Is it normal to have trouble maintaining steady power on descents?
Context:
Location - I live in the Appalachian foothills; everything is 100 feet per mile in elevation, any direction. Maybe I’m condtioned to work harder on the climbs than the descents?
Equipment - Both road bikes have one-sided Stages power meters. Maybe the power just naturally jumps around more in that scenario?
In any case, the force I apply on descents feels harder than what I have to do on a climb in order to hit my power targets in any steady way. If this is normal, has anyone figured out why it is the case?
I’ve read/heard of people just riding brakes while on descents to maintain power or simply finding better routes with longer duration of power and then using descent as your recovery period between intervals.
Riding your brakes while pedaling seems like an expensive tactic to increase power.
I think the bigger question is… does it really matter? I know we like pretty graphs but if you race outside, ride outside. If you can find a better route that would be the optimal thing to do. But if you don’t… so be it.
I was thinking of this in regards to comments on the podcast a couple weeks ago, how the power profile “looks like a seismograph.” Steady power is most ideal but as a mountain biker and someone who races outside I also think you need to train for those spikes in power (repeatability). I guess it comes down to the goal of the workout. Are you recovering? Steady endurance? VO2?
What you’re talking about sounds more like simulating race conditions more than training. If the goal is to get 2 hours in z2 but you spend 30% in active recovery(z1) because of the descents, you’re not achieving the stimulus you set out to achieve and as a result, fail the training session. Does very much come down to what is important to you.
I personally find it very difficult to follow structured training outdoors for this exact reason and opt to do them on the trainer. Riding outside is for being outdoors on the bike and getting around by my own power.
This is an interesting take. To me training is preparing you to race, so it makes sense to mimic those conditions.
I get that if you go too hard you are going to impact the next workout, and if you go too easy you aren’t getting as much training stimulus as you desire… but again I have to ask… in the big picture does it matter? In regards to 70%-30% (or any other brake down) I just don’t think it really matters physiologically to say it is a “failed” workout. l know people think differently and are very rigid with their training and I respect that. I just think over thinking it is not worth the time.
I do almost all of my training outdoors and nearly all of my riding is 100 feet of elevation per mile.
I also find that maintaining power is easier for me on climbs than on flats or descents. I think it’s because I’m used to using more muscle strength versus cardio strength to hit power numbers. But it’s the type of riding that I do outside of training so I don’t worry about it.
I agree that if you’re trying to hit 2 hours of z2 and 30% of it is spent in z1, you didn’t do the workout properly. That’s why doing workouts on a trainer is so efficient.
For descents on my outdoor workouts, I ride my road bike so I have enough gearing to pedal downhill and I plan routes that have straight-ish downhills.
I ride my brakes when needing to maintain power targets during descents. True, you’ll cause some wear, but in my experience it isn’t that much. They’re consumable items and I use them to benefit my riding/training, and don’t try to conserve them at the expense of what I’m trying to achieve.
I’ve lived in some hillier areas like you described myself before – I think it mostly comes down to practicing putting down power as smoothly as possible and good route choices.
When descending, you’ll definitely have to stay “on top of the gear” more than you would when climbing. It can be a bit of an odd sensation.
If possible, try to keep your downhill cadence under control. Shift as much as you need to to keep your cadence in a comfortable range.
Stay conscious of your cadence and power over rolling terrain and with time, you’ll get pretty good at keeping your cadence/power where you want it to be.
Think about your route choices for each workout as well. If you have longer/sustained intervals, for example, then it would probably be a good idea to avoid routes that have longer/steeper descents if that’s possible for you – even if that means resorting to riding “out and backs” or laps on a smaller loop of suitable road for your workout.
I’ve worn out rim brake wheels in the past by riding my brakes when trying to maintain steady power outputs on descents, so I can certainly say that that strategy might be tough on your equipment (and thus your wallet)… But perhaps that’s less of an issue these days with most bikes having disc brakes now.
I think we need to get rid of these binary takes on a training session. IN the above scenario, you didn’t “fail” the workout. It may not have been “optimal”, but it wasn’t a failure.
More upright climbing positions are a bit more mechanical / physiologically more efficient.
Going downhill is more taxing mentally. Choosing a line is harder descending than climbing (insofar as your brain needs to see and process more information per second). Also if the grade is changing shifting to keep up or riding outside your preferred cadence both add slightly to the difficulty.
Don’t misconstrue my point to mean that failing a working doesn’t still provide some training benefit. In the given example, you still achieved 1.4 hours in Z2 which has its benefits. Now from a TR and AT perspective, that would be a failed workout (unless AT somehow knows that i’m going to struggle to maintain power on descents and account for that?)
Binary take is simply, did you do the thing you set out to do? It’s you’re own decision on how much deviation from the prescribed plan still constitutes a ‘yes’.
If you’re on the bike, you’re winning - even if you’re failing (your workout)
Thanks. This encapsulates my outdoor training experience. As we’re all aware, hill efforts aren’t symetric.
Inside, on the trainer, I can close my eyes and concentrate, to deal with the force, cadence, cognitivie stress.
Outside, the course undulates and I have to split my attention between the head unit, upcoming grade changes, and stress management.
It helps a little bit that I set my power reading to smooth, over 3 seconds, so I am not constantly prompted to respond with more/less force or watts.
Braking is something I have not tried. In fact, one new thing I recently tried was taking the gravel bike out on the pavement, so it would allow me to stay in a cadence target. To your point, the gravel bike got away from me on the descents, i.e. “ran out of gears”.
Yes. Unless I’m above 70kph, spinning the legs at high z1/low z2 feels better than getting to the bottom of the hill and having to turn the engine back on.
It took me a long time to understand/convince my brain to keep the power low when the cadence was so high but it eventually clicked.
By not continously chasing the power target but finding a more or less correct gear and keeping it in that gear, when power does start to drift use cadence to compensate
