When I look at those data the 1.03 IF ride at >2h screams to me that your outdoor FTP is probably higher than your indoor. As you noted above and @joshhartj also said. That inflates all your NP, IF and TSS. Could be you use a different power source/calibration/bad-or-no fan indoors. For many people indoor is often within 5-10% of the outdoor FTP.
If you want to interpret your outdoor data correctly, it may be worth it to do an outdoor FTP test, as you’re planning. let us know how it went?
I think I may focus on TR for the next 8 weeks. Then, as quarantine winds down and summer comes, I may switch to a low volume plan and just enjoy the outside rides.
My bike is a Trek Emonda with compact up front and 11-28 in the back. I’m not sure I can go any easier than that (compatibility with the groupset). But I will look into it. If I did, would I also need to change the cassette on the trainer (will there be alignment issues)?
On the toughest hill, Garmin was telling me it ranged from 6% to 13%. So 9.5% sounds about right.
My plan is to do an outdoor FTP test on Thursday (one of the TR off days). I read a TR blog post that said an outdoor FTP test could be 2 8 minute efforts with 10 minutes of rest in between. FTP will be 90% of the better average power between them. Does that sound right?
For the 8 minute efforts, I was going to go out to an old airport that is a flat, concrete loop. It is the only flat track I can think of for an 8 minute ride. The only possible issue is the wind. There is usually a pretty good tailwind going one way and headwind the other. That said, since it is a power test, that shouldn’t matter, right?
Also, any advice on pacing the 8 minute efforts? Should I try to keep it steady or is that irrelevant? If so, should I guess at an FTP and go from there? My plan was to start at 180 watts, see how it felt after 4 minutes, and adjust for the final 4. Then, I’d let the result from the first effort inform the second 8 minute effort. Let me know if there is a better way.
Will
For the 8 minute test, it is highly advantageous if you know roughly what power you can sustain for that stretch of time. Have you ever done a max effort hill climb for about the same duration?
its all relative but I know where you are coming from. Ok so I have a bunch of rides pre-trainer when FTP went from 250 to 280W. Riding flat & windy on a weekly group ride where the A group had much higher FTPs. And that meant spending a considerable amount of time above FTP.
So your time in power zones looks familiar, I have a lot of rides with 20-35% spent in zones 5-7. With that much intensity it tends to pump up IF and TSS. Doing those rides and at least one more hard ride per week took me from 250 to 280W FTP.
That is not an off day, that is one of your 2 or 3 hard days.
If you get a lot of motivation from riding outside, the real question is how to modify TR plan to include those outside workouts as a part of the plan. I’ll admit that terrain/FTP/gearing will influence the ability to do structured work outside. I ride with a lot of people that only do “unstructured” climbing rides and they are monsters, absolute beasts. Don’t assume you can’t get fast doing these types of rides. Consider doing hard rides outside use the trainer for recovery and zone2 / aerobic endurance rides. Look for opportunities in the terrain to do repeats. With enough gearing you can accomplish a fair bit of structure even in hilly terrain.
Exactly. No secrets here, if you have high motivation, enough load over time, then you can do hard rides week in and week out. The forum has a tendency to discount the value of training outside. If you have more motivation and consistency from training outside, then you will likely get stronger and faster outside.
I can vouch for that. I did a 30+ mile, over 2800 feet ride (~ 2:15 time wise) yesterday that I wouldn’t have been able to handle if I was only doing trainer workouts. I was tired, but at least I was able to do it and survive just fine.
Riding at that low rpm (40-60) is something the OP will also have work on in TR. It seems, the OP likes higher cadence. That low rpm will tax the OP if it has not been trained.
OP, I do LV workouts so that I have the flexibility to add rides and to move rides around during the week. I can’t always ride on the same day of the week and I want to do outside rides (would be doing more outside rides if not for this pandemic). Life throws curve balls each week and I have to be able to improvise, adjust and overcome.
Not necessarily relevant to this thread but this is particularly true for mountain biking. I know, I know “Nate did Leadville with nothing more than 2 hour trainer rides”. Cool. Don’t limit your training to indoors if your event is an mtb event, you’ll be fit but not mtb fit. I spent winter inside on the trainer & was more “fit“ than I’d ever been. I had indoor trainer fitness, though. It doesn’t necessarily translate to mtb fitness. On my first few trail rides this year, I was absolutely wrecked. Why? Riding a trainer & riding a mountain bike are 2 completely different sports. A static indoor ride bears little resemblance to the dynamic experience you’ll experience outside & you’ll find that out pretty quick if you’re only riding a trainer.
You’re definitely right here. Anything that has a skill based component to it needs attention outside of time on the trainer. Probably applies to most forms of racing but especially MTB.
I might be wrong but I get the impression the TR users are mostly road oriented? Might explain why there’s often that blindspot.
Skills for sure but also upper body fitness & being able to take the pounding one gets on the trail. It just takes a while to build up to, especially for long races. My A race is Shenandoah Mountain 100 & my goal is sub 10 hours -that’s a long time on any bike & the second to last descent is inarguably the toughest of the day & is about 8 hours in for someone like me. With COVID, it’s unlikely that I’ll race this year, even if the race goes off.
I do think most of the folks here are roadies & that’s great. I’d ride road too but have had too many close calls with distracted drivers & also live in an area with a number of great trail systems & fantastic dirt road riding so roadie life just isn’t interesting to me. But that said, crit racing looks super fun!
In no way am I trying to talk down about TR for mtb. Ad with other disciplines, it’s just another piece of the training puzzle. It’s introduced me yo indoor training & training with power. I’ve learned a ton from the podcast, too!
I did the outdoor FTP tests - two eight minute blocks with a ten minute rest in between. 90% of the average power on the higher of the two is 180 watts (yes, my average was exactly 200 watts). I guess that means my outdoor FTP is 20 watts higher than indoor.
Now that I know that, how do I use the info? Is there a way to tell TR and Garmin Connect to use the different number for outdoor rides so my time in zones, TSS, and IF aren’t all off?
Also, I do wonder if the eight minute test was the right one for me. A bit ago, I did the Sufferfest 4DP test. It yielded an FTP within 1 watt of TR’s ramp test. It, however, labeled me a “Pursuiter” because my 5 minute power (210 watts) was significantly higher than what its algorithm would have predicted. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there for these purposes.
I did the 8 minute test outside today. The FTP reported to me was 90% of the average power of the two combined, not just the higher one. This was the one from the Wahoo Bolt. Now I’m confused about what outdoor FTP I should use. 
Planning on doing the ramp test Monday so should be interesting (to me anyway) the difference between the two tests.
I can’t speak to Garmin Connect but can help with the TR end. When you’re done with your ride & it uploads to TR, you have the option to edit it. Click edit & you will have the option to change your ftp for that particular ride which will bring IF, TSS & time in zone to appropriate numbers for that ride.
I think outdoor workouts are another story. I haven’t done any yet but I think I’ll have to manually change my ftp before the rides push to my Wahoo bolt to get the proper power target levels for my outside ftp. When I’m done, I think I’ll have to again manually change the ftp if I’m going to do a workout inside on the trainer.