He is not. His strava data setting suggests he’s around 5.7 w/kg (which seems quite low for what he can do). At any rate, this is an impressive performance right now. I’m in full fanboy mode right now.
look at him relative to the climbers, like Buitrago
MvDP is a generational talent for sure and he has an amazing ability to ride above the red line for long periods of time but he’s not a climber. He puts on a great show as a bike racer.
He also appears to be about as lean as he can be. There’s no way he’s losing another 5 or 10kg.
Hey Chad. Does TR have this histogram for raw power, regardless of FTP? I find that for races without significant climbing, race performance is generally somewhere in between the two.
This is from the same Bell Curve topic, further down. Might be what you want?
Thanks for that!
just a sidenote:
There was an interesting discussion on a Norwegian road cycling podcast recently about climbers vs. sprinters and one of the hosts said he in the past often got questions from non-cyclist like “So, you’re a cyclist right? So you can outclimb someone like Thor Hushovd or Alexander Kristoff, right? Cause he’s a sprinter and can’t climb to save his life?” If you just watch cycling on TV and not know what’s involved, you can see where they can get ideas like that. And he then had to explain that no, he could never, ever outclimb someone like those guys, because they are insanely fit and strong and can ride circles around average joes on even the steepest alp mountains.
They are just slightly worse at it than the people who are the absolute world’s best at it.
(and don’t forget, it’s not their job to spend all their power on the mountains, so they conserve their energy for later.)
VDP would probably have the best w/kg for 5mins, WVA for 2mins, someone like Cav or Bennet for 30s…if you are looking at threshold you are probably looking at Prog or Rog…light GC contenders who can TT and sprint at the top of mountains…horses for courses…either way it’s a different world from us mere mortals 
This may not be straightforward to answer, but do you have any sense of the mix of intensity of the additional volume? For example, was it mostly endurance-pace riding, or a mix of training zones?
I can give you a qualitative answer, but when I’m back in front of my computer (ie at work…) I can give a proper breakdown…
Start of 2020 when the lockdowns kicked in I was doing a lot of intensity. I have always done LV TR plans (although fairly inconsistently pre covid), but after lockdowns started I was doing one or two zwift races a week plus often an extra sweetspot etc workout… so usually riding 6 or 7 days a week and with intensity nearly every day. I also basically ignored the recovery weeks! Did the prescribed TR workouts but kept doing Zwift racing etc like normal. I obviously got really fit, but I also got sick after an event I did in July. Like really sick - I was getting blood tests for glandular fever and stuff. Totally wiped out.
Since then I try to always have at least one day a week off (that’s got a lot easier with work and social life going back to normal) and also stick more closely to the 3 days a week of proper intensity (although often 4 if I do a club ride, as some climbs are unavoidable). I’ll swap out the TR ride for a Zwift race rather than do both!
I “normally” do:
Monday 60 min Z2
Tuesday 60 min TR (or Zwift race if ZRL is on)
Either club ride Wednesday or a 90 min Z2, or an MTB ride
Thursday 60 min TR
Friday off
Saturday long endurance/club ride
Sunday 90 min TR
Although these days with work, my weekday off is a lot more variable. I am training for an ultra type event in August so I quite often tack 20-30 mins extra to the end of each TR ride, and looking to build out the duration of the long rides. To be honest I quite often skip the 90 min TR ride and do two outside rides, especially if the weather is nice.
Well, good for you I wish I could get to 4 w-kg so easily I’m at 3.5 and despite training consistently on TR for a year I think 4 w-kg is a good year off if at all.
I am getting better and stronger though.
I’m still mystified why TR doesn’t make plan suggestions based on that data. For example, ‘you’re a 35 year old woman, and controlling for people you’re age, with a similar starting FTP, training frequency, etc, this plan saw an X% improvement, this one saw a Y% improvement, and so on. Which one would you like to try?’
Maybe there’s just not that much diffference between plans?
Yes the variation between people, no matter how hard you filter the data, is for sure much bigger than the difference between plans.
Probably why TR does not promise us more than consistency will make us faster.
There isn’t much difference between the plans, they’ve said as much on the podcast. Consistently following a plan is more important than what plan you’re actually following. Assuming of course the plan you’re following increases the load progressively, includes recovery weeks, has an appropriate mix of intensity, etc. Which all the TR plans do.
