On Saturday, February 7th, we had 15 brave and competitive souls show up for a group fitness testing session at the new Cycle U facilities.
If you haven’t stopped by the new Cycle U shop, you are in for a surprise. The facility is a major upgrade from the old space, both in terms of size and finish. In addition to fitness testing, Cycle U offers spin classes and bike fitting, and they even have a small “pro shop” where they can sell you Specialized shoes and accessories at the special team discounted price.
It’s never easy motivating oneself to really go at it indoors. There is no one up ahead of you that you are trying to catch, or no one behind you pushing you to dig deep. Only the changing numbers on your little screen are there to spur you on, although Craig’s excellent choice of music must have helped.
After a lengthy warmup, the first test was an all out 5 minute effort, designed to give you an idea of your power at Vo2 Max. Following a cooldown, next up was an all out 15 minute effort. Taking 95% of your average power for this test is a good way to estimate your Functional Threshold Power (FTP), which is defined as the highest average power in watts that a cyclist can sustain for one hour. I guess the good news about the 20 minute test was…it was only 20 minutes.
Last, but certainly not least, was a one minute all out effort designed to find out if you are secretly a world class sprinter and just don’t know it.
Craig must have felt sorry for the crew. He decided to throw in a future free test for the riders who were bold enough to go for it in early February.
That will just give everyone another chance to suffer!
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