I’ve never been able to generate more than 900W on seated sprints, no matter how hard I try. But I can put down 1100W with a standing sprint.
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So just to clarify, you spent the whole 25 minutes out of the saddle on the first ride and the whole 50 mins in the saddle on the second?
We’ll see how @matte replies to this one, but in general I find it funny how non-runners think it’s crazy to want to be out of the saddle for more than 10 minutes at a time. Coming from a running background I feel like it’s easier to be out of the saddle than in for longer efforts. Granted you’re not going to be going faster because of how much worse your CdA is.
@lebowskii98 I may have sat down a couple of times, but estimate >95% out of the saddle. (Sorry, missed your first question - new to the forum!)
@mattave exactly. It’s just that I can’t find longer steep climbs. If it was a 1h climb at that gradient, I’d stand for 1h no problem 
@stevemz I live, train and race in Berlin, and boy that place is flat like a pancake (wish it wasnt). And don’t worry, I wont be training with an FTP setting that is 30W to high. I noticed very quickly that doesn’t work 
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That’s interesting. I know Contador used to train out of the saddle and spent large chunks of time out of the saddle when racing up mountains.
If you are putting out more watts for the same rpe then, if it were me, I’d want to test this out to see if you are actually quicker. Same hill, same effort, out of the saddle first, recover then go again in the saddle.
From my experience on a weekly hilly group ride - I can put big watts out by standing but it is always slower. Granted because they are short climbs they are generally high speeds so aerodynamics comes into play. Both in the same season, same bike, same power meter.
My best effort over the segment with a normal seated cadence for me:
4:13 with 326w at 96rpm caddence
A higher power effort standing (slower cadence)
4:25 with 364w at 75rpm caddence
For steeper climbs it may make more of a difference however.
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I only get breakthroughs on the out-of-saddle efforts, that is how I got the 340W FTP.
My “flat FTP” I calculate by flagging the few rides that contain an out-of-saddle effort (Xert than ignores them).
do you know where they talk about why the 5 min effort is part of the test?
No clue what your power source is - but any chance you’ve got a power meter than is struggling with consistency across power ranges?
Doesn’t seem likely but might be worth finding a comparative power meter to throw on the bike to see if there’s a discrepancy based on cadence
The purpose of the 5min “blowout” is to drain your anaerobic reserves, to reduce the anaerobic contribution to the 20min effort.
People who just go out, warm up, and hit it for 20min usually get an inflated FTP because they’ve had too large of an anaerobic contribution for the test. If you don’t do the “blowout,” your real FTP – what you could really do for an hour of power – is going to be below that 95% of 20min number.
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Your power meter is off by a lot. Left only and crank based power meters are often heavily affected by L/R balance and non-typical pedaling styles (or the way rider applies torque to the crank). Ockham’s razor screams Stages is to blame here. Especially that you get much slower times with much higher power when out of the saddle. And the difference is way too big to blame just worse aerodynamics.
I heard that overall position on the bike differ between flat and climb because of the slope, that’s why it’s easier to make big watts in climb rather than flat.
For me, it’s confirmed by the weird position you have to have on a TT bike : not only for aero but to optimise power by beeing sitted as if road was steep but on flat.
This might be wrong though
Hits the nail on the head.
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