I just started doing outside workouts and I live in a hilly area. Although my average lap power is usually within the target zone, I have what seem to me to be huge spikes up and down during the intervals. For example, I did a one-hour active recovery ride today, and only 63% of my ride was in Z1. 26% was in Z2, 8% in Z3, and I even spent a couple of minutes in zones 4 and 5 over the course of an hour. Here’s a screenshot of my power output during today’s ride; the target range was 94-115 wattss.
Isn’t this how outside workouts look like? It is hard to maintain a constant workspace when wind, weather and other people interfere I ride with a Garmin head unit and it provides me with a range that I try to stay inside (and I try to hit the upper limit).
Gearing and bike choice can help if you can’t find flatter terrain. I’ve got MTB gearing on my gravel bike and can pick my way up pretty steep stuff at low power. And I’ll grab my MTB for the road if I want even lower gearing (smaller chainring). But some routes are just tough if you are trying to do true recovery. A few surges aren’t a big deal, but a route that is constantly hitting grades of 12-20+% probably isn’t going to work well. I’m not sure there is any reasonable gearing that’s going to keep you moving on grades like that while staying around 100w. Maybe time for an e-bike for recovery rides?
Digging the tips in here already, especially from @grwoolf and @MikeMunson regarding route choice and gearing/cadence.
For a Z1 recovery spin, for example, you’d ideally want to pick a route that has roads that are as flat as they can be for where you live – even if that means doing a simple out and back on a single road. We’d recommend being more strict about this for Z1 stuff than for other rides – pushing into zones 3, 4, and 5 goes against the point of doing a recovery spin in the first place and can cause more harm than good to your subsequent training sessions if you’re going too hard.
For Z2 riding, you don’t have to be quite as strict, though we’d still recommend trying to keep your power in Z2 for as much of the ride as possible. You can keep your power in check by adjusting your cadence and shifting gears as necessary. Try to do everything as smoothly as you can. If you’re going uphill and you’re already in your easiest gear, slow your cadence down to keep your power where it needs to be.
For interval sessions, go for stretches of road that don’t have any interruptions if that’s possible. I like to look for long, flat, sections of road for longer intervals (about 10+ minutes). Rolling terrain can be good as well, as long as you don’t run into any extended downhills. If you have a long climb you can do repeats on, even better! Shorter climbs can be good for VO2 work where your intervals will last a few minutes in length.
The following article has some more tips on choosing your routes for your Outside Workouts:
Beyond route choice, again, focus on cadence, shifting gears, and being smooth. It takes some practice to dial in your power when you’re riding outdoors, but with some practice, it’s a skill you can improve like anything else!
Hope this helps – feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
can you zig zag some of those hills safely? just practice will let you go slower…it’s hard to balance.
gonna be hard on those hills though.
why not just do a low Zone 2 ride? I don’t get the point of 100watt rides unless you’re training some crazy number of hours. (or it’s just for fun / family)
Remember too that unless you’re training for a TT, any training where you’re trying to have a ‘smooth’ power graph has zero specificity to any real world race/event, and specificity is one of the most important components of successful training.
IMO there is one things that I find crucial to keep a steady power - don’t use a filtered power value for pacing. It is near impossible to keep a target power if the feedback is delayed by a couple of seconds.
It takes a fair amount of practice so be mindful about how hard you push on the pedals and use your gears to maintain an as steady cadence as possible. Power is dependent of cadence and force so keeping a narrow rpm range makes it easier to get a feeling for the appropriate amount of force you need to exert.
To be fair I don’t think it is that important to be anal about staying in zone (1 -3 at least) from a strict training adaption perspective. I think it’s far more important to not induce more fatigue than necessary in the long run.
I have done my z2 both by HR and power and when doing z2 by HR I allow myself to push the power momentarily almost up in z4 for a brief moment if my heart rate dropped to low. If I’m training to a power range im usually more conservative. Either way I often do z2 back to back so fatigue management is of great importance.
This is a screenshot of a ride to power I did recently. Although it is a really flat course there are some parts (crossing and whatever ) that’s nearly impossible to stay in zone.
Personally that looks good and I would likely feel refreshed after the ride - which is (arguably) one of the reasons to do an active recovery ride. If it started to sting the legs I would back off. And I would never get concerned about breakdown of power zones. That’s me and my belief system.
I ride with a Garmin head unit and it provides me with a range that I try to stay inside (and I try to hit the upper limit).
