My initial 6 month subscription to Athletica.ai was nearing the end, and I was keen to rationalise my various virtual cycling/coaching subscriptions. At the time, I had active subscriptions to Zwift, Rouvy and to TrainerRoad. I’ve been using TrainerRoad for the longest period, and only started with Zwift in 2020 while in Covid lockdown.  I also subscribe quarterly to intervals.icu for its superior data analysis capabilities. In the past I tried FulGaz (which was bought by Ironman, and now by Rouvy) for a year or so.

You can probably tell that I enjoy trying out new virtual cycling and training apps, but these aren’t particularly cheap if you have several of them, so I periodically prune some of these back.

After last week's debacle where my bike collapsed under me into a salty mixture of iron oxide and sweat, bringing my time trial to an abrupt end after 10km, I was uncertain how today's event would go. Because I'd been generously gifted an old road bike by a club mate - actually I already had this, but I was awaiting some 11-speed shifters from Ali-Express before mounting the bike on the trainer - I was able to get up and running again the following day, albeit on the 8-speed gearing the bike came with.

On the back of nearly a week of using this bike, I was aware of a slight gearing issue, where some gears occasionally jump slightly. I hoped this wouldn't be an issue. This week I took things pretty easy in the 48h ahead of the time trial. On Monday I just did an Athletica recovery session, and I didn't ride in the morning of the time trial. I planned out a 40 minute warmup routine, which consisted of the 20m ramp up, then a couple of higher power sets of 30s at 113% FTP followed by 2m30s at 95% FTP, separated by 4m at 69% FTP. Then a easy spin before my start time. 

I'd been somewhat concerned for some time about the state of the bike frame mounted on my Tacx Neo trainer - many years of heavy sweating had corroded it really badly. I had joked recently about it collapsing, and had obtained a replacement. But of course as I awaited parts to arrive, I hadn't set it up.

I completed a decent 40 minute warmup pretty well, though I'd noticed that the gears were sounding a bit rough, and occasionally the rear mech seemed to want to change on its own accord. Oh well, I thought, I have a look tomorrow. A few minutes before my scheduled start ay 19:04, I moved to the start pen and waited a few minutes to start.

So this was my third attempt at the VTTA 10 mile time trials on the Tempus Fugit course. Last week I went backwards with lower power, so I was feeling a bit apprehensive about this one - would I continue my backwards trend? On the plus side, I've been completing the Athletica workouts with a bit more gusto than over the past few weeks, and many of my physiological metrics have been going in the right direction. But still...

To recap, I have been finding it difficult to pace myself properly on these events, and this is something I need to work on. After a carefully planned warm up, I did start off quite well, controlling my pace and holding things steady for about 6 minutes before everything started falling apart. I finished with an average power of 236W - somewhat less than I'd be happy with, but about 8W higher than event 2 and 4W higher than event 1. My finishing time was 24:09, and in the AAT table, I came in 34th out of 57 riders.

You might have thought that after the debacle of last week's VTTA Zwift TT, I might have been able to do a bit better. Well, if you did, you were wrong.

Once again I rode like a bag of spanners, and in fact did a marginally worse ride than the week before.

The first of the VTTA Zwift time trial series was preceded by a 'test event' that I missed. So I came at it a bit cold, not having done a Zwift TT in nearly a year. The TT was on the nearly pan-flat Tempus Fugit course. This is really quite unrealistic as even on the flattest real life courses there are minor undulations and variations in wind resistance that make the ride a bit more variable than in a virtual world like Zwift.

Anyway, I made the most stupid error (especially given the decades of TT experience I have), and shot off at the start at a completely unsustainably power. Subsequently I was all over the place power-wise and faded really badly towards the end. I could see my average power dropping...I finished in 24:20 (I think), with an average power of 232W. Apparently this was good enough for 7th place on Age Adjusted Time (so I am told). Maybe the re weren't many VTTA members taking part!

I started using Zwift after recovering from my first (and so far only) bout of Covid at the outset of the first UK lockdown in spring 2020. At that time I was working from home and I settled into a routine of riding Zwift before and after each working day, with a significant impact on my fitness. I remained a home-worker until I retired in 2023, but I kept using Zwift along with some other virtual platforms after that.

For me, Zwift has generally been a bit of a solitary activity. I did try a couple of meet-ups with work colleagues, and took part in the VTTA Zwift time trial series last January, but really I'm just there on my own in the garage.

