I missed the very last InCycle class, so I wasn’t able to get my last test results until today.

I don’t know how they compare to everyone else, or more importantly, the average healthy 40 year-old male, but for me, they did show improvement across the series. My target output shifted an entire zone!

I don’t know exactly how the math is done, but a test day always included some light warm up, a 5 min effort going as hard as you could, a bit of recovery and then another 15 minutes at maximum effort.

Here’s how the series worked out for me.

Nov 2008: 5 Min: 226 March 2009: 5 Min: 250
15 Min: 176 15 Min: 215 (look at that difference!)
FTP: 167 FTP: 204 (I have no idea what FTP is!)

Top Zone 1: 92 Top Zone 1: 112 (rolling forward, but barely)
Top Zone 2: 125 Top Zone 2: 153
Top Zone 3: 150 Top Zone 3: 184 (very “active” bicycling)
Top Zone 4: 176 Top Zone 4: 214
Top Zone 5: 201 Top Zone 5: 245 (racing, racing, racing)

I think the difference is really noticeable (and I can feel it more) on the higher end, particularly my stamina at zone 4, which generally felt very “natural” once I was warmed up and as long as I kept my cadence above 80.

Awesome!

Here’s a wiki page on performance for the science types, some software that estimates your watt output, and finally, something to do with all those watts!