by Robh » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:37 am
[quote="-Adam-"]But when all is said and done, you race, you race on real roads, with real wind, and real gradients etc. etc.
So utlimately, surely on the road training is the best... No?
I would argue, that just because a rider can do 400w for 30mins on a turbo. That doesn't mean that he can necessarily average 400w on the road. Didn't you find life tough last year Toks when you got back on to the road after a winter on the turbo?
On the road the reason you might not average a true 400W if still motivated because of independant factors like traffic, downhill sections etc.. Cyclingpeak's software uses Normalized power to account for this. For some people it's the opposite they can't average what they can on the road on the turbo. I't's been discussed it could be due to heat dissipation because of inadequate cooling, lack of inertia on the turbo, motivation etc..
Now if for say you ride a turbo @ an isopower (constant load) of 400W this is great for time trialling as your looking to learn how to pace your effort.
For road racing you know that one does not ride @ isopower, the effort is very stochastic in nature i.e power goes up and down because of attacks, rest periods, wind, downhill sections etc...
Now I don't know what Toks did last year on the turbo but maybe he didn't replicate riding in a road race on a turbo then he may found himself being a bit flat footed if his power for his sessions were fairly constant...Or maybe it had nothing to do with his training at all it could have been down to motivation, stress from life, nutrition, fatigue etc...Who knows but i do know are bodies are not like car motor.
You can replicate riding in a road race on the turbo by varying your power to get use to sudden surges etc.. One might do for example micorintervals consisting of 15sec on @ 150% of FTP/15secs 0ff @ 50% of FTP for 10mins rest then repeat again for 10mins.
As Doctor Andrew Coggan of Cyclingpeaks has said many times over "specificity, specificity".
Rob