More than a year I think it’s day 508 today and I’ve done 275 hours so far in 2026, I have improved in base fitness I think but I am struggling to unlock the higher power efforts I could do last year at the moment.
I do eat while riding though probably not enough, I haven’t bonked this year yet on a ride. I could probably improve my carb intake amount but I do eat during every ride.
maybe this can give you a better clue. Do you also ride your easy rides at the same heart rate as last year?
In order to understand how hard you are riding, can you share a plot of an activity where you are riding around TP for at least 10 min? This is best done at an indoor trainer or up a steady longer hill. The chart should have power and HR. Also, what is your max cycling HR?
I’m not sure about the heart rate to be honest I think it’s broadly similar.
I haven’t done a 10 minute effort like this at all in the last year, this year so far I’ve just followed magic buckets which if I break it down into the colours it displays for wattage ranges consists of mostly blue with a bit of green and short bursts of yellow and orange.
I think my max HR is about 192
Right. But any stable harder effort for a longer duration should work to be able to get an impression of your percentage of HR vs percentage of TP.
Sorry I dunno how I managed to miss read what you said there 
I don’t have an indoor trainer I’ll have to try and think of somewhere I can have an uninterrupted 10 minutes outside somehow
You dont need to do anything new. I was just curious to see where your HR ended up on endurance rides.
Edit: best I can do if share a 5 hour ride I did recently
I tried on Monday to do a 10 minute effort, I had done a number of really easy days so my status was very fresh. I was really struggling after a couple minutes as my legs were burning managed to get to about 5 minutes then a plug popped out of my rear tyre so had to stop but I wouldn’t have made 10 minutes anyway.
View the activity on Xert.
Select Share, Public in upper right and post the url.
Thanks.
I see most of your ride were at 100-150 W or so. Your heart rate at 140 bpm, while the highest was 176 bpm. Not sure what your actual max HR is, but this can be hard enough if 176 bpm is near your max HR. And then you had a few sprints spread through the ride.
Have you tried finding a long hill and going all out? Ideally at least 10 minutes long at max speed, but a shorter might also work.
It looks like all your sprints are too short and too much spread out to trigger a breakthrough.
It could also be that you have the power to ride faster, but the narrow and winding roads might make it hard to safely ride any faster.
Generally if I do a long ride at around zone 2/zone 3 power my heart rate will start off hovering between 120-140 then as the ride goes on it gradually raises to over 150, my max on this breakthrough attempt the other day was 192
I tried to hold around 200 watts for 10 minutes on monday and my legs were not having it at all even though I was “very fresh”, I got a flat after a few minutes and had to stop during the effort but wouldn’t have got to 10 minutes anyway. Its my legs preventing me going harder I need to find out why they are chronically fatigued even after a string of easy days.
The road around here aren’t great to be honest i struggle to hold zone 2 for long periods even because of the potholes and general nature of the area.
