Back from almost half a year break and just finished SSB I and on the start line of SSB II. Previous ramp test result was 160w. Let’s see what AI prescribes for now.
Hey, I was only on SSB I low volume and I even missed some workouts. OK, Just do ramp test and find out…
Hold my beer, wait what?! Didn’t expect they expect my newb gain in this precision
So if AT doesn’t yet take full account of outdoor rides even if they are associated with a workout (my understanding is that AT takes account of the workout as planned not as actually completed) and I am doing predominantly outdoor rides - am I better doing an actual ramp test rather than relying on an AI generated FTP?
As of the last official statement (from memory) TR AI FTP Detection needs a minimum of 12 completed rides/workouts imported in your TR calendar. There was some confusion as to whether that must be TR or other rides, but AFAIK it includes ALL ride types, not just TR ones at this time for the minimum of 12.
Other than that restriction, TR AIFTPD is supposed to use ALL workouts with power data as part of the Detection background data. All that said, if you meet the requirements above, using AIFTPD is what I’d suggest.
Thanks Chad. I have used AI FTP detection a couple of times when I was doing predominantly indoor workouts and I was happy with the results. At this time of the year (in the UK) most of my riding is outdoors so I am not sure whether these rides have an impact on the AI FTP detection
I haven’t been on the trainer much in the last couple months (unusually good spring for Nova Scotia), and AI FTP D seems way off when looking at just my outdoor rides. I used it last week, and it gave about 15W less than what feels like threshold to me right now, and 10W less than before my riding switched to mostly outside despite my volume doubling (and performance improving). It seemed bang on when just looking at TR workouts.
I would “expect” AI FTP detection to do worse with just outdoor rides compared to having indoor rides, for a few reasons:
For indoor rides, it knows what effort level the ride is supposed to be at
it has feedback on how hard the ride was, and if you completed the intervals
TR is likely focusing a lot of effort making sure this works for indoor riders following their plans, and these don’t include many all-out efforts. The point of this estimation is avoid the ramp test, so those go away too.
It has a lot more context to work with for the indoor rides than the outdoor ones, and I think the feedback of how hard the intervals were is important. If you did 20 minutes at 250 watts outdoors, TR doesn’t know if that was all out, or just sweetspot level effort. Indoors it gets that, and knows about what certain workouts ‘should’ feel like. Also, since the indoor workouts are generally shorter and mostly of the same interval type, the rating you provide is likely much more valuable than a rating of how hard a 5 hour outdoor ride was that had some hard sections.
Most/all other FTP estimation is done based on all out efforts and the power/duration curve of those, and in that way they avoid needing feedback - it is assumed that all values are maximal efforts.
Been working my butt off and then I was recently sick for a few weeks, which hampered my training. My FTP went down 2 watts from 274w to 272w. Honestly that seemed about what I would expect.
I’ve been totally unsure what to do with AI-FTPD and sickness. I’m just starting to get on the bike again after a broken three weeks and then Covid. AI-FTPD has indicated a drop of 2 Watts, I didn’t accept it because to be honest, it currently feels like I’ve dropped more like 40.
Figure I’ll ride easy for another week or two and then see what AI-FTPD has to say before doing some Sweet Spot.
Managed to get AI FTP Detection going yesterday. Got a not inconsequential 4 Watt bump to 324W.
That’s following going 328W when AI-FTPD first came out, then declining 323W and 320W during SSBHV (I assume refinement of the machine learning). Dropped to 318W following Covid and finally bouncing back up.
PL dropped 1.0 down to 4.4 which seems ok if not a little low. I’m really keen to see how Build goes with the combination of Detected FTP and AT. I will still do some careful usage of the alternates to avoid digging a hole working above my MLSS too much. Hopefully the combo can help me balance that line between pushing my limits and keeping a lid on fatigue.
It sneaked up another 5w for me last night, probably because all my TT’s are sub-optimal and I think that is what AIFTP uses (sub optimal efforts). I need to figure out how to get an optimal effort out