How much power drop is normal TT vs Road bike?

Hello people I did an ramp test om my new TT bike yesterday and I went from 324 on my road bike to 291. So my drop was 9.3% is this normal or is this to much. My position is pretty much dialed.

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Similar kind of drop to me. But, even with the drop in power the aero gains mean Iā€™m 1min 30sec faster over 10 miles (16km) than on the road bike.

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Almost exactly the same hereā€¦ 10% down on TT bike, and probably FEELS 10% harder to achieve that 10% less too.

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I just went through this 2 weeks ago. dropped 7% when on TT bike, which I thought was ok in my mind. I swallowed my pride adjusted my FTP and started SSBv2. I will say that after 2 weeks only on the TT bike, ive already started inching my ftp back up and last night did Taylor -2 Vo2 workout with 7% added on and it felt as it should, it hurt but I hit every repeat. Hoping it wasnā€™t a fluke, so im gonna manually change it up there and see.

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Agreed that 10% drop is a decent guess based on other reports.

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I think last time I tested it was around 14% less on my TT. It is my ironman bike, so the position is more dialed towards comfort & aero, sacrificing some power.

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My FTP went up on my last ramp test on my TT bike after SSB MVI. I wasnā€™t in the aero position for the last min or so though. Are you all doing the ramp test in full TT mode?

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I broke position for a few seconds and then went back in my tug thinking ā€˜Lets just do this right! No cheating you weak ****!ā€™ and finished the minute at 388 then tried the next step but broke like a twig 15 seconds in.

My drop was around 13%.
Held TT position for the duration of the new test.
Now doing all intervals in TT positions and sitting up for the recoveries.
in 2 weeks iā€™ll have finished SSB1 and SSB2 low volume and am hoping to have made back half of the loss.

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If you train in your TT position like that, does your FTP go up in your road bike position?

Say you have a 300 watt FTP on road. Then start doing 280watt FTP intervals in TT position exclusively. After a month or two can you expect your road position FTP to go up to 310 or whatever?

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I like to know that as well. I guess that your aerobic engine grows so you could see a benefit but most is muscle memorie I think.

If I understand your question HELL yes training in position will raise FTP/time. Everything is trainable but, it takes patience. Just make sure your doing workouts with zones appropriate to the TT bike.

Regarding the OP 9% now which is really well trained on the road bike and barely trained on the TT bike. I expect close to a 9% increase in the coming months depending on how consistent I can be with respect to the TT bike.

Yes training in a position will obviously raise your ftp in that position that why there is a drop changing your position. But does it carry over.
Position 1 road (Pr) ftp = 320
Position 2 TT (Ptt) ftp= 290

Does training in Ptt raise your ftp in Pr as well as raising your ftp in Ptt?
So can your expect raising ftp in Ptt to 300 will cause your ftp in Pr to become for example to 330?
Or can your Pr power drop after training in Ptt for a long time?

Ah I understand nowā€¦I canā€™t answer definitively because it depends on a number of variables. But, in a general sense what Iā€™ve observed with my own riding is that training will raise both FTPā€™s. By how much depends on how well you train on whatever bike. So, for example, I start with a road ftp of 100 and a tt ftp of 90. After 3 months of training on a road bike only my ftp improves to 110 (10%) and my tt ftp only goes up to 95 (5.5%). Purely my experience so take it as an anecdote only.

@Rainier take a look at this post - it links to a point in one of the podcasts where they discuss this topicā€¦

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Much thanks for that link. I watched it when it came out but forgot that it existed :sweat_smile:
So 5% is ā€˜expectedā€™ more then that is to much. My aerobars are all the way up my hip angle is the magical 23-27 degrees as well as my effective seat tube angle being 80 degrees.
I did VO2 work in aeroposition with TT tug and it felt somewhat underwhelming. Just a metric ton of lactic burn in my legs no dying from lag of air like I usually am. I must be using my legs in a different way and I will find out what it is. I will film myself on my road bike and on my TT bike to see what angles are off.
So Iā€™m gonna get back to this after next weeks rest week and redo my ramp test and see what happens.

This is where I based my bike fit on.

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This is what I have noticed as well. My HR is quite fine doing the work in TT position, the different muscles in my legs are what is needing improvement.
It was asked a few posts up and Im interested to see what happens to my ā€œroad bike FTPā€ while im busy trying to improve my TT bike FTP. Ive been deliberate about staying down on the bars throughout the entire workouts. Gotta figure road bike FTP will increase, even if only slightly, just based on being able to recruit some new muscle fibers I wasnā€™t using as much beforeā€¦

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This season I am doing all my training on aerobars so I have gained some insight into what is worse.

After an adaption phase my long duration power is only 1-2% lower, but shorter durations are more so. Roughly 10% for 5 minutes and 20% sprinting. In-fact sprinting is really hard to do as winding up seems to take too long when you canā€™t use your body weight.

My takeaway is that it gets better, but short durations will always suck.

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