I think most of what TR is focused on (and what their success is based on) is helping you achieve consistency. From the beginning the software was just really clean, easy to use and stable which made it simple to actually just do your workout. The podcast and community engaged people which helped increase motivation and therefore consistency. Adding outdoor workouts helped people to be more consistent as the weather improves and they want to ride outside (and again is really well executed in terms of how simple it is to actually follow an outdoor workout). Progression levels are a great way of keeping motivation high with regular little reward drops rather than having to wait 4-6 weeks for your next test and (hopefully) FTP bump. And keeping the workouts and plans varied helps keep things fresh (especially back in the days when people were doing all the workouts indoors).
If you were a highly motivated athlete you could probably get great results just by doing something like Seiler’s 4 x 8 minute intervals twice a week every week, with a long Z2 ride at the weekend, filling in the other days with Z1-2, taking a recovery week every 4 weeks and progressing naturally as you got stronger. But most people would find that very boring and repetitive and would lose motivation and consistency after a couple of blocks or less.
I think this is hugely dependent on your size. For someone 60kg? Sure, they only need to get to 240. I’m a bit over 80kg and relatively lean. I could hit 80kg with some work, and I look shredded when I’m there. 4watt/kg would be 320 watts. I think I can eventually get there, but even after years of training, it’s still going to be a long slog.
The math is just significantly in the smaller persons favor on this. While absolute power is more important than watt/kg for racing, higher absolute powers are generally harder to achieve, and bigger size humans do not have a linear advantage in getting there.
I’d recommend a checkup, and a stress test. I was merrily on my way to be a ‘super cyclist’, and was having issues with being completely wasted during training rides. Like can’t catch my breath, and just feeling gutted after a really tough ride. I also started feeling some chest pain and was told the story of a local doc who was a triathlete and was not feeling well while running, and actually took it seriously and saw another doctor, and found out that he had a partial block of a cardiac blood vessel, and needed it addresses. Post treatment, he was back to top form. My issue was a genetic narrow vessel in my heart, so even though I thought my top was still within reach, my body was already being pushed past its max. I was surprised, and had others look at the data, and they all agreed. My top was not where I wanted it to be, and I have had to live with that. I was surprised, but knew something didn’t feel right…
So, if you have been a big time trainer/athlete and don’t have any issues, good for you, and keep pushing, but if there are any issues while training, and you seek to increase your performance, get checked out. Especially MAMIL’s that are trying to be the next Tour de France star. Just saying… After all the tests, my cardiologist said I was in my top condition, and should not stop, but alter my plans and be more realistic. But, I don’t want to be…
This is great to hear. Were you supplementing the LV plan with any additional rides? I’m cycling around 6 hours a week and hovering around 4w/kg. I have quite a busy work/life schedule though and even 6 hours can be hard to fit in at times.
On pure LV I got sort of a brittle 4 w/kg. With some additional z2 rides (6-8 hours) my FTP didn’t increase a lot, but I noticed longer TTE and better repeatability. Doing more intensity next to LV results in too much fatigue in my case
For me, it just took losing weight. Sort of.
I used TR since 2019, and made big gains. Started off the couch around 180W, now at around 330W. The fun part started around winter 2021. I did a lot of riding during lockdowns, but couldn’t really push past 300-310W. So I decided that I was going to double down in the winter. I did long SweetSpot alternating with a 3-week pure VO2 block. So usually 3-4 weeks of SweetSpot, recovery, 3 week VO2, recovery, repeat. I also ate like an animal. I tried to rationalize it that I was “fueling the work” and that the weight gain was healthy and fine as long as I was gaining watts on the bike (advice mostly from the podcast). I had gained a ton of weight though, hitting over 200 pounds. But by spring 2022 I broke through my plateau and hit an all time high of 340W FTP. So while my FTP went up, my W/kg stayed pretty much the same at around 3.8W/kg. I did well in flat races but quickly dropped off the back of the road tipped up.
So back to this year. I’ve been counting calories and running a deficit to lose weight. I cut out a lot of food and cut back on carbs during rides. To be honest, I never really felt any better by taking in 100g/hour on the bike. It never felt like it lowered RPE or gave me extra energy to push through. Fueling with 40g/hour vs 100/g feels the same to me. But the calories really add up. I also gave up the 1500-2000 calorie post ride binges. In the past, I’d do an hour and a half SweetSpot workout and easily scarf down double the calories post ride. Again, cutting back I feel the same energy wise.
So to the original question, I’m now sitting around 330W FTP at 78-79kg, so right around 4.2W/kg. Nothing crazy. But I feel better and stronger in climbs. And no difference on flat courses. So to finally push past the 4W/kg barrier, I just needed to drop the excess weight.