My FTP Test Results

I did my FTP test on Saturday, November 22 and here are are the results:

A Good Start

I felt pretty good going into the test, which I did at about 10AM after getting a good night’s sleep and having a couple cups of coffee. I got on the trainer and began the 30 minute warm up (20 minutes at a easy/moderate pace with three 1 minute “spinups”.  Immediately after that I went into the 5 minute interval and I nailed it pretty good.  As you will see from the screenshot of the interval I averaged 330 watts which was my best 5 minute number in a “test”.  I have done a little higher in a couple of outdoor rides (climbing) but I felt pretty good about this.

The Real Test

After the 5 minutes I spun easily for 10 minutes before starting the 20 minute interval.  I did things a little different this time compared to the previous tests.  Instead of looking at the PowerTap all the time during the interval, I kept it covered (I peeked a couple of times)  until the final 3 minutes of the interval.. Several others have reported that they did better when they just rode and didn’t worry about the numbers.  Well, it dodn’t work quite that way for me.  I ended up posting a number that was a few watts lower than my last test back in March.  I averaged 280 watts for the effort compared to 286 in March.  I’m not too worried about that though because I think 6 watts is well within the margin of error.  I don’t think I will hurt myself by keeping 272 watts as my FTP (95% of 286).

The Final Analysis

While I was a little disappointed with the final number of 272 watts I guess I can’t complain too much.  it was pretty close to my March number and while I know that I’ve become a stronger rider this year it just wasn’t reflected in the test.  I am going to continue to work my plan as far as doing a fair amount of work in the “sweet spot” because I know it will help me.  I think I wasn’t completely 100% motivated for this test as I felt I could have done a little better at the end.  Part of that was probably due to the fact that I haven’t done one of these in 8 months so I lost a little bit of the feel that is required to perform my best.  I think I will do better on my next test which I am planning for January.