The New Years Day '10' is a regular event in the North Bucks Road Club calendar of events, and one that I am generally keen to turn out for. Unfortunately over the last few years, my attendance has been spotty to say the least. I ddn't ride in 2023 owing to a family emergency, and I didn't ride in 2024 owing to a hideous respiratory cold (not Covid, at least!).

One of the frequent problems with winter events it the likelihood of bad weather. This year was particularly bad, and while we were optimistic owing to the larger than usual number of entries (11, including a many from a local Triathlon club), as I was monitoring the forecast over the last week, as New Year's Day drew closer I was seeing rain, then sleet, then snow, then finally strong gusts of wind combined with heavy rain.

As usual I've gone into Christmas week with an eye on the club's New Years Day '10'. Also as usual, the travelling and generally trying to be sociable, has disrupted things along with not sleeping too well. The NYD '10' was one of the events that I set in Athletica.ai training plan as a target event, and it'll be the first real test of my fitness. I am still funneling workouts into TrainerRoad, and my AI estimated FTP has jumped a whapping 2W to 251W since I started with Athletica.ai. That might reflect better progress than it seems since having an increasing FTP in one's mid-60s could be rather good.

In other news, I added a second A race to my schedule, the Duo Normand, reinstated to the calendar for the first time since Covid did away with the 2020 edition. At least this event is on a Sunday and can be properly entered in the Athletica.ai calemdar, unlike events not on a weekend (almost all of the North Bucks Club events are on Wednesdays). This is actually pretty poor feature of Athletica.ai, but I suppose only a few mid-week events are likely to be key events in my season.

Word has reached me via the timetrialling forum that my favourite time trial, the Duo Normand 2-up team time trial, is slated to return in 2025 and will be run on September 21st.

The last time I rode the Duo Normand was in 2019 - in 2020 it was abandoned owing to the Covid pandemic, and it never returned to the calendar, though I recall a half-baked effort with an event over two days with a short run and a very short 2-up time trial. My long-term 2-up partner and I are very excited by the possibility of another outing at the Duo. Our first race was in 2003, and with the exception of one event, roade it each year until 2019. We even won the Corpo category in 2010 at the combined age of 100! 

I’ve now been using Athletica for a few months. While the indications I see on form via intervals.icu are nothing but positive, I reckon the proof will be in performance on the ground in the New Year’s Day ’10’ - about 6 weeks away. Here's a banner from Athletica, proclaiming "Train Smarter, not Harder". Does the app live up to that billing? Read on...

The whole training plan seems rooted in science - every so often I see a link to a publication or at the least an athletica blog article. This makes the app seem much less of a black box than, for example, TrainerRoad. There is a regularity about the training plan: each week has a recovery session; a 30:30 short HIIT session; a Threshold session of 4m intervals set at several watts above threshold; two tempo/sweetspot sessions, one of which is at higher gear/lower cadence as a strength training session. Interspersed are endurance sessions, often long enough that I’d prefer to do them outdoors. I’ve also noted that while I sometimes struggle to complete sessions (particularly the Threshold sessions), I am more able to do so than I was with TrainerRoad. Every few weeks, there are threshold and power profile tests scheduled. I’m unsure how these play out in terms of fine-tuning the various parameters, but as far as I understand it, the system looks at the power profile graph as a whole (or maybe specific points along the chart).

Well, I’m about 6 weeks in to my Athletica.ai subscription. So far it’s been pretty impressive, and here are some observations.

I’m seeing a kind of regularity between each week’s workouts. Generally speaking, there’s a sweetspot workout, a strength/endurance trainer workout, a short interval HIIT workout and a threshold workout. These are supplemented by one or two longer endurance workouts, which I generally try to do outdoors.

I don't as a rule like hill climbs. I much prefer longer climbs that I can settle into. But I felt duty bound to turn out and be the sole NBRC member to take part in what is traditionally the club championship. I expect you can see where this is going...

This year's course was at Three Locks, and is actually a big ring kind of climb. Unfortunately the weather turned to wet as well as quite cool just before I rode over to the course! We had seven riders signed up, and six turned out.

This event was to be my penultimate time trial of 2024, but it turned out to be the last one as the invitation event on 22nd September was cancelled. It was billed as 'preference for slower than 22 minutes', and as my LTS was 21:57, it was a narrow squeak to get in (many thanks to the organiser on that front). I think that after all 22:00 and slower entries were accepted, the remaining places were filled from fastest to slowest, which would normally have left me in a gap between the two sets of entries. Anyway, I got a ride so that was OK.

