I’m planning on doing an Overload week (about 150% Average weekly TSS) finishing on Friday 27th March, Taking a rest week, then I have a 50km hilly TT on Sunday 5th of April.
So that Gives me 8 days between the end of the Overload period and the TT.
I was wondering about doing the Ramp Test on the Saturday, the day before the TT to see where I have gotten to, help with Pacing etc. And maybe it could also work as an opener?
Anyone tried a Ramp test the day before a race? anyone see any massive flaws in my plan?
Yes some people actually use the ramp test as an opener for a race, but I don’t think they actually go till break point. So more as a workout and stop at FTP and not as an actual ramp test. I think Pete has mentioned this in one of the podcasts as well?
How will your confidence be affected if your FTP has not risen since the previous test?
What if it’s dropped a few watts?
For me, testing just before race day creates doubt, uncertainty. I would use your recent training rides and endurance workouts as a more reliable guide to where you’re at.
50km TT seems like it is a pretty good FTP test already!
Wouldn’t do a full ramp test to exhaustion as an opener. Maybe take it to threshold or a step or 2 beyond. But I prefer to use one of the workouts designed for the purpose like Cajon.
In addition, would you want to adjust your pacing on a new (higher or lower) ftp snapshot, or rather pace on a validated number that you have experience on with a bunch of workouts?
I’m pretty pragmatic about these kind of things. I’ve done Many TTs, FTP is just a useful number for pacing, especially as this is a hilly TT and will involve efforts above and below Threshold completion time is about 90 mins.
As it happens I did the same TT last year, so you can have a look at my pacing stratergy here.
My plan was fairly simple, I looked at Best bike split and got an idea of pacing but I wanted to keep it simpler than all the diffrent powers they sugested.
On the steeper sections of hills go about 5% over threshold
On the False flats and flats go at high end of sweet spot
On the downhill, get as aero as possible and power was secondary. (There is a 5 min downhill section -3% where I averaged 33mph, at that speed aero is way more important than Power. On the second lap I reached a higher max speed because I stopped pedaling sooner and got into a super tuck.)
As for the pacing I did it breaks down to about the following.
The two climbs on each lap (About 3-4% gradient) lasted around 5 mins and I did them at about 105-108% FTP.
The flase flats (averaging about 1-2%) were about 92-95% FTP
The Flats and slight downhills were about 90-92% FTP
And the downhills (Again about 3%) were 85-90% (Or 0% when i span out)
I also managed to do exactly the same Power on each lap, and the final climb was my strongest climb (So maybe something slightly left in the tank?).
PS, I’m estimating my FTP at the time as about 325w, I don’t know exactly what it was at the time. As this happened to be a road bike TT and I had done most of my Interval training and Tests on my TT bike. But it gives you an idea of the diffrences in power between the sections.
Your pacing looked pretty spot on to me!! Well done. I’d stick with the same again.
You don’t say where it falls in your schedule, or if it’s an important race for you, but if it is I’d be more worried about the overload week. I’d not sure how you’ll feel, but I’d have heavy legs on race day with a build up like that.
Yes I’m Definetly planning on the same pacing. Hopefully with a couple more watts
It’s the First race In a season long league It’s fairly important but I’m working towards a peak in June so not the target.
Also legs should hopefully be good for an extended sweet spot TT. it not like I need the quick bursts.
Most of the rest of the league are road races and I’m working hard this year to be better at them as I placed well in the two TTs last year but didn’t get any points In the races
