Oh cool, I was wondering if there was a first person view. I’ll give the free trial a shot and see how she goes. I think I really just have cabin fever. Midwest winter has been bruuutal and we’re not likely out of it any time soon.
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That looks cozy! love the air intake.
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Works great and I have manual dampers on them to control air flow from outside, into the room. When it’s sub-freezing, I try to balance the super cold with my effort and not just flood the room with bitter cold air.
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I use both although about 90% TR - 10% Zwift. I like group rides outside but I can get stuck inside for most of 6 months due to winter weather. Zwift does a decent enough job of simulating a group ride to be useful to me during these (literally) dark days.
I do all my serious interval work on TR but I find it a very refreshing break now and then to do a Zwift ride instead of the steady state Wednesday rides or 2hr weekend rides. I also do some harder long group rides and races now and then for a break and because the do a good job of simulating what i would prefer to be doing if was not cold and icy outside.
All that is worth $15/mo per me even if I only do a handful of Zwift rides per month. Even at only 2 rides a month its less per ride than I spend on coffee and pastry on the weekend summer rides every month.
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That’s one way of looking at it. 
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Wow this is cool, now Zwift just needs to expand and structure the training.
Yes…get my monies worth on both platforms… for me it isn’t a case of one or the other, I wouldn’t drop either, they compliment each other in my world!
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I thought about doing that but it’s almost impossible to get an accurate test that way. Test to exhaustion, rest and repeat isn’t enough to help determine the difference between the two.
I did outline how both are different and my goal was to see if they both measure the same way. I know TR did a lot of tweaking to their algorithm before they released it to the public and made
It official. If I remember correctly, TR started at 78% and then dropped it down to 75%. And sometimes just validating basics is good. I see a lot of companies go wrong in their first release and makes you wonder if anyone actually did any testing.
But to your point, to be able to test both accurately, I need to measure a lot of elements before heading into each test to be able to replicate it in a controlled manner. Maybe I will put myself through that… maybe
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I meant more back to back days, not the same day. But yeah, I see your point on validating the test first.
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Yeah there is no way I can do that in the same day. But that’s my point. So many elements can effect your test. Sleep, food, work stress, and the physiological effect the first time I did the test. But also, what is point of doing that? I think with ftp testing, pick a test and stick to it. FTP testing can be sensitive to the protocol and rider and you will always get different results from different type of riders.
I thought the point of the video was “FTP Ramp Test, Zwift vs TrainerRoad”. I assumed that meant comparing how each ramp protocol measured the accuracy of your FTP. So if Zwift gave you a FTP of 300 and TR gave you 260, that would be interesting to know. If both ramps test were close and within the “margin of error” (3-5%), that would also be interesting. Since the TR ramp has you working harder longer, then maybe Zwift had found a better protocol.
I agree, but that’s not what the video title suggested it was about. Also, if a test was found to be flawed (ie: starting at a fixed 100w with predetermined 20w step increases vs percentage of previous FTP), then it would be good to know not to plan your training off of a flawed method of determining your FTP.
That’s interesting and I agree that adding more metrics would improve FTP accuracy in ramp tests. Ramp tests seem to estimate FTP for the vast majority of users, but I wonder if adding a few more metrics would capture the outliers who seem to “not test well.”
These two statements seem in conflict with each other, as one’s w/kg would be using their previous FTP. How else would you get the wattage part?
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An FTP test is finding the max power for a particular protocol, and fitting it to some model. The 20 min test tries to correlate a 20 min effort to a steady state effort. The ramp test tries to correlate a series of intervals above threshold to a sustained effort. I don’t think there have been any studies that would indicate that these protocols should be adjusted by gender or age, generally we all burn sugar and oxygen pretty similarly.
There are more sophisticated models that use all your recent maximal efforts to attempt to model a predicted FTP, but that is falling outside the realm of a ‘test’ at that point.
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unless you are someone like me that does majority or riding/racing on flat roads, where 3.5W/kg climbing wonders are dropped by 2.6W/kg riders. And I’m leaving out how long someone can hold threshold power. IMHO you can’t really tell the ftp story by W/kg or watts alone, you need both and something like time-to-exhaustion.
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I think TP uses an impulse response model. I wouldn’t ignore it straight out! You might not be pushing your training levels up as fast as they could be!
The important part of FTP is the absolute number so you know where to target your training zones. Comparing FTP is a silly hobby on the internet simply because people have nothing better to do. FTP (and W/kg) is a predictor of success, but there are so many factors that it will rarely line up cleanly.
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In XCO racing when I was 2.3 w/kg with a 193 FTP I was beating guys at 2.9 w/kg with a 260 FTP (according to their TR account). So yeah I’d agree, the numbers are great online to those that need that validation, but they don’t always play out come race day. I equate it to matching stats in sports teams, the supposed “better” team doesn’t always win. Too many other variables.
I think the video title is accurate. It’s was more about the differences between the two and I outlined that in the video clearly I think.
You do make some valid points, but it’s not for me to determine if TR or Zwift test is flawed or not. I did outline that it starts as a free ride and 100 watts but no body seem to mention the free ride portion and how that could also effect the final results.
Anyway, I’m curious to see the amount of videos that will come out in the next few weeks of athletes trying to run through both tests and compare the results and see their findings.
100% love both but Z could be $10/mo, the extra 5 tacked on bugs me.
I did the Z ramp today, came out with 276 watts. Last TR ramp was 280 and training has been a bit spotty (2wk cold) since so I test the same on them. Personally I like the 20w jumps and the Z ramp test better but they seriously feel the same. The last few minutes hurt!
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