I'm keeping the Zipp 404s for events / races and have a nice set of Mavis Kysrium Elite S alloy rims on for normal training rides.
I'd read how the Tarmac was fast / light / comfortable / responsive / great power transfer / etc. and wondered how much was marketing hype (I used to do that for a living after all). I can safely say it ticks all the boxes above and then some more! I've now been out on it the last couple of weekends and it's absolutely brilliant. Really quick, really comfy, the Di2 gears are so good you just keep changing gears all the time and this thing can really fly up and down the hills. The only limit to this bike is the rider - so I'll keep on working at the training.
Gary got me to do another Functional Power Test (FTP) on Thursday last week to test my progress. The FTP is defined as the maximum power a cyclist can sustain for an hour and is a really good indicator of performance. I'd managed to increase my FTP from approx. 220W to 253W in January after completing the Sufferfest's 10-week Intermediate road plan (designed by Dig Deep coaching).
The first 36 mins or so are a warm up for the main event - 20 minutes cycling pretty much as hard as you can go. I kept a reasonable pace for about 15 mins of the 20 then started losing power... I really needed to grit my teeth for the final 5 mins but managed to up the power to around 340-350W for the last section. I was delighted to finish the session but even more chuffed after I'd managed to raise my FTP to 273W.
Given I've been training at low power / low heart rate and in all 3 disciplines since January, this result was somewhat unexpected... it just goes to show - do as your coach tells you!!! Cheers Gary! :-)
Looking at the timer on the right hand side of the blog, there's just 90 days until The Outlaw. Time is flying by at present - I'm obviously enjoying this training far too much!!!
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