Great question from Koren, as she often hears me quote various numbers in a Velocity classes, including this mornings class.
The first question is simple to answer – yes when I say 66% it’s the first green number on your screen which is 67% in your screen shot.
Before we cover off the next part – a bit more background.
I’ll use the example of within a Warm Up or Cool Down (or Rest Interval) as this is the example used in her question and it is something common across all velocity workouts.
For the example, lets first cover off what the various data points mean. When we all ride together in Velocity, we are all in different phases of our build up, we all have different levels of fitness and ability. Most importantly we all have different Functional Threshold Powers (FTP). By using the percentage of FTP it effectively means we are all riding at the same proportion of out ability and I need to give a single number for us all to work from. Rather than saying “Koren, I want you riding at 58 to 118 Watts. Mick, I want you riding at 114 to 174 Watts. Mary, you can ride at 150 to 210 Watts.” I just need remind people to aim for 66%.
If like Koren you have an FTP of 133 Watts, 66% of your FTP is 88 Watts. When we add or subtract 30 Watts from this it gives Koren a range of between 58 Watts and 118 Watts (88 – 30 = 58 and 88 + 30 = 118).
So going back to the Velocity dashboard – the number Koren has circled in her question relates but you need to know your individual numbers. In Koren’s case if this is between 58 & 118 during a step of the workout that involves 66% ±30W (with her current FTP) this is on the money. In her screen shot it is 90 Watts, so it’s on the money 😃
On my bike computer and on Zwift prior to riding on Velocity I used to know my numbers and I’d focus on the absolute Watts and make sure it is within my target range.
These days with Velocity having a great dashboard that makes it easy to see my target as a percentage (and changes colour if I’m above or below zone) my focus stays on the numbers within the Power Gauge on the left hand side.
With the top number being my current percentage of FTP – if that is green I’m happy for now. The bottom number is your average percentage of FTP for the current step – my preference is that is green. If it’s not green but the top number is green it’ll be moving towards changing to green.
I typically don’t look at the absolute Watts next to my Heart Rate, when riding in Velocity.