Taking the above example from a Golden Cheetah analysis, I think it is a set of 5 minute intervals executed at something like FTP. Of course you might not like your coach to have stats that show that you are an occasional slacker 😉 I suppose, too, that if your training plan specified some form of interval repeat to ‘exhaustion’ then W’bal is an OK way to see if you reallyhave done it to exhaustion. It’s less good to know in a triathlon race where you almost always want to maintain a constant optimum power output below FTP (draft-legal changes this to a degree) but W’ is of obvious use for ‘proper’ cycle races eg for hills or sprints where race tactics dictate going above your FTP from time-to-time. When you’re road bike racing, a W’bal metric is a good thing to know (well it would be if you had it on your cycling computer). W’bal is the balance for you of “how much W’ you have left”.Īs I said, in layman’s terms, it’s how much ‘oomph’ is left right now. Similarly when you slack off slightly you replenish your W’ stores and you will likely replenish them at your own rate (your ‘tau’). You obviously CAN crank out higher watts than your FTP at any given time over a 60 minute CP60/FTP test but when you do that you are eating into your finite stores of W’ and there is always a payback. W’bal also known as the Anaerobic Work Capacity – ie how much anaerobic work your body is able to put in at any given time during the ride. See it as your reserve of ANAEROBIC Watts W’ bal (balance) can be seen as the amount of oomph left in your body. W’bal is perhaps less important to triathletes than other cyclists but here you are reading about it so let’s go and find out why W’bal might start to appear on your Wahoo ELEMNT or Garmin Edge 820 in 2016/7.įirst off, W’ is pronounced “double-you-prime”. Sustained climbing i.e.FTC: Affiliate Disclosure: All links pay commission Golden Cheetah It may be more appropriate to only measure VAM for Zero, but could contain segments with steep parts). Will prove challenging when VAM is comprised of More sophistication is needed, especially normalising This isĪkin to the way we handle power where we include time

Included but meters climbed will be zero. Included, any time on the flat or descending is If the ride is undulating then only ascension is Sustained over each time interval from 5mins to the The climbing rate, in meters per hour, that was In this first pass of implementation the VAM metric Speed and for comparative purposes should be Very basic start, this will now let you plot This would mean a change to the RideFileCache and CP plot and should be fairly simple to implement (of course Altitude data must be present!).Īdded by Mark Liversedge about 1 year ago The CP curve could be adjusted to allow you to plot best VAM by duration, allowing you to track climbing prowess regardless of the course or profile. Typically it is higher for shorter durations (power climbs, hill sprints) and lower for longer durations (alpine mountain passes). The VAM metric measures Vertical Ascent over time.

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