I’m swamped right now with Gw. We have a new data guy starting Monday who might be able to help. He’s working on thing 1 though so I suspect he’ll be swamped too.
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You are going to have people tracking down your developers on LinkedIn to sneak things up the list 
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They could put “Other TrainerRoad Users” as an option for graphing on the PR Chart. You’d probably want overall, same-gender, and same-gender / same-age-bracket as options. A line plot of the median with a shaded area for plus and minus one quartile would probably make sense.
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I don’t know if it’s imposter syndrome or that I’m surrounded by / race with very fast people, but as someone on the better half of the bell curve, I don’t really feel that fast. I think it comes down to like… being about 3.8wkg/260sftp doesn’t mean I just destroy everyone on the road, it means I’m a little bit faster than ~70-80% of people.
It’s weird, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, because I keep reading things like “If you’re nearing 4 you’re on the poity end of the field, etc.” I pass most people I see on a ride when I’m just out and about, but it’s also not at all rare for me to get passed. I don’t think, WOW, get ready everyone, I have arrived, and it’s certainly not easy for me to pass anyone and everyone. Anyway, little point to the post, just sharing what’s been on my mind. I find the curves very interesting.
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I have been having similar thoughts of late. After 20 solid weeks of training and on paper improving tremendously, basically going from low 3 w/kg to just a decimal place shy of 4 I still kind of feel that the differences between people are really small when actually on the road.
I guess that pulverizing effect would actually happen if you would to have say 5w/kg and started riding with people in the 3,5-4 range, but other than that you are just ‘marginally’ faster in the real world. This margin will of course give you an edge and will mean a world of difference when it will come down to placements in races.
The worst thing is, that will all the races cancelled you can’t really know for sure if the training is paying off 
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Dont forget that the draft is strong, can just jump away, someone will be putting out a lot less effort to sit on
w/kg really shows on the longer climbs
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For me there is big difference thanks to 7 months with TR (3 → 3.5W/kg). Yes, I am still average, both subjectively feeling and by position on Bell curve. What makes it different is durability and repeatability: returning from 5hr continuous higher Z2 ride, I still feel quite same. And ready to go again day after day.
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Agreed, to me numbers like ftp and w/kg are irrelevant even though they’re nice to look at. I feel like biggest improvement for me was being able to play tactical games in the race and not feeling like a passenger trying to stay with the pack.
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So, we hear a lot about FTP and it’s usually accompanied by discussion of w/kg. We all know that’s a key metric for going uphill where weight becomes more important and aerodynamics become less important.
Without considering weight though, at what point do raw watts become ‘high power’? 250? 300?
I would say when your FTP can threaten a ‘normal’ riders vo2… you have big boy watts. In my mind that’s in the 300ish range.
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Agreed, if you can ride at a sustained pace of 300+ watts on the flats for longer periods of time than you are starting to hammer whoever is riding behind you ( unless they are “big” as well ).
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I assume you are specific to non draft triathlon cycling? If you are comparing yourself to actual cyclists of course the ceiling is even higher. I am at the front end of the race and have a 300 watt 4+W/kg ftp, but I avg around 200-220 watts for 90km and pull into T2 in the front. I have looked at other people’s raw watts and I am surprised how much lower I am from them, but I think I am holding a much more aero position all race than them. However, I have done some zwift racing lately and it is not uncommon to see guys pushing 5w/kg (and zwift power seems to think its legit) so while I can crush the bike specific to triathlons, there are way, waaaay faster people always.
I think you can be faster than 90-95% of the field with a +3.8w/kg number and a solid wattage/CdA number. The hillier the course and higher w/kg, the better it is for you.
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Also don’t discount what raw watts can do on the flats. Guys who output huuuge power numbers but have a low W/kg can go really, really fast on the flats. Once hills pop up, you can absolutely blow their socks off. But on flat courses the spread is much closer than you might think, even with your high W/kg. If they can hold a good position all race on flat races, they may very well be faster than you.
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As long as you aren’t a barn door in the wind, I’d say holding 350-370w will keep you off the front of most competitive flat group rides in SoCal.
330w or below will usually see you brought back.
That’s the same up here in NorCal. The front of the group on fast & flat rides can put out ~350 for a long time.
I disagree on the grounds that my ftp is 300 and I very much feel like I’m wearing flabby babyman pants. 
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Fat on the flats is just bulking for power.
Yeah, non-draft exclusively for me.
I’m certainly happy to hear your experiences! If I remember right, your bike is a pretty aggressive setup too. Zwift racing is probably skewing my perspective. It does seem like everyone can hold 4.5w in Zwift, but there’s obviously a strong self-selection bias (letting alone weight doping etc.)
At 70-72kg, I feel like if I could get to a real 300 ftp, I would be preeeeeetty damn happy for the medium term. Obviously that 4.5-4.75 pipe dream is always dangling out there, but 300 would make me pretty content. Even 280.
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It’s all relative, but I think it was extremely well setup for the times I was throwing down, except I was having some neck/shoulder issues. I have since swapped bikes and I think I have a better setup for long course; tbh not sure if my setup is faster now, but I think it looks way faster now for sure lol. Try using a road bike on zwift, you will see an extra .2-.3 w/kg pop out. There is no way i can hit the watts I hit out of aero in aero, but if I rode like that I would 100% be way slower.
Remember, total FTP is one thing, but sustainable FTP in aero is another, and Watts/CdA is really what matters unless you are climbing. I think if you want to be a top AGer, you have to be capable of holding an FTP of +280 watts in aero (in a good position) and have a low CdA. However, what you can sustain is different than what you can race at, and if you cant run after the bike you are straight fuc*ed. Ride for show run for dough