Watts a Pro's to do...

From an email/interview with Gear Fisher, one of the founders and developers of WKO+ software (formerly cyclingpeaks). This is his oberservations from the Lotto/Predictor Team Camp referenced in earlier entries below.

What did the riders think of the powertaps?

They were very interested and willing/eager to ride with them. Most of them had not heard of PowerTap, so their first questions were "how does it compare to SRM".  Perhaps only five of the guys even had SRM's though, so they were happy to now have power on their bikes.  The mechanics seemed to like it too with the wireless setup, it is just so easy.  Training with power is still a pretty new concept for these guys, but they are all eager to learn more, especially the younger riders like Dominique Cornu, he's the world time trial champion U-23, and he's never ridden with a power-meter, until now.

 

What has been the biggest surprise so far in working with all the Pro Tour riders?

I was surprised both at how traditional most of their training is, as well as how cordial and nice the guys are. We could easily have been cast aside by these guys, but instead, they really wanted to learn more and understand more about training with power.

What do the riders think of Cyclingpeaks?

 

Well of course they loved it! :-)    Really, they did like it a lot. I heard many times "well that's easy". The "upload to TrainingPeaks.com " feature is perhaps the thing that most of them found really neat, same with the bulk import to WKO+, that always seems to get a "wow!". But certainly the concept of TSS/IF and the Performance Manager was the foundation of most of their questions.  None of them had heard of these terms before and many of them really wanted to dig in and know more about it.  We left several of Hunter& Andy's books behind for them to really dig in.

What do you expect to learn/develop from the input from the Pro Tour riders?

We hope to really tune the TSS/IF/Performance Manager systems. We'll have world-class, long term data from these guys, which should let us really dial in some of these concepts at the top end, which will work it's way down to the "age grouper" cyclist too.  It's like Nascar really, car manufacturers learn and test car designs, engine parts etc. at the top-end, then trickle them down to consumer vehicles. We're doing the same thing.  They have already suggested a few new features, so we're working on those now. 

What is the most important thing the team have seen in using cyclingpeaks?

I would say  it's the communication between the riders and the team doctors, directors and management. Everyone is on the same page now.  Eventually, as they gather more data, I think it will start to really influence their training techniques.

Who has the highest FTP you have tested so far? What value?

Well, I really can't say specifically, but pretty much everyone was at 340 or above, some way above.. amazing stuff really. Note that we don't do any testing per se, that's the realm of the team docs and physiologists, but we are with the riders as they setup their WKO+ settings, so that's