New powermeter, FTP and TSS

Training
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Hi there,

Is there a way to tell if my ftp is correct, based upon my most recent outdoor ride?

I just bought a power meter, the favero assiomo dual pedals, i zero’d them off and got riding. I did a hard club A ride today 140km. I did a 440 TSS on 300 FTP. Does that seem off?..

Thanks

2

That TSS score doesn’t look right to me. If you hit that kind of TSS you certainly know about it and even more so over such a short distance.
I would check the installation of the pedals and that your FTP is set correctly on your head unit and training software.

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If the pedals are new, how did you get the current 300w FTP?

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I’ve been using a wattbike pro for training at the gym. My most recent ftp on the ramp was 300. I’m a couple of weeks into ssbmv2

The pedals are new, and for my road bike.

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Btw, they’re the favero Assioma dual sided. I’ve only ever heard good things about accuracy before.

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Sure. But regardless of the accuracy, you have no idea how close the pedals are to the Wattbike.

You need to do a Ramp or FTP test on the pedals to see what you get on those. I won’t be surprised to see a notable difference from the Wattbike.

5 Likes
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Thanks. Then just have two ftps? One for wattbike which is my TR training, and the other for my road bike?

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If there’s a difference, yes. Even if using the same power meter then you may find that you can generate more watts outside than inside (more airflow to keep you cool, more freedom of movement, higher motivation, etc). I have my Garmin (which records outdoor sessions) set with a different FTP to the TR app. Then created my own Performance Chart in Excel and log TSS manually each day which is slightly geeky…

Does still seem odd though as both the Assiomas and Wattbike are supposed to be pretty accurate. It’s not like 300W is an obviously low FTP. What AP and NP did the Assiomas give you for the ride?

Had a look at some recent races including some with massively net uphill routes (I.e. Finish line is up a mountain and 700m higher than the start line), and even 300TSS would be hard to get over 140km, let alone 440!

3 Likes
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Thanks for all of your replies! AP 190, NP 276.

Not sure if it matters, but the guys i was with were Cat 2 and 3, they took a few KOMs on the ride whilst i was desperately trying to hold wheels. It felt like several hard interval sessions. Damn i’m still tired thinking about it!!!

The ride was 140km with 1100m climbing - 440 TSS does sound crazy though! And certainly the hardest fastest ride i’ve ever been on - burnt 3700 calories!!

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The Wattbikes in the gym are often heavily used and they need servicing. I’ve jump on a WB before and the power has been way off and I had to zero offset the PM before continuing.

2 Likes
11

This sounds sensible. I’ll give this a go!

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@tman1234 - You can do some back checking with this TSS equation.

TSS = 100*Time(hrs)*IF^2

IF=NP/FTP.
So for your ride if the FTP & NP are correct, it took you about 5.2 hours @26.9 km/hr.
You can adjust your FTP and have any of the various tools and platforms recalculate your NP, IF and TSS until seems more in line with the TSS for the time and RPE you did. The only reason to do this is to give you a FTP target for testing with your PM.

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