This is REALLY fun. Working with Xert XSS, my Goal for the day is 121 XSS, and my XSS deficit is just 134 points. Today's ride, however, will probably be about 250 XSS, given the vertical requirements.
Let's also look at my 20 MMP values per Xert.
Xert shows my 20MMP Possibility to be at 285 watts.
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Okay - so you recall from the earlier post that the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor wanted 83 XSS points and an Xert FOCUS of 21:17. So here’s where I was after One Lap of the Reno Wheelmen XC Course on Peavine. Let’s break down what these Xert Fields on a Garmin mean.
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After roughly three years where I lived two person’s lifetimes, lost a business, lost a home, almost lost a second marriage, got out of debt, and moved from Dallas, TX to Reno, NV, and spent a year here just…riding and living, it was time to start sharing and discussing the topics about which I am so passionate. Now I’m back, and I’m reinvigorated about cycling, coaching, technology, and your success.
Training Smart is Kind of Cliche, But We Have SO MUCH GOOD INFORMATION AVAILABLE, ON BIKE AND ON SCREEN!
I’m going to post to this blog regularly, and I’m going to try to make each post something teachable or interesting.
We’ll discuss fitness, technology, speculation, opinion, and fun – all of it around cycling and improvement. Blog topics may be road-based, and some themes will be mountain bike-based. Some discussions will be about the technology that I have on hand, and how I use it for myself. Some of the discussions will show ways that you can use it for your own benefit.
I’m Determined to Show AND Tell
I’ll also try to include some video clips. One of the reasons I went so bankrupt with my studios was because I really tried to employ as much technology as possible to study my fitness and your fitness, and then find ways to improve.
Now that I live in an area where the cycling is just…. spectacular, I think you’ll enjoy seeing how much the study of things really helps. You’ll also see how some of it really doesn’t help at all. I’m also going to write about my wife’s journey. She’s younger, stronger, and smarter than I am on a lot of this stuff, and she employs the technology as well.
It’s also important to get an idea of how women respond to this technology, and she certainly has her own opinions.
If you follow these posts, you know that I recently installed a power meter on my mountain bike, and began using it to study the demands that mountain biking requires for fitness. I installed it just before a trip to Arkansas, where my wife and I rode the Womble Trail, and I have since ridden several times at a local trail in Dallas, named Boulder Park. I’ve been riding with a Shockwiz Suspension Tuning device, front and rear, which has helped my comfort and confidence tremendously, but this weekend was the first time in a very long period, that I’ve gotten to ride for fitness and exertion, instead of just as a “Trail Tourist”. With the power meter and Xert on my Garmin 1000, I got some exciting insights, which I’ll be sharing.
Trails in Dallas resemble a small intestine; fit as many kilometers of trail in to the available acres or hectares. There’s little public land, and the trails are highly maintained by a responsible group of trail stewards under the leadership of DORBA.ORG. The trails are twisty, turny, curvy, with short sight-lines and lots of accelerations and braking. For this weekend of testing and tuning, I chose the “A” loop, with all of the “Red” options, which is found below on Strava.
Let’s first use Strava, since it breaks down the segments better than I can on Xert at this time. Here’s a block of my recent efforts over a known segment that mimicked my ride.
Specifically – take a look at the efforts that recorded wattage. Here’s a screenshot….
Average Wattage and time splits, along with Heart Rate and speed.
Now, the first thing to look at and consider are the average speeds. Mountain biking in Texas is so twisty and TRUE SINGLETRACK CYCLING, that it’s hard to get a good speed. By the way – if you look at that Strava segment, you’ll see that my fastest time this weekend, was about SIX MINUTES SLOWER than the fastest times ever, and about FOUR MINUTES SLOWER than some of the athletes I’ve coached (using Xert, interestingly enough).
But look at the correlation, or otherwise, between average power (with zeroes), and time. Specifically, look at my fifth-best time, and my 2nd-best time. The average power output was different by just ONE WATT, but the time split was OVER SEVEN MINUTES. Why? I can think of just one thing, and that’s BIKE HANDLING. And I think my bike handling was improved by the tweaking I was performing on the suspension, front and rear.
But I think there’s something else going on that is important, and I think Xert is the system to use so we can understand it, and improve.
Click here to see the mystery solved, plus some training tips for handling short, steep, punchy North Texas-style terrain in Part Two (Premium Content—subscription)
Here's another video highlighting my experiences with the ShockWiz Tuning System for mountain bikes. This is a tougher trail, with more rock and twists and lips, and I'm convinced that I'll be faster, and smoother, because of this investment.
OH yeah—6 watts difference on my average power between the first and second lap, led to a 2.5 minute improvement over 4.8 miles. THAT IS HUGE!
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