This. And also I find women don’t talk about their training numbers in the same way so it all remains a bit vague and mysterious!
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I race a ton locally in 4/5 and the more I look at these stats the more I think the FTP number is a little Quixotic. Either people are eating burritos and not telling us or they are posting the FTP they aspire to, lol.
Any evidence men are more likely to exaggerate? I’m thinking a higher proportion regularly dropping intensity and/or failing workouts.
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We’re working on a metric to define failed workouts. This could be cross referenced to see if certain higher FTPs tend to fail more workouts or if men fail more compared to women.
This is all going into another feature we’re working on.
There’s so much interesting stuff we can do!
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Fantastic, I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
Any plans to involve academic researchers? Great opportunity to advance our knowledge of training.
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Probably not, at least not third party academic researchers. I do want to move forward our knowledge of athletic training though.
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“Well, I’m a bit off peak, but my race weight is 75kg”
“I did 325w for 7:30 a few months ago and I’m pretty sure I could do 330w to 8:00, so let’s just set the FTP to 300”
“I’ve just been working on VO2max so I haven’t done an FTP test in a while”
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I race a lot of cat 4 crits and when I can, 3/4 crits. The cat 4 in CO is ridiculous. most of these races have been harder than any 3/4 race I’ve done. Surgy, lots of useless attacks from people without teammates in the race and the such. I’m not sure how my ftp stacks up to those I race with, but for me, racing smarter has almost trumped any sort of ftp number. Plus, I have a pretty decent 5 min power with a good 30 second boost when it comes to the sprint. Sit, sit, sit and get the lead out train going with 2-3 to go.
I want to work a higher FTP for some solo attempts and such. I’ve tried in the past, but just don’t quite have it for a 4-5 lap attack off the front. Not yet anyway. To me, that is fun racing.
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Yup, knowing how to read a race (and work a race) is an awesome skill to have/learn. I love how @Pete describes on the podcasts how he can turn almost any race into a race which suits his style/strengths, regardless of FTP.
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Do this means that most users don’t use the FTP they got from one of TranierRoad´s FTP-test? Or do i misunderstand “SELF REPORTED FTP”?
It will be whatever is recorded in your settings as your FTP.
That is populated by FTP tests but can be altered/set manually. I presume there is a way of taking the TR FTP data only from those set by a ramp test but I don’t think that has been done here.
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Some people put their ftp in and turn down every workout and some people put their ftp and never do a hard workout (because they couldn’t).
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I agree with this. More people are likely to talk about their 4W/Kg status because it’s really good, and you don’t feel “average” when you reference it. Nobody like to talk about any personal attribute which makes him/her feel ‘average’ or ‘below average’ - thus the perception that a lot of folks are above the 4w/kg marker.
I’m just above 3.5 w/kg and not super proud of it - but maybe I should feel a bit better about it after reading this thread…
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@Nate_Pearson This is awesome. I, like you, love the data. Can you prove the sample size for this data? I’d like to know what “n” is for the two categories?
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I ride with a few people that are self professed 4+w/kg-ers… but I’m usually around 3.5 and can drop them in most situations so I’d question their claims 
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To reiterate from other discussions,
YOU ARE NOT YOUR FTP…
- (picture that scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt does the “YOU ARE NOT YOUR…” monologue)
FTP IS JUST A NUMBER.
- Take if for what is it… a data point used to set training zones.
- It does not define you as a cyclist.
- There is so much more to your identity and abilities on a bike.
- Ignore the tendency to measure yourself against others with a such narrow metric.
I could go on, but you get the point.
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Thanks for sharing Nate. This is a great insight.
ha ha.
I hit 3W/kg last year, most of my rides are on flat terrain so absolute power for long durations is a bigger deal for me.
But still, I worked my ass off to get to 277 ftp and 3W/kg two weeks before I did a solo double century at 0.67 IF which I’m also proud of (I don’t care that others finished faster).
Seeing Nate’s curve makes me want to hit 3.26 W/kg which is totally possible just losing the weight I’ve needed to lose for the last 25 years.
Time to get back to work and pick up some free watts on climbing rides…
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A pass/fail or grading metric could also allow you to abandon testing all together.
Given that you have the ability to ‘grade’ a workout:
- Define a parameterized workout (target power, interval duration, interval count, etc)
- Allow people to take the workout and grade them
- Adjust the parameters based on per user metrics (ftp, tte, ilevels, past workouts, etc)
- As users complete workouts adjust internal metrics to give them challenging but doable workouts
I’d pay $15/month for that.
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Lots and lots!
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