I did the half Monty test this week. I “liked” it! I felt that the dialogue/instruction was much more like being in a lab rather than Coach Chad’s litany of ways that I can quit during the ramp tests. The 20 minutes steady HR after the ramp was interesting. I did seem to get a valid FTP based on RPE with a 3x 20 later in the week. I agree with the comments about MAP being good, actually useful info!
I’ll probably continue to use the Half Monty in place of the TR Ramp test while sticking with the rest of the TR plans.
This doesn’t make sense. Why do one test, the results of which are used to “personalize” workout levels, and apply those results to a different platform which bases all workout levels on a single point? It’s like going to Denny’s and calling uber eats to deliver IHOP to your table…and paying for all three!
The answer is because I’ve never liked the percentages that TrainerRoad assigns to the VO2 portions of the workouts. My FTP tends to be higher relative to my MAP/VO2. I’m a TTer with pretty bad short power. I’ve never been able to reliably finish VO2 work on TrainerRoad but I have been able to on Sufferfest. Using the Sufferfest numbers, I’ll just apply those to TrainerRoad for the appropriate workouts.
The best way to test FTP … the true standard … will always be to get on a Your bike and ride as hard as you can for an hour and see what the number is.
I am the total opposite .
I can reach the prescribed powers and even go above in VO2Max intervals but I have to scale down to 95% any SS or threshold work.
I don’t buy the idea of TrainerRoad’s one fits all approach with FTP.
Two riders with the same FTP can be very different physiologically and they will express that in terms of power profile. They get the same power targets nevertheless. One of them, or both, will be over or under reaching.
This is much less likely to happen with the Sufferfest method.
Because Vo2 max are for scaling - it is in the description, Coach Chad comments and was discussed a lot on the forum. VO2 max power is very indivitual that is why you train at threshold with your FTP that is set correctly and scale VO2 max workouts to fit your physiology.
i’m not sure you’re getting anything wrong. People are getting super defensive about all this stuff and i’m not really sure why. There was some dude up thread whose post was basically like, “I haven’t tried it, it spits out two numbers instead of one, I don’t know why it does that or how, and yet I think it’s probably no mroe accurate than any other ramp test.”
Maybe that’s right, maybe that’s wrong, but how do you know if it’s not any more accurate for you if you haven’t even tried it?
I personally still use the Sufferfest 4DP. Yes you can scale your vo2max workouts as Coach Chad seems to recommend but i like that 4DP includes a fresh 5 minute effort as part of the protocol, it forces you to test it (and then you can track progress) even if you really don’t want to test it. And the whole thing together is like a “hardness” test.
Obv there’s disadvantages. Pacing is an issue, you can’t test as often, you can get similar learnings out of using Wko5, etc. But no test protocol is perfect and this is the one i’ve found works best for me.
Sub in “FTP test” for “wheel size” and there you go.
Seriously though, as mentioned, they all have pros and cons. Choose what works for you and leave the rest to what works for them, without the atritude.
Well… most TR training blocks for Build / specialty for road cycling involve a good mix of VO2Max + Threshold and sometimes anaerobic capacity workouts. There’s no such thing as a “VO2 block” on TR. So what do you do? Test everything? Sounds a lot like a 4DP to me…
That’s a lot of assumptions in a few lines. What if these people are failing their workouts because the regular Ramp test overestimated their FTP?
If I can speak for myself (and I’ve read a few similar comments in this very thread), my issue is failing threshold or SS workouts because the ramp test over estimate my FTP. So what do I do, move my target wattage +/- a few % every time I do a Threshold workout? How much %? Threshold and SS workouts are already by nature, designed to make you ride at a very narrow power range. ‘A few percent’ (e.g. 3-5%) can really throw that target range in another zone (e.g. high-tempo (SS) or VO2). After a lot of TR ramp tests that overestimated my FTP (even while following the strict protocol), I struggled through a LOT of Threshold/SS workouts. So I just tried the half monty, and yea I’m a bit shocked at how low of an FTP it gave me, but my MAP was spot on. Don’t know if I did the HR 20min part too low, or my FTP is really that low (compared to my MAP), but I do believe 2 things :
1 - The test is not perfect, because there’s no such thing as a perfect test.
2 - I still appreciate their effort to build a new test protocol that tries to address the known issues with the regular Ramp Test.
I love TR for many other reasons, but I always find it a bit annoying that their answer is always, we tested the ramp test on a large data set. It’s the best estimate that we’ve found.
Anyway, on paper, all of this struggle about FTP is behind us now that Adaptive Training is up and running on TR.
thats the good thing on the new AT feature of TR, when your Ramp Test isn’t perfect, then AT optimize your workouts in the right direction, so it works perfect for me
I was just re-listening to a Seiler podcast yesterday and he goes on a big rant about cyclists NOT doing 60 min tests to find a good figure to base training on… He makes a good case about it being an endurance sport and all these protocols that use formulae to estimate FTP based on short efforts etc are basically ‘cheating’. He also makes a great case for a 6m max effort as a proxy for max aerobic capacity and peak HR.
Makes a lot of sense when you think about it really.
Probably some of that - but that IS endurance training right
Pick a number, ride for an hour if you can, and if you cant then pick a lower number and go again another day. All good training anyway and it tells you the real truth. We’ve all just become accustomed to finding shortcuts to pretty everything these days - me included!
Exactly - and most get a completely wrong figure and it all goes bad from there. I know why people do it, and I have as well for years, but that doesn’t make it a good idea
This forum is filled with people saying the ramp test gives dodgy numbers and before that people used to cheat the 20 min and 8 min tests.
When you think about it, its mad that people wanting to get better at an endurance sport want a shortcut way to find the most important baselines for all their training investment!
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