@halfak totally critical! My planned playlist ran out before I was finished the ramp, and let’s just say it was less than motivating!
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A question to the triathletes: Are you able to hold your aero-position during the whole ramp test? Or are you “cheating” as well and getting into a more comfortable position at the end of the test 
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@brunii17 I hold my aero position throughout. I want to stay on my aero bars as long as possible so feel that’s the best way to test. Also, if I sat up and got a higher ftp I could struggle to complete workouts, which is not very motivating.
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Yes the text that you’re doing better than most makes me think I’m nearing the end and negatively affects me too.
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I don’t test in the aero position. Truely, I only do sweet spot work in my aero poistion. The goal with my training is to push my FTP higher and I do that more effectively upright. I know whatever my FTP is I can hold 80% - 85% for multiple hours without an issue. I think if I was doing 40kk TTs I would have a different outlook and try to work on pushing the percentage of my FTP closer to the ceiling.
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I like this test because I can just ride until I can’t turn the pedals any more and that determines my FTP. I think it worked pretty well in the beta testing phase, I haven’t taken it since them.
I’m not unusually very sentimental, but when the text started talking about my mother I didn’t really appreciate it. Yeah, she’s not real strong now that all that is left of her is a box of ashes. Hopefully that text is gone now. Good to know you can turn it off. Although I generally don’t read it anyway, because I take off my glasses and it’s not that easy.
I needed a bit more warmup when I did the test today, and then someone interrupted me right when the test got difficult so I stopped. When I did the test previously, the warmup was sufficient, so I think I’ll try again next time I’m rested. I have previously over-achieved on a 20 minute test, and then all the workouts were too difficult.
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Should I do the test in Erg mode or should I do resistance mode?
I have a kickr gen 1 and find that the ERG mode is not that great esp. with power match.
I am leaning towards resistance mode because I have noticed that at higher wattages I do not spin out like I do in Erg mode and can instantaneously change my wattage rather than wait for erg mode to adjust. Thoughts?
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It shouldn’t matter to the end result but erg should work a little better.
Perhaps like the flux you need to consider the resistance characteristics of the gen1 kickr and shift gears during the test.
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Good point. I can always retest too next week. I have a pretty good idea of my FTP based on my sweet spot, threshold, and VO2 work as well as my WKO4 estimates, but I would like to get a solid number before 2019 preseason begins tomorrow
Great suggestion!
I recall Coach Chad saying this is exactly how it’s supposed to work.
(sorry, late to the game!)
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In ERG mode you are not required to change gears. But never the less I always make sure that the chain is in the middle of the cassette, so I have the possibility to shift to a lower gear, if my cadence begins to go to a grind. A gear change to a lighter gear, even in ERG mode, gives you a few seconds to get on top of the cadence again, until the trainer has figured out what’s happening and adjusts the resistance to the new cadence. Yesterday, doing the ramp test, I ran out of gears 
so maybe I’ll put some more spare gears “in the bank” next time…
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Thanks for the tip, I think I’ll do the ramptest tomorrow and just have to experience it myself
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I do my workouts on an iPad, and just swipe right where the text is to show more stats instead of text. Maybe try that?
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Guys,
I did my Ramp Test few weeks ago and a I got 285 FTP.
Previous test were doing by 20min FTP test and the last result was 245watt - FTP.
So now when I did the Ramp Test , I can’t do workout with this new FTP. Its to difficult, too hard for me
to finish my workout. Sa what should I do? I have elite turno trainer without ERG mode.
So new FTP is unrealistic for me because I dont have enough power to finish workout.
Do you have a link to playlist if don’t mind sharing?
Here it is Spotify
But music is a very personal thing. This list includes a lot of songs in Spanish, so I recommend you hear it beforehand.
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Yes, they’ve covered this on the podcast at least once - having your FTP set too high can be very demoralizing. You can reset your FTP by hand in the “Account” section of the TrainerRoad website. Hard to say how much you should back yours off, though. Maybe try 265 and see if that is too easy or too hard.
What phase of your training cycle are you in?? I can see jumping into VO2 stuff straight after a huge FTP jump would be difficult but if you are in SSB then you should be able to do the following workout.
If you have a good feel for where you numbers should be then do either a threshold or sweet spot workout and adjust the intensity until it actually makes sense…
But unless you are super unusual in that you could dig far deeper than normal you may just be that good
I know I’ve seen past conversations about the Ramp Test and FTP where the consensus is the TR formula of .75x your highest 1-minute power is a good estimate for many people, but not all. If you like the Ramp Test and want to use it consistently, you could try to adjust your current FTP to taste (as others have suggested) and then figure out what your personal Ramp Test multiplier should be and then just manually adjust to that going forward.
Of course, 245 vs. 285 is a pretty huge differential.