90%
For everyone outdoors - base it on Average Power not NP, and ideally NP very very close to AP.
I’m a little bit of a masochist, all of my high-ftp hour efforts have been on the trainer, staring at the Trainerroad blue bar with the music going…
There’s part of me that wants to go in fresh, set it at 100%, and see how long I last…
I haven’t subscribed to Zwift since I started TR though, have thought about re-subscribing but need to get a different setup instead of my current iPhone / Apple TV
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All the Power Curves are AP yeah?
I’ve got some high NP numbers for 90-120min at the start of races. Not 100%, but high enough to make life at hour 4-6 uncomfortable.
Yeah, if we make it NP, that’s a whole different story. I did a gravel race a few years ago and my NP for the first hour was just over FTP (holding on for dear life the entire time). Lots of situations where big surges can result in NP higher than what can be held at steady state.
Most of my AP PR’s on are on the trainer as well. At least once I get beyond ~20m. There just aren’t many situations in a race or training where there isn’t some coasting or surging that brings down AP. Flat TT’s are about the only situation where you really hold big steady power and they usually aren’t much more than an hour (at least around here).
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Yes, if you’re using the curves you’re taken care of.
Off the top of my head, if anybody’s answer isn’t at least 97%, they have overestimated their FTP.
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Or they don’t go out and ride as hard as they can very often.
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You asked for their best. That only requires them to do it once.
IOW, I’m not talking about some aspect of fitness, but about the shape of the power-duration relationship and the concept of FTP.
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- Replace this with something like in a TT style effort at 60 minute range.
Reiterating a subtle point I made above… not everyone does this type of effort to just have one at the ready. People are training for a wide range of event types and durations here and I don’t think 40k TT or Hour Records are the norm.
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Agreed. That’s why I just used my power curve. I have never done a steady one hour effort with this in mind. Mine is just a random Wednesday night gravel race ride that we do in the fall. So even in that one hour effort, I’m sure there were lulls and coasting and who knows what else. No clue how close I could actually get if trying to hold exactly for an hour. I think it’s rare that most cyclists would have ever done this if not TT people. Any xc mtb or crit race is going to involve lots of coasting.
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I’ve never gone all out for an hour on the trainer. I’ve done plenty of hard hour sessions outside but I’ve never got to the point of puking or falling off at the end. Also, I don’t have a power meter outside 
Could I hold my current TR FTP for an hour on the trainer? No. Can I complete my prescribed workouts? Yes. Do I care what my “real FTP” is? No. 
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My “best hour” would be 95% of FTP; but that’s comprised of 4 minutes at 65% followed by 56 minutes at 98%, because I wasn’t trying to set a 60 minute PR. I was shooting for a different target, and the best hour kinda comes as a default.
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100%
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99% - 303W average, 305W NP with an FTP of 305W
That was outside, on a lumpy 25 mile TT earlier this year. Set (at the time) my 30m, 45m and 60m power records that day and averaged 91% of my max heart rate for the hour. Fair to say it was full gas 
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Yeah, I usually do not ride at 100% as well. If planning myself, I am targeting 95-98% and if using TR plans (POL), then at 102-105%.
With that, more memorable attempts:
- 1x70min at 97%
- 2x40min at 98% (7min rest between)
- 4x10min at 97% during final hour of 6h Z2 ride. This was 1st experimenting attempt of such ride type last summer. Next summer planning to develop extending late Z4 intervals further. Not that need it but this is interesting challenge
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Yup - I’d have to go back just over 3 years for anything over about 90%, because I just ain’t doing that kind of effort. (Apparently I do have one at 101% for 1h:02 in Dec 2020, when I was doing a few races on Rouvy, before deciding I couldn’t be bothered with that any more.)
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@wik04 back when ramp test assessment was the de facto FTP detection method this was a popular topic of mine. If you assess MAP, then you ride at a workrate that is 75% of MAP, how long can you hold that?
I think when I first tried, I was really at my limit right around the 30 minute mark. So not only could I NOT do it, lordy, I couldn’t even come close. And all of a sudden my struggles with TR programs became clear. Most of my threshold workouts were actually VO2max. I dedicated a lot of forum space to this topic.
If you want to read a much more rigorous and elegant take on the ‘problem’ I think it’s a great idea to read a little thing from @The_Cog called ‘Determinants of Endurance in Well Trained Cyclists’. That’s a document that these days would have been broken up into maybe 10 or 12 papers for publication.
Anyhow, at the time it reminded me of another paper from back in the day by Gollnick where he asked subjects to pedal at 75% of MAP for 1 hour a day, 4 times a week, for 6 months. On a cycle erg. Right around the time when the US went off the Gold Standard…so well before it was fun to do such things! Here is a part of that paper that really hooked me:
“Initially the subjects could not tolerate this load for the full hour and it was reduced to about 65% of VO2max during a portion of the exercise bout. After about 2 weeks all subjects were able to complete the basic training load for 1 hr.”
So I thought, if those ignorant humps can do it, I can do it. And so I started doing Gollnick workouts…which I also dedicated a lot of forum space to. So I won’t re-hash that topic here, but, like the subjects in PD Gollnicks seminal paper I was able to eventually achieve an hour at 75% MAP. It was a great training experience.
BTW, I’m not 100% sure but I think Gollnick was one of his own subjects in that study. So when he wrote ‘subjects couldn’t tolerate this load’ it really can be read as ‘I couldn’t do it!’. 
I sympathize, subject PDG, I sympathize.
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first attempt: 89.5% Log In to TrainerRoad
second attempt: 90.5% Log In to TrainerRoad
third attempt: 90.5% for 90 minutes Log In to TrainerRoad
fourth attempt: 94% Log In to TrainerRoad
fifth attempt: 96% Log In to TrainerRoad
sixth attempt: 100% Log In to TrainerRoad
seventh attempt: 105% Log In to TrainerRoad
Obviously, it’s silly to say I rode at 105% of FTP for an hour. Whatever my best attempt for an hour was…that was my FTP.
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Indeed… if it’s over 100% your FTP was not correct
If it’s below 100% you haven’t given everything or your FTP is not correct (but it might be OK for training purposes).
current FTP is 305 (AI FTP detection) and it seems to be fine for training, but I don’t see myself doing 305 for an hour…
but threshold is not my strongest zone…
best hour power was 283 at an (AI) FTP of 312, so not very impressive 91%
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Not necessarily. :bigger_smile
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