As usual, I rode out to the event, about 23 miles. This always makes for a good warmup, and with the added excitement that a mechanical such as a puncture would likely cause me to miss my start! No misadventures, and I had enough time to collect my thoughts before riding up to the start line.

Well, this was the last of our club's evening '10's for 2024, and really I'm near the end of my season. I have done very few open events, largely because of various domestic issues, and I have two events to come: an open '10' on 14th September and an invitation time trial on a closed circuit on 22nd September. I'm now switching my focus on changing my training schedule - but more on that in a separate post (it takes time to evaluate a new training platform, in this case athletica.ai).

Anyway, this was a pretty warm and humid evening for the nine riders who turned out for this event. As far as I could tell, my power was at my usual level, but didn't seem to translate into the expected speed (the time triallist's lament). After the previous week's difficulty in staying in the aero position, which was due to a combination of my sports glasses and the folded retention strap of my helmet, I felt pretty good while racing. Maybe it's just the end of the season?

This was the penultimate event in our 2024 evening time trial series, and with some fast riders entered, some good times beckoned. 

For my part I hoped to improve on my previous ride where I recorded 23:57. The weather was pretty similar to that event, though a bit cooler and the wind was a little more gusty. nevertheless, having seen some improvement on my training metrics I had some optimism. Unfortunately, my ride was imacted by some discomfort on the bike. This was due to a last minute change back to a visor-less Kask Bambino helmet, used with my prescription sports glasses. I wasn't riding my venerable Giro Advantage aero helmet, as (due to its age) the various straps that hold it to my bonce were pretty much all perished. Probably it's time to ditch that aero hat!

Originally set for the Stony Stratford course, we used the back up course of Astwood for this evening's event as we've seen very low entry numbers for the Stony Stratford course. As usual I prepared the timing and signing on sheets for the event, and rode up to Astwood on the P5 TT bike. 

We had 11 riders for the event, including a Sam, a new rider to our events. It was a little cooler than of late, with a blustery 17mph wind that promised to make the opening leg down to Chicheley rather tougher than usual. As it turned out, I think I rode a pretty good time trial this evening, recording a normalised power of 255W. Looks as though my form is building just as the season comes to an end! As expected it was a little tough out to the first turn but that was more than made up for by some wind assistance on the rest of the course. I finished with 23:57, which I was quite pleased with. It was enough for 2nd place - a distant second place behind Sam who finished with 21:01 despite a few hold-ups on the way round. I was first on vet standard.

After the debacle of a fortnight earlier, when our two lap event at Astwood had to be run as a single lap event with changed start and finish points owing to three-way traffic lights on the course, I decided it would be wise to check out the course first thing in the morning. Lo and behold, the lights were still in place (though one of the riders said they had been removed by the end of the previous week, so maybe they's been placed back).

Thirteen riders entered this club event on the F15/10 Brogborough course. I'd been feeling pretty optimistic after my 21:56 in the VTTA '10' the other weekend! For the record, I've been following a TrainerRoad high volume 40k masters training programme - at least as best I can given various things impacting on my training. I don't do specific FTP tests as I prefer to use the TrainerRoad AI FTP estimation. I also track my training using intervals.icu which offers its own FTP estimate, usually a few watts lower than the TrainerRoad AI FTP estimate. I guess the true value lies somewhere between them.

On the evening of the event, we had a 13mph tailwind for the outbound leg, and a corresponding headwind on the way back to the finish. I'd chosen to ride the P5, and felt pretty good in my usual high gear with the tailwind. I'd noted good speeds whenever I looked at the Garmin - usually around 30mph. Of course things were a little harder on the way back, and while the power and heart rate went up, my speed and gearing went down!

I’ve increasingly felt the need to carry a mobile phone while out on the bike, and particularly when out on the time trial bike. This is for two reasons - firstly the potential need in the event of a mechanical I cannot sort out and secondly because there are functions I use on my Garmin Edge 840 computer that require a mobile phone.

Problem is that mobile phones have got bigger and bigger and my current phone, a Samsung model, is really a bit unwieldy for carrying, even in a jersey pocket. And when wearing a skin suit, the only real solution I’ve found is to carry it in a sealed case and hang it round my neck on a lanyard. That’s pretty uncomfortable!