make the appropriate proprioceptive connections.

mises said:

RD, the meterological info for windspeed will be largely useless. Ground level winds can vary dramatically from the official numbers which are measured a set distance above the ground to avoid all the variables present down there where we ride.

Yes, ground level winds are best, and easily captured with a small, portable anemometer. But, even the weather station (usually airports) data is better than nothing.

mises said:

Curious how long you have been riding since you said your feel is terrible? After 25 years of riding I found my feel was very good when I got a PM, but maybe that's all good genes (for once) and being old enough not to have spent my childhood playing video games and failing to make the appropriate proprioceptive connections.

I feel that I have only ~6 years of serious riding experience -- 5 years at ~300 miles/wk plus at least one race per weekend from April to October, then this year. But, I have conducted enough tests since I got my PM to know how far off I am. I can't even ride at a constant power +/- 20w without my PM. I was stunned to find out how far off I am. And, without a clock I have a terrible feel for when I have recovered enough to go again following an interval that requires recovery. My HR recovers in ~90secs regardless of the duration or intensity of the interval, so that is worthless. And, if I go by feel, I always feel like I am fully recovered prematurely. I don't even have a good feel for 1-2% changes in grade. I wrote a post here once where I described a slight downgrade in a test course. When I looked at the topo profile, it was flat. Go figure. But, I'm used to that. I am an instrument pilot and one of the first things they do in instrument flight training is to take you up and put you under the hood (practice device that prevents looking out the winshield) cover the gauges and tell you to fly straight and level. Inevitably, within ~30secs, we are banking and either climbing or descending. You quickly learn that your senses lie -- trust your instruments. I come at power management as an instrument pilot -- I want the equivalent of a flight director. Others have stated that they have a good feel for what power they are riding at. Good for them, but that doesn't do me any good. As Clint Eastwood said, "A man has to know his limitations."

rmur17 said:

yeah I'm losing it with Gizmotechreview.com ....
Blatant censorship doesn't sit well with me 😠

rmur

As one who has been banished from gizmotechreview.com, can you and/or beerco's alias clue me in on what you're alluding to?

acoggan said:

As one who has been banished from gizmotechreview.com, can you and/or beerco's alias clue me in on what you're alluding to?

you can't even read the posts any longer?

Well it's concerning the text-substitution program that 'helpfully' translates any phrase with Normalized power, TSS, powercranks, ...etc into brand-x gizmo power or training load gizmo or power gizmo or ... you get the idea.

Gizmo is the theme so ... ahem ... certain folks have adopted a nickname for KW and now apparently the entire site.

Threads using the verboten words are banished to BTR purgatory (NP Pay per view) -- perhaps one day to be forgiven for their sins but currently in limbo.

I guess it's not intended to be taken seriously ... but feels like censorship all the same.

rmur

rmur17 said:

you can't even read the posts any longer?

Well it's concerning the text-substitution program that 'helpfully' translates any phrase with Normalized power, TSS, powercranks, ...etc into brand-x gizmo power or training load gizmo or power gizmo or ... you get the idea.

Gizmo is the theme so ... ahem ... certain folks have adopted a nickname for KW and now apparently the entire site.

Threads using the verboten words are banished to BTR purgatory (NP Pay per view) -- perhaps one day to be forgiven for their sins but currently in limbo.

I guess it's not intended to be taken seriously ... but feels like censorship all the same.

rmur

It looks like even certain tire brands/types are on the list!!?? I wondered why so many posts made no sense.

rmur17 said:

you can't even read the posts any longer?

No, I've been completely banned for some time now.

rmur17 said:

Well it's concerning the text-substitution program that 'helpfully' translates any phrase with Normalized power, TSS, powercranks, ...etc into brand-x gizmo power or training load gizmo or power gizmo or ... you get the idea.

Gizmo is the theme so ... ahem ... certain folks have adopted a nickname for KW and now apparently the entire site.

Threads using the verboten words are banished to BTR purgatory (NP Pay per view) -- perhaps one day to be forgiven for their sins but currently in limbo.

I guess it's not intended to be taken seriously ... but feels like censorship all the same.

rmur

I see - thanks.

RapDaddyo said:

Yes, ground level winds are best, and easily captured with a small, portable anemometer. But, even the weather station (usually airports) data is better than nothing.

I feel that I have only ~6 years of serious riding experience -- 5 years at ~300 miles/wk plus at least one race per weekend from April to October, then this year. But, I have conducted enough tests since I got my PM to know how far off I am. I can't even ride at a constant power +/- 20w without my PM. I was stunned to find out how far off I am. And, without a clock I have a terrible feel for when I have recovered enough to go again following an interval that requires recovery. My HR recovers in ~90secs regardless of the duration or intensity of the interval, so that is worthless. And, if I go by feel, I always feel like I am fully recovered prematurely. I don't even have a good feel for 1-2% changes in grade. I wrote a post here once where I described a slight downgrade in a test course. When I looked at the topo profile, it was flat. Go figure. But, I'm used to that. I am an instrument pilot and one of the first things they do in instrument flight training is to take you up and put you under the hood (practice device that prevents looking out the winshield) cover the gauges and tell you to fly straight and level. Inevitably, within ~30secs, we are banking and either climbing or descending. You quickly learn that your senses lie -- trust your instruments. I come at power management as an instrument pilot -- I want the equivalent of a flight director. Others have stated that they have a good feel for what power they are riding at. Good for them, but that doesn't do me any good. As Clint Eastwood said, "A man has to know his limitations."

Thanks, it's easy to underestimate the influence of genetic variability sometimes. After a series of interesting mishaps I realized some years ago a large portion of how I navigate in the woods is by unconscious memorization of a sequence of efforts and motions. After thinking back I was always pretty good at guaging effort, but even so still need something to calibrate my "feel" periodically to keep effort from slowly decreasing over time (also an evolutionary adaptation I'm sure).