Word?
Dear readers, let us take a break from the almighty Tour for a few minutes. I am the least qualified Velominatus to introduce an open letter concerning Strava as I’m too shame-based to post my rides to Strava. I have a Garmin on the bike for no particular reason, ok, maybe to occasionally see how fast I’m descending or to know the grade of the climb I’m presently suffering on. At some point it will ask me what should it do with all these weak-ass rides taking up Garmin memory. Oye.
@Artie has authored this open letter (our first?) and like the Rules themselves, @Artie is just trying to improve our cycling experience in this digital world. Thanks @Artie
VLVV, Gianni
Dear Keepers of the Cog and Curators of the Rules,
The Tour de France this year has had a few memorable moments. Cavendish moving behind only Merkx in Stage victories, Froome’s new descending style, and of course the bike-less sprint up Ventoux come to mind. But there has also been a subtler addition to my viewing this year. More and more cyclists in the peloton have been sharing their ride data on Strava. For example, scrolling down my Strava feed after a late afternoon ride, I now notice Greg Henderson’s data, and see that yesterday he was in fact descending like a madman, just as Rule #85 and Rule #93 implore him to do. This supplement to my Tour Digest bridges to a theme my friends and I have often discussed and I thought it time to share our thoughts.
Our over-connected world has reached a point, where the dubitability of any cycling accomplishment has become (almost) strictly correlated with that said accomplishment appearing on Strava. Did you climb Sa Calobra during an early spring training camp? Did you reach the summit of Galibier before your best friend? Did your race up Alpe d’Huez with such a murderous intent that locals began to talk about the ghost of Pantani that appeared one late August afternoon? Perhaps… but without a Strava log to prove it, who knows! But, it is not the virtues or vices of using Strava that I wish to comment on; many people use it and some don’t. Instead it is a much more mundane aspect of the app that has been the subject to our diliberations, i.e. the naming of our tours.
The default name Strava gives each activity are more than boring; “Morning Ride,” “Afternoon Ride,” or “Evening Ride.” “Morning Ride” sounds like a Monday morning commute to work. “Afternoon ride” is what I do with my girlfriend, when she wants to go on a picnic in the park across town. “Evening ride” is an excursion with my Holland Bike to the bar down the street and to the left. The blandness of these names do absolutely no justice to a properly ridden tour. If you keep your bike perfectly matched, kit in shape, and tan lines razor sharp, is putting at least a little creativity into your digital cycling life too much to ask?
I say that a proper tour deserves a proper name, and a proper name should – like all things – be casually deliberate. A quick comment about the ride would be a basic but satisfactory name, e.g. “Hard push up to Chamonix”. If you are racing, the name of the event would be fine; “Paris-Roubaix” is far superior to the default. A more sophisticated name would be that of the song you started to whistle while pushing through the most difficult bits of a climb. Such a title has a lasting effect. Each time those you rode with heard the song, they would be reminded of the pressure their legs felt as you climbed, and doubt would be further seeded into the moral.
I wish to avoid a long digression into the art of naming, although the horizon is large and well worth exploring. But, I do wish to assert that a cyclist who has gone digital should maintain his digital cycling life as he does his real life. Calling an afternoon conquering cobbles on your way back to Liege “Afternoon Ride” is a digital dirty chain; it is unacceptable, but luckily easy to fix.
Yours Kindly,
Arturo
Hamburg, Germany
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View Comments
@RobSandy
If you understand the concepts, which you will have from the Joe Friel book, then you can work out some basic stuff like Efficiency and Intensity. But it helps to track them over time so you have to record them somewhere and of course TP or GC will do that for you and show it graphically.
Their versions of the Form and Fitness graph are much more useful with Chronic and Acute Training Load and Training Stress Balance. And I also find it useful to track my weekly TSS as a way to balance my training and make sure I'm not just grinding out week after week.
But yeah all that becomes a lot easier to measure and track with a power meter. It's a real change in approach and I think once you start with it then you need it on all your rides. Even if you don't look at it during a race you'll be wanting to analyse the data afterwards.
If you have multiple bikes your best option is something like the Powertap P1 pedals. It's literally as simple as changing the pedals, unlike the Garmins which require careful torquing and calibration. Alternatively use a hub-based system but then you're stuck with one wheel.
@wiscot
Emoticon advice duly noted, thanks.
Please people, it's "pedal" not "peddle". We're moving our bicycle not selling it.
@ChrisO
You mentioned Intensity before - how is that defined in a Training context?
One thing I didn't do last year is do anything to measure my progress. I wish I had as it'd be pretty satisfying (think I added about 25 watts and lost about 2 kilos). if I'd done that and tracked it over time I'd also have a better idea what sorts of training had the best results.
So I'm planning to do that this year. It's the good thing about a Training Plan - once you've set your goals and worked out the periods you don't really need to thin about it to much - you know that you're doing the right things at the right times, and being a time-starved cyclist I really need to make the most out of every minute on the bike.
Intensity is the ratio of Normalised Power to Threshold Power, and Efficiency is Normalised Power to Avg HR.
They're most useful in comparing similar rides although they can also be useful in aggregate. So for example two weeks might have a TSS of 400 but one has an Intensity Factor of .625 and the other .800. The second one was actually a harder week in the sense that there was a much higher percentage of time working harder.
It's another way of tracking periodisation really.
At an individual ride level obviously something like a 10m TT would be above 1 and it can be useful to compare those.
The Efficiency is really good if you have say a base aerobic ride that you do regularly. So for example I frequently do a ride of 90 minutes in a very narrow HR target of 130 bpm +/-2. It's a good measure of fitness over time to see the Efficiency of that ride - early season I'll have an average of high 230s/low 240s but at full fitness it would be high 240s/low 250s so I can see my EF creeping up.
But yes following a plan takes a lot of that away. I've been doing my own plans for the last year so I've had to pay more attention to it, although I think next year I might look to get back into some set plans or use a coach and make a real effort to train specifically for TTs.
@ChrisO
I've recently downloaded Golden Cheetah and whilst it looks like a very comprehensive bit of kit I'm completely baffled; the help section isn't entirely helpful.
I've also been reading Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Allen and Coggan. It's taken a bit of getting into but it is helping to make sense of training with a power meter.
I'll stick to reading Playboy on the train home, though. The technical nature of Training and Racing with a Power Meter is also good for ensuring that you get all the sleep you need. Not exactly helpful when my station isn't the last stop on the line.
@Marshall Ellis
Someone taking cycling too seriously? Pot, meet kettle.
@wiscot
Sagan is the new Cippolini.