Found money
Today was like found money. Despite the wake-up weather man's call for rain, come ride time all I saw was blue sky and temperatures warm enough to ride bare-armed and legged.
Well, actually it was a little cool. I still needed a wind vest over my jersey and no-sleeved base layer. All the other guys I saw out riding had arms and legs covered. As we passed each contemplated the others' sanity. Hey, in my book when the temperature gets into the upper 50's and the sun's shining, you leave the arm and leg warmers home.
My plan today had been to ride rollers and/or the trainer as I listened to music and watched it rain. The weather changed that, so I resolved to ride as long as the weather held, or until I hit the 2 hour mark, give or take.
You know what was good about this ride (for me, anyway)? Take a look at how power played out over the two hours:
1st hour 2nd hour Entire workout Norm Power: 231 232 230 watts Avg. Power: 207 208 205 watts VI: 1.11 1.12 1.12
Granted the wattages aren't much to write home about, but I do like the slight negative split at work here. I guess all that tempo work I've been doing is paying off. Now I just need to figure out how to add about 90 watts to that Average Power and hold VI close to 1.0. That would be a good trick.
The good news is, I'm closer to that now than I've ever been.
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road ride!
Hey Mark, we're getting a road ride organized for the 23rd - a long one. I put the details up on our blog, so check it out! I just thought I'd give you a heads up, the more the merrier.
Matt
VI
Mark, I always though VI was more an indicator of the variable on-off nature of your route, not something you could tune into ("hold it close to 1.0"). If you're using CyclingPeaks, the latest version calcs Power-HR drift, which is something you tune to under 5% with training - it's neat number to track.
I too suffer from tiny wattage numbers BTW :(
Regards,
R.
Agreed - No tuning VI
I think I didn't communicate that very well. I didn't mean to imply one would want to tune VI toward unity. Indeed that goal would be counterproductive for any TT course with elevation changes and/or wind. And there aren't many without wind!
Nevertheless VI will tend toward 1 in a TT. It's a result, a consequence, of being on one's own "in the wind".
I seldom see a threshold interval over 10 minutes in length with a VI greater than 1.03. That is, intervals where I'm trying to hold a particular wattage. Even when pseudo-timetrialing, as in last week's race where I chased the pack all day up and down hills in windy conditions, VI was only 1.07.
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