BT when you are a more climber/endurance athlete

Hi, I class myself as a more endurance based rider, I use Rouvy for the indoor season, which most of u will know is climbing based to complete the challenges, I. can finish the climbs riding around my TP, How can I see BT results ?

Hi @peng31

Great question. I’ve found climber Over/Under’s or Hour Of Power style efforts work really great for those efforts. Each short 15-30s burst slowly pulls down MPA a little, while the extended ‘recoveries’ between the shorter bursts don’t allow your MPA to fully recover before the next burst. You’ll notice that MPA will be very slow to respond during the first several minutes but the longer you continue the effort, the more responsive MPA will become.

Something like this is what I mean:

You can drain MPA a little faster by A) Increasing the intensity/duration of the harder efforts, B) decreasing the duration or increasing the intensity of the ‘recoveries’, or C) Both the above.

Hi Scott, thanks for the response,

Is there a elevation coefficient for difficulty in the Xert system, ?

I do a lot of long climbs on Rouvy 15km -30km at say 9% average incline, at my level I find it tough but achievable, albeit I may have no gears left lol, I finish some of the climb and have nothing left, but I am not lowering the MPA,

Regards

Mark M

Check out this article for details on achieving BTs in Xert –
Breaking Through the Xert Way! – Xert (baronbiosys.com)

Search the workout library for “breakthrough” and try one of the BT workouts. That will give you an idea what types of efforts are required.
Another way it is to watch MPA on the rainbow gauge during an activity. When you draw it down close to your max output go even harder for as long as you can. :grimacing: Try spinning up and standing for the final effort.

I’m not sure I fully understand this, but I think I might know what you’re getting at…

Xert’s difficulty score is a EWMA (exponentially weighted moving average) of your XSSR with a 30 min time constant. It’s not affected by any factors besides MPA & Power (so elevation, temperature, etc. don’t play any role at the moment).

If you’re riding right at or just below Threshold Power, you’ll find that MPA won’t really decrease. It requires constant power output that’s consistently above TP.

As a side note, there are also possibly a couple other factors not currently accounted for in Xert:

  1. It’s possible that an athlete’s signature may be different for extended climbs versus the flats, which may be related to #2. This is something that I think we might be able to analyze and track in the future… especially important when it comes to the pro scene… which athletes actually get stronger on climbs.

  2. It’s possible that MPA is not only affected by the Power, but also by the gearing/cadence for a certain power output. Think of it this way: try riding at your 5 min power at a comfortable cadence (90-100 rpm) versus riding at 5 min power at a cadence of 40 rpm - I’d bet you’ll “fatigue” much quicker at the second option, despite being at the same absolute power output. In your situation, if the climb is sufficiently steep and the gearing is sub-optimal (i.e. cadence is too low for the power output), its possible that you fatigue faster than you would with a more optimal cadence - this type of fatigue isn’t currently accounted for (and won’t be seen) in Xert, but it’s once again something that we could look into in the future.

Thanks Scott

I think I am a lot stronger cardio wise from doing extended climbs, as u stated in your #1 comment
but its difficult to hold TP for an hour + on a climb, at some point u require a breather, on the lesser incline, before the climbs kick up again

I will certainly be interesting for XERT to analyze different signatures for different cycling disciplines,
as not all of us do sprints pulling mega watts

thanks for the response, I will look at your suggestions

I have got BT on climbs in the past, but it takes to much out of the legs, to continue the climbs,

Short punchy climbs can bring MPA down, as u know its not 15km to go