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CYCLEWAYS CUP, FROM A POWER PERSPECTIVE
By Anthony Moran
Mar 9, 2006
Background
The cycling season has started in the last two weeks. The traditional opener the Cycleways Cup took place last weekend around the roads of Navan. In this article we will look at the power oputput of a veteran cyclist in the combined race (Senior 3, Veteran, Ladies and Juniors). The rider is 40+ and weighs 70 kg. The course was a difficult one with hard undulating roads for the first half of the race followed by a flat tailwind section adding to the difficult route was the weather which was cold, wet (hailstones!!) and windy. Pictures of the event can be viewed at www.IrishCycling.com. The riders' comments after the race tells his story of the troubles he endured and how he used part of the race as a training effort. "Dropped after crash and cleat problem, chased, practicaly caught the bunch (30m) and dropped again because of cleat. First decided to do just one lap and do a training session (see TT effort)Group of dropped C, V and W, caught me after about 1/2 hour - rode second lap with them. " The cleat problem happened when he had to stop for a crash and he inadvertently put his foot in the ditch which clogged the cleat up with mud. This stops the foot from going into the pedal smoothly. This unfortunate incident can be advantageous to a coach as he can look at the data immediately following the crash. The graphs have lines of various colours, Yellow is power, red is HR, green is cadence, blue is speed and grey is torque.
How it unfolded
The start of the race was fast as you would expect, 120 riders dont hang around on wide open roads however, the field size did cause some problems for riders at the back. These were forced to cross the white line which resulted in the race being stopped.
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| Note the missing data..this is where the race was stopped |
The software we are using to analyse the race is Cyclingpeaks. The downloaded file shows the power produced for different time intervals. These periods can be matched against the levels setout in training. The maximum power for 5s is not very high but this is to be expected as he didnt have a sprint anywhere on the course. However, it may be useful to include some short sharp sprints to improve this aspect of his riding. Also, the max torque value isnt very high but the style of this rider is to spin rather than push big gears, again a little more strength work could be of benefit
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| All the details of the race |
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| Data for the whole race |
Interestingly the effort the rider produced when dropped equates well to his known power threshold. We knew it was around 280 watts and the (training!) effort merely confirmed this. At 70 kg this is a good power to weight ratio for a non elite rider.
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| Graph of the training effort in this race |
After the crash
As I stated earlier the data following the crash could be interesting to scrutinize. Here is the data and graph of 5 minutes immediately following the crash. He was operating at ~40w above threshold which he couldnt sustain and had to ease down. The crash started on a flat section before the start of the hill and if you cant close quickly it usually spells the end of your race. Again this highlights an area for improvement. This zone VO2 max could be improved. However, a lot of cyclists wont do an extensive amount of training in this zone pre season. This will increase naturally thru racing but I would prefer if it was improved by design rather than chance!
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| The graph for 5 minutes after the crash |
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| The datafor 5 minutes after the crash |
Finally...
So we have all this data, what use is it to us if we dont use it to try and improve the rider for the next races. As I said earlier it could be advantageous for the rider to do some sprint work as well as high torque work (high strength). The former could be done using medium gears to get up to a good high speed and the latter could be some high gear efforts from a slow speed (<10kph). Obviously as we participate in an endurance sport he shold be looking to augment his functional threshold power.
If you have any questions about my interpretations be they good or bad why not post them on the forum and I will do my best to answer them.
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- Updated: Oct 3rd, 2007 - 16:54:37
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