After today’s session, I definitely feel like I’m still in the exploration phase with this new setup, especially regarding the pedals and the turbo. I initially thought I had things nearly dialed in, especially now that I’ve set the Asioma Duo pedals to around -8.5% on the power readout.
It’s true that this adjustment has brought the power readings from both the pedals and the Tacx Neo into alignment, but today’s workout felt off. It was like I wasn’t working hard enough, which makes me question if this setup truly reflects the intensity I’m aiming for.
This workout is fairly straightforward. After a gradual warm-up, there are four repeats of five minutes at 85% of FTP, with a target cadence of 70 rpm. I wasn’t expecting a cadence target going into this session, so that took me by surprise. Even so, I managed to hit the cadence targets with a bit of effort.
Each of the first three intervals finishes with 30 seconds at 100% FTP. The final interval, however, calls for an all-out sprint. It’s set to 140% FTP, but I gave it everything I had—a full gas effort.
What really caught me off guard with this workout was how I was supposed to feel during the five-minute efforts. At 85% of FTP, I’d typically expect a fairly comfortable ride if I were pedalling at 95 rpm. With a lower cadence, it’s more challenging, but I still wouldn’t anticipate feeling overly taxed at that level.
However, the instructions for the fourth block said that by this point, my legs should be burning—and they definitely weren’t. I’ve been using 215 watts as my FTP for these workouts, so I decided to immediately bump my FTP in-game up to 235. Even then, if I’m being completely honest, I still didn’t notice much of a difference in that final interval.
The obvious fix here is to do an FTP test, though it’s not something I’m particularly looking forward to. Still, it feels like the next best step, so I’ll probably aim to get it done mid-week, maybe sooner just to get it over with.
It’ll be interesting to see where my FTP lands with this current setup. I expect it to come out a bit lower than what I might have measured using only the Asioma pedals, but that’s fine. I’m curious to see if adding around 8.5% to the final figure will bring it close to what I would have gotten with my old setup.
Given my injury and current condition, I expect to have lost some power, but I think this will be a good reset. I was probably due for an FTP test before the crash anyway, so I can’t really put it off much longer, as much as I’d like to!
Ultimately, I think today’s workout falls into the category of “time on the bike”—good for logging some kilometres in the virtual books, but questionable in terms of actual training benefits. Whether it helped me make meaningful progress towards regaining my previous fitness levels is debatable.
Still, I’m glad I did it. But, yeah, I don’t think there was a significant training benefit from today’s session.
