That’s great. If your perceived effort aligns with the workout then crack on.
The “alarm bells” comment was that you could only hold your 5w less than your FTP for 20 minutes. I recently did a workout that was 3x20 @ ~15w below FTP. I don’t think I could have done that had my best 20 min power been 5w below FTP.
20 minute test on 22 Jan - 266W FTP
Ramp test on 26 Jan - 286W FTP
Average the two = 276W is what Im going with for high volume build. I recommend this (doing both tests and taking the average) as it has been accurate for me through a year of training.
Some subjective notes:
This 276W estimate is 3-5W higher than what I started with for high volume sweet spot base in the gran fondo plan. It makes sense more than the outliers from both tests.
I finished a gran fondo high volume plan in december '20 and went from initially 220W - 289W at the end on a ramp test. Estimated actual FTP at 280W at that peak (3% off from inflated ramp test). I took a 1.5 week break and started the high volume base at 270W.
I have high VO2max and anaerobic capability from 4 years of heavy squatting and HIIT at a local crossfit.
For the same reason I have comparitively (to the awesome athletes here and in cycling, running, plus other endurance sports) poor slow twitch, diesel long term engine performance. This is why I suck at the 20 minute test and take the average of the two.
Hope that helps anyone who is in the same boat.
My 95% of my 20 min test (after a 5 min full gas effort) gives me close to 20w higher than a ramp test.
To me, ftp is just an indicator number but still want to see if it is real my an hour power too.
But to my experience, ramp test result is the number that you can follow the trainerroad plans without fail (of course we will feel the pain and try to learn not give up and that’s the whole point actually).
So if you want to improve yourself, do ramp test and follow the plan. If you really want to learn your an hour power, so do an hour maximum effort (even 20mins can be wrong).
100%, ramp test underestimates me by about 5% compared to 20 min… definitely I am a diesel in terms of physiology and if I use the ramp number, workouts are way too easy…
Just here to share my personal results as I always knew the ramp test resulted in a higher FTP estimation for me, but never actually measured the difference.
Yesterday’s ramp test: 257W
Today’s 20 minute test: 244W
So a 13W or ~5% difference for me.
I think a few watts of this discrepancy could be due to pacing issues and lack of experience with the amount I should suffer in the first 10-15 minutes of the test. Also, a general lack of experience with sweet spot/treshold intervals. Just starting my first Trainerroad plan so hoping to resolve this over the next few weeks!
Going with the lower FTP estimation (20-minute test results) for now.
Sooo… I’m guessing no one here likes the 5min FTP test version?!.. I liked it, and it gave me a pretty close estimation to the ramp test one.
If you’ve never heard of it, here are some links on it:
I really wished TR had that option for FTP test as well.
Please give me your feedbacks 
My ex coach used the 5mins test for a while and whilst it was convenient he must of had a reason for dropping it 
It seems pretty easy to create that for yourself.
Yap… now that I think of it. I just never tried to create a workout yet. Maybe I’ll do that asap. Thx!
Looks like a fairly standard 20 minute test 
The old one had a warm-up, then 20 min test, then cooldown.
The ‘new one’ lasts for an hour, and has some intervals in the beginning, hence my question.
P.s. + the fixed wattage, which i find really weird.
That all out warm up should in theory make it more accurate to the 0.95 formula.
Its not easy to see from the chart but when you say fixed, do you mean fixed as in ERG? If so that’s weird and plain wrong IMO. If its just an indicative target power that is normal for a lot of 20mins tests and you are not fixed to fall above or below it.
Most of the workouts on Rouvy are based on the % of FTP, this one has fixed W’s. And the author of the workout is ROUVY itself. So weird!
Yep, the old one sounds wrong. A 5 minute max effort is required prior to the test. Looks like they’ve added random riding to make it up to the hour, as most people would find a 47 minute workout ‘wrong’!
Power targets should be guidelines and these tests shouldn’t be in erg mode so they’re largely irrelevant. If you’ve got a goal in mind then watching the average for the interval might be useful though.
That does seem odd…but as per last message, not really a problem. It would be slightly demotivating if you were way under the targets the whole time though!
Would be advisable to do the test after 1h of Z2 ride?
I wouldn’t, it be building fatigue, but it depends on you, you may feel you need a massive warm up in addition to the tests standards warmup.
