I have been in TR for quite a while (over a year) mainly used in off season to improve fitness and go into early season of outdoor riding fit and reasy for group rides. What i am seeing is my ftp always climbs in those periods but the gains dont seem to prep me for the hard punchy climbs with the Tuesday night ride group. I feel fitter and faster but not stronger. Looking for skme input on whether to change plan or add something new.
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Couple aspects to this type of fitness:
First and foremost, you want to move FTP up. A lot of people misunderstand when they’re struggling relative to the group on short hills and think they need to train short power. What actually happens more often for amateurs is they’re getting to those hills already in bad shape because the group/field is going so hard for them that they are already close to redline or burning tons of sugar, and thus can’t respond to accelerations. Sometimes this plays out as you being able to stay with the group on the hill, but when you reach the top of it, the group is able to accelerate over the top and they can ride away from you. Other times you’re getting to the hill already in the red, and they drop you on the climb itself. Either of those happening?
Second, is training strength/short power. There are at least two parts to that: one is force generation… so is it that you just can’t push the pedals hard enough? Or is it more that you can do a big single effort but lack repeatability? The ways you address that are different and multi-part: strength training, max effort short intervals, or short interval repeats (30/30s e.g.). The good news is, this type of fitness can come around fairly quickly (2-6 weeks). The bad news is there is an element of “ya got what ya got” because you’re not going to get massively stronger by training this stuff. Some estimates are you can only bump this power up by about 10% via on-bike training alone… but it does come relatively quickly… and it also goes relatively quickly when you detrain it.
So it’s possible you need to incorporate off-season strength work and then hammer some well-timed short power work to help with this.
Third is looking at your gearing. Do you have enough? Are you being forced to try to mash up the short hills at 50-60 rpm, or are you not shifting properly into those hills? If you’re trying to mash climb that stuff, that’s a problem. You need to either have more gears available or you need to more effectively use what you already have.
Fourth would be your weight and power:weight relative to your group.
So kind of too hard to answer your question without more details, but those are good starting points to think about.
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Tell us a bit more about the Tuesday night group ride;
how long,
a bit about the length, steepness and number of climbs,
where you sit in comparison to the rest of the group (e.g. are you second up the climbs, or second from last)
the IF you record from the rides
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Hey there and welcome to the TR community!
Check out some of the tips @kurt.braeckel posted above – there’s some great stuff in there that should help you out!
Beyond your fitness (which I’m glad to hear you feel is improving! 
), also consider your positioning in the group when you’re hitting the hills.
If you’re right on the front breaking the wind going into the climb, that’s no good – other riders will slingshot past you and leave you in the dust super easily.
All the way at the back is no good, either. The group tends to bunch up at the base of climbs, which means you’ll often have to brake/slow down, and then start jamming on the pedals to get your speed back up to stick with the riders ahead of you.
Staying towards the pointy end of the pack (but not breaking the wind!) can be the key to getting over climbs with the group. It’s easier said than done, but I think it’s just as important (potentially even more important!) as your raw fitness. Also consider sag climbing, where you start the climb at the front of the peloton, but climb slightly (emphasis on slightly – you’ll still be going hard) more slowly than other riders and gradually drift towards the back of the field. Sag climbing allows you to save energy, especially over repeated climbs.
This race analysis we did a few years ago can give you some more insight on how to approach those hard, punchy climbs:
Hope that gives you some additional useful input – feel free to let us know if you have any more questions!
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”It never gets easier, you just get faster”
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