I just did Taylor -2 and Ebbetts last week. I use a Wattbike Atom and I have found it hard to hit the average power of the short intervals. I was meant to hit 247 watts per interval today and hit about 230. I decided to put the target up 5% and I tended to hit around 240 watts after that.
Was this the best thing to do. The Atom is set to 3 seconds average power. It will obviously take a bit of time for ERG mode to kick in and ramp up so should you hit that average power on such a short interval?
Which version of powermatch are you using? For shortish intervals I turn the automatic powermatch off and use a fixed gap between trainer and Power output. The troughs tend to be garbage but the peaks tend to be spot on by half way through. I find it minimises the overshoot. If the intervals are really short I don’t even try Erg mode and switch to slope.
Do you start trying to hit the power a few secs before the intervals starts? If you start right as the timer reaches “zero” you’re not gonna hit the right average (even if the load in practice might be about the same). Just a suggestion
ERG isn’t the best for short intervals as it’s slow to respond and it effects all trainers and bikes, just some are better than others.
The graph looks pretty good to be fair and I expect the time in zone is pretty close to what is required.
If you’re stick with an erg only situation then as stated above you have to kick into the interval at 1 or 2 secs ahead, this takes a bit of practice as each trainer responds differently, also said before.
Hi … reviving this thread as I completed Taylor -2 last night and was wondering if I was technically failing this workout because I wasn’t hitting the average power in each interval.
My thinking stems from the YouTube clip on “Should I fail a workout” where someone in the comments asked “what does fail mean”, which admittedly I thought was a daft question but the response was quite thought-provoking. TR said that to fail means not to hit the target power and complete the intervals.
When I completed Taylor -2, I completed every interval without back pedaling or taking any breaks, so I meet 50% of the definition of success. However, my trainer takes ~10secs to ramp up from the rest interval (97w) to the VO2 interval (297w), but once I hit the target, I hold it for the remaining 20secs. Similar to Baz, my average power would show as ~277 vs the target 297.
Does this mean that I’m failing? I’m not a perfectionist, so I don’t really care to hit the average power dead on, and I know its difficult because its a short interval and I’m in ERG mode, but I just don’t want to short change myself but not completing the workout correctly.
I think Chad talked about it on a pod cast. I think it was something like say you did 150w for 5 secs and the target was 300w. If you hit the 300w for the last 25s. Technically you didn’t reach the target of 300w for the full 30s but you are mostly compliant and he does not judge that as a failure. 10 v 20s seems like compliance to me your definitely not short changing yourself
Agree. In short, the interval summaries for extra short intervals can be very misleading. Best to look at the graph to see your actual power around the target block.
