@Arne Peters I have unfortunately a life long "relation/problem" with my weight. Currently it is kind of semi under control (89kg @ 185 cm) but I think when I look at the files it pretty much came all back. I can hold it with efforts. When I don't contol it somehow, it goes just up, even at 300+ km / 12+ h per week of cycling. It is actually easier to control, if I do less sports it seems. But cycling is too much fun ...

@Arne Peters I am open for any good ideas, thank you Arne! Obese not currently but certainly had periods in my time with 100+ kg.

Good to hear you're feeling good! All the best 🤞

I did not do any 60' all out yet. I kind of try to approach stuff from below also I am almost 53 now and try not to abuse my body. I have made my own plan and I am in the 4th mesocycle of each 4 weeks now. Until now I made more or less steady progress in part surely because I never touched the max possible, yet. Today I did 297 W for 30' then 5' break at 165W and then again 20' at 298 W. I always felt on top of it and never had to switch to time management. I am quite happy with it. Especially since I did no performance oriented traning since more then 20 years, but I am like 300+h on the bike every year consistently. My goal is a 60' 300+W attempt on a local mountain in March. I want to do it without emptying the tank. Currently my CP is around 295W so I guess its possible. On a sidenote I want to mention that CP, FTP and 60 min max are each different things, worth a consideration. Thank you Arne for setting up this nice plattform and to all you amazing athletes taking part here!! (this is kind of my introductory post here, I am reading a lot in the group but find very rarely time to contribute, also I am not sure if I can bring much of value to you).

@Arne Peters Thanks a lot :-)!! Since you ask (sorry for getting nerdy in advance) very pragmatic and goal oriented is what you do here: namely to push and measure the 60' max power (the power average over 60' you are able to do). This is what you need and want to know to be successful in races. Training simply that is the most direct way I think. Something completely different and maybe a bit abstract is the critical power (CP) which means power output at the Lactate Threshold-2 where lactate formation and degradation/consumption are still just about in dynamic equlibrium such that you do not explode accumulate lactate and not empty the W' tank. Direct measurement of CP as far as I know is difficult and requires lab and qualified persons. But CP has similarly like 60' max a clear definition, this is unlike FTP. Coggan defined FTP originally as "the highest power a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state without fatiguing for approximately one hour." When you read carefully you see that is something almost like 60' max power but is also contains the addition "quasi-steady state without fatiguing". His original idea was to define some measure that everyone with a Watts meter can easily measure "in the field" but also which is at the same time an approximation to what training scientists already knew, namely the CP. The addition " ... without fatiguing" puts the FTP definition closer to CP definition than to 60' max. But the problem you get then is that it becomes again more difficult to measure. Because how you can see that the cyclist is not completely empty and half dead after the 60' effort and what does it even mean? Without mentioning now the several approximations to FTP (20' max, 40' max, step tests ...) it is clear that what most people understand by FTP is actually often different things. We also need not to fight about how large the devations in between these are. In average over many athletes the differences might be small, while for some individuals they can be much larger. Important for concrete training, I think is that you always use the same measure (and one that does not scare you might also be helpful). I saw on Strava, that Jesse Coyle (Nero coaching) was recently doing a FTP ride at 100% FTP for 90 min! So he obviously knows his zones and is aware that 60' max is not the same as FTP. Now what I do: I was trying to find my CP with several self invented tests, basically long rides 40' to 60' in the range of the suspected FTP/CP: If you are at CP you have a comparably controlled HR drift with HR well below HRmax at the end of the session and maybe only 2-4% higher then after 15 min. One of the rides I did was for example 40'@300W (some weeks ago) and at that time my HR was not plateauing after 15' but drifted continuosly to HR max for the last 3 minutes or so. Apart from that it was a really tough ride it shows my CP was at the time below 300W. I found (a bit) later that I end in a stable HR zone at 295 Watts for 50'. Now that was gold to know for me since maintaing these 295 Watts was in constrast to the 300 W much easier and from that spot I can plan to do very target oriented over/unders for example. I found that training at this power for elongated times / multiple intervalls set is a very nice training stimulus followed by nice adaptation. So essentially that last 2-3 Watts improvement happend on that basis in the recent 3-4 weeks or so. Which is for me a great thing. Most of all going at the CP can be really fun unlike the "near death experience" (lol) when overshooting this limit. Its just my thoughts and observations, I am no training scientist and just a random hobby biker dude, so please take this with caution.

@Arne Peters Cool thing would be if you could get it into the Tour tests somehow, because they are kind of a reference so you can compare it then to a large set of bikes.

@Arne Peters I see the point. In this case it would be good to test also some reference bike with as close as possible to tour-test configuration for comparability. Like some SL8 or something.

Wow that looks freakin awesome!!

@Arne Peters it's the new Ritchey system, right?