Another Saturday, another bike ride, and another trip to the wonderful world of MyWhoosh.
Today, I picked a workout called “Aerobic Ramps” for my ride, and I’m pretty sure it was set on the UCI Worlds Stage 1 route. I believe this is a crit circuit map, as it was very short, around 1.7 kilometres per lap, with minimal climbing—about 14 metres total per lap. It’s practically pan-flat.
The route itself is actually really nice-looking, and completing it on my gaming PC made it even sweeter. The visuals were as good as they could possibly get—very smooth, crisp, and clean.
The interesting part today was that I was trying out this workout for the first time with my new setup, which is now pretty straightforward. I connect my pedals via ANT+ and use them to track both power and cadence. Then, I connect my TACX Neo 2 as the controllable device in MyWhoosh, also through ANT+.
Since I made a modification in the Assioma app to reduce the power by 9%, it seems like everything is now perfectly aligned. This setup has really streamlined the whole process.
In the Assioma app, I’ve adjusted the power reduction to 9%. When I started this ride, it was initially set at 10%, but as the ride went on, I decided to bring it down slightly to get a closer alignment. For the first time, I noticed that the power reading on my Garmin was actually below what I was seeing on-screen. From previous analysis, I knew the difference should be around 8.5%, but I opted for 9%, and you can see from the graph that the two readings are now very, very similar. I think that’s a great improvement.
The really curious thing for me at this stage is whether everything in my setup is truly accurate. Is this configuration dialled in correctly? To test this, I went into MyWhoosh and lowered my in-ride FTP to 210 Watts. My theory is that my FTP has probably dropped since my crash. Previously, it was set at 215 Watts within MyWhoosh to account for variability in power output, but now I’ve dropped it by another 5 Watts. It seems that FTP adjustments can only be made in 5-Watt increments.
For this workout, I was supposed to be hitting targets of about 180 Watts maximum. Based on past experience, I expected that if I hadn’t adjusted the power, I would likely be pedalling closer to 200 Watts. This tweak should help bring my effort in line with the workout goals.
If this doesn’t seem to make much sense, I get it—it’s still a bit of an unknown for me too. What I think is happening now is that I’m riding at my previous power output, but with adjusted reporting. So, for example, if I was riding at 200 Watts, it would now show up in-game as 180 Watts, and my pedals would also record it as 180 Watts. Essentially, I’m still putting in the same effort, but my numbers are reporting lower.
By lowering my FTP in-game, I’m hoping to account for that difference, allowing my workouts to stay within the right intensity range. This adjustment should help ensure that I’m training effectively, even with the recalibrated setup.
This was meant to be an easier workout, mainly chosen to test out the numbers. I didn’t want to put myself in a situation where I was risking a “Did Not Finish” because the targets were way off. It’ll be interesting to try a slightly more intensive workout next time and see where I stand with this setup, as today’s session didn’t leave me overly taxed, to put it mildly. Still, I feel like I accomplished something at least.
Overall, it was quite an interesting session to wrap up the week, and I think I’m in a pretty good place with my setup. As I mentioned, I’d be keen to try a more intensive workout to compare and contrast the results.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad end to the week. I’m looking forward to my walk tomorrow morning—I almost chose a walk over this ride today. But in the end, I’m glad I got this one done.
