Two Wheel Blogs

I missed my chance for a group ride today - too many chores to get done around the house beforehand - so I set out to do something on my own. As it turns out, I ended up doing a route I hadn't done in over two years.

I first did this ride in 2004 in preparation for Ride the Rockies. I did it again in 2005 to prepare for the MS150. I did not do this route at all in 2006 because of my back problems. And I did it again today, in my 4th year of cycling.

Same route, same guy, same bike. I wondered how the three years' rides would look when compared one to the other.

This is my power distribution chart for each of the three times I've done this particular 2+ hour route. It's interesting (and I'm happy to see) to see the shifts taking place over the years. I'm able to spend a higher percentage of time at higher power, and it appears I'm able to spend more time above threshold than I used to. Note the chart doesn't say anything about where threshold power is. This was not a hard 1 hour effort. In fact, as I rode along my goal was to keep it in the Endurance and Tempo levels. Nearly 60% of my riding time was at one of these two training levels.

Maybe even more interesting is something that's not all that obvious. In 2005 my watts distribution for the hard efforts - there are some significant climbs on this route - huddle closely around my Functional Threshold Power at that time. The 2005 edition of this ride took place shortly after the state TT. I had no top end!

These days I haven't been training my legs to crank out FTP wattage and little more. I've been doing a lot more hill work, and it shows.