Two Wheel Blogs

One of the most popular all-time posts on this site is a simple, straightforward bit of training advice. If you want to be more competitive at this sport, you need a higher Functional Threshold Power, or FTP. And to increase your Functional Threshold Power you should ride in your Sweet Spot. Simple enough, really.

Not surprisingly, that post has never seen much in the way of comments. In my opinion, the thing speaks for itself. In other words, it's sort of like saying "Wear your helmet when you ride to minimize risk of injury in a crash."

And then a couple of days ago I get this comment from Robert explaining that Perceived Exertion and Heart Rate are good enough in his quest to do a 40 km TT in fewer minutes than his age. This is my reply to that comment.

Shooting my age in a TT, I could do that this year if I carve 6-7 minutes off my best 40 km time. Or put another way, in 9 years all I have to do is break an hour for 40 km to shoot my age. Then again, in 9 years will breaking an hour be about as hard as it is today? Yeah, fat chance of that.

In fact every year it gets just a little harder to go as fast as the year before. So shooting one's age in a 40 km TT is all about sustaining performance as the years increase in a quest to attain a goal that becomes easier (in an absolute sense) with every passing year.

Robert, it's a race against the clock. Choose not to train with power if you like. If you don't shoot your age this year, maybe next year maybe you'll feel different about it.