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FTP (HR) test question

by adamthekiwi
Wed, May 25, 2016 11:01
3

I did my first FTP test of the year yesterday using the British Cycling method, yesterday...

The course I use is the old railway path from Alloa to Dunfermline - that's about a 20km ride to the start from work (which is my warm-up) and is then a largely straight, well surfaced path with a mostly consistent slight upward incline for 17.4km, apart from one interruption (up about 5 metres to a road, slow through two cycle-slaloms  and then back down) at about 6km. I generally ride an easy pace to the start (with some high-cadence and a few short lung-busting accelerations), then ride the whole path at time-trial pace, starting the 20 minute timer about 2 minutes after the road. Will that brief slow-down affect the results?

Yesterday, I had a contact lens make a break for freedom about a minute into the 20, so I had to stop to sort it out. I was only stopped for about 20 seconds, maybe less, and I reset the timer once I'd got my heartrate back up to where it had been. I recorded an average of 153bpm for the 20 minutes, and was pretty much empty when I finished (so I think I paced it correctly). Can I trust that figure?

Cheers - Adam...

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fenix | 8 years ago
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Much easier on the turbo.  Basically you should be going so hard that you'd be a hazard to yourself and anyone else.  If that's a shared path - then don't do it there. 

 

There's no harm in riding after the test - that's a nice cool down. 

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adamthekiwi | 8 years ago
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Thanks peted76. Yeah, I realised that I was always going to be compromising based on the 20km lead-in and the fact that I needed to cycle another 4km to get to the station once I was done. I did have to have a sit-down for a minute, though!

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peted76 | 8 years ago
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RE: FTHR.. doing a test on the road takes you out of controlled conditions straight away, you should be 'unable to stay upright' sort of empty at the end of a test... BUT having done a few of these for myself and others I can tell you that it won't make much different maybe a beat or two at best, after all you're setting zones of HR here and real world cycling isn't that accurate. The 'figure from the test is supposed to be a 'perfect world, perfect condititions, this is the HR number I can hold for an hour' number...  you certainly haven't got one of those and I can't you'd be able to hold it in real life very often anyway..

My FTHR is 162 - in reality I can hold 158/159 for a sometime without blowing up.

FTP Power on the other hand if you're using and tracking performance is more critical to get right.

 

 

 

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