I have been doing 100km and 200km rides previously without power meter.
Now that I have been doing SSLV1 and 2 next will be sustained power build and then Road Century.
I have been trying to figure out what would be the best %FTP to aim when doing these longer brevets now that I have a power meter for outside rides as well.
Lets say 3h up to 12h.
I would love to do these rides without stopping for lunch etc. I will have to stop for filling up my water bottles and if I have a place to get some “service station” where I can fill up my pockets with gels etc. Or then I’ll just carry everything I’ll eat with me.
I don’t have to be fast and don’t plan on racing these on the max effort. Just something I would like do.
My current FTP 221W and hoping to get somewhere around 240-250W
So 50% would get me around 110W. That would make something like 8h 200km according by bikecalculator.com
Could I raise the % to get it done faster or should get it lower to get it done with less gels and more fat from body?
As you can notice I have no idea what %FTP would be sustainable for what time period. So please help me out.
Probably around .65-.7 Intensity Factor for a 200km brevet. .6-.65 IF for a 300km brevet.
Climb at sweet spot, coast the descents, and somewhere around your target IF on the flats. Take a look at the forecast winds, as headwinds mean you will probably be going at higher than your target IF, and you need to make up for this by going at under your target IF on tailwind sectors.
With the extra on-bike storage for gear/food required for a no-stop strategy, your bike will probably be less aero than 110W = 25 kmh.
I did last summer a brevet of 160 km with 4’000 m of climbing. It took me 7.5 h.
There where 4 mountain passes we had to get over. So we had to consider the power decrease at higer elevation.
I rode the climbs with a IF of around 0.73 and then coasted the desencts.
At the end i was pretty happy how i had planed it.
I rode a 300km at 0.77, on a 1,000km event I did say 1 at 0.72, day 2 at 0.62 and day 3 at 0.60.
My honest advice would be follow your training plan. Arrive fresh on the day and take it easy. Enjoy the ride, company, scenery etc. Glance at your power occasionally to make sure you aren’t over doing it especially earlier on. Hope you have a great day
