Hi all, just thought I would redo my FTP test ready for winter training. However, the resistance during the 20 minute FTP seemed a little high and I struggled. E.g. during the warm-up and cool down hitting 200w was straight forward, during the FTP aiming to ride steady at 200w as per my normal strategy was ridiculously hard. Is it my trainer or ERG mode? Even reducing the gearing didn’t really help. Confused.
During warm-up and cool-down (and all intervals in-between EXCEPT for the test portion), you’re in ERG mode and trainer resistance is automatic to help you hit specific wattage targets. Changing gears during this part of the FTP test has no effect other than to make your trainer work more to dial in resistance (up or down) to get you back on-target, power-wise.
During the test, a small amount of resistance is applied (simulating a slight, constant uphill grade of ~ 1% iirc). Reducing your gearing during the test won’t make it easier, per se, to generate 200W - it’ll just mean you have to spin faster to get there.
It could be that you were simply having a bad day (it happens) - or that your trainer calibration is off.
What trainer do you have?
You can use the Companion app incline button to reduce the resistance during the FTP portion. You should also be able to use the +&- keys on the keyboard or the onscreen incline buttons (the blue buttons at the bottom of your screen)
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Interesting. Thanks for this info, Gerrie. I had no idea it could be adjusted during the FTP test!
You can test it by doing a workout with ERG off and adjusting the resistance manual.
Before you do your next FTP test skip past the first blocks to the one before the FTP section, do that one and see if you can control the resistance.
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Thanks Joe. I’m hoping it was a bad day as my power was down by a third! Just wondered if I was missing something - i’ll give it another shot. I have an Elite Quobo Digital smart B+ trainer, not a bad trainer, does the job.
Thanks Gerrie, I’ll look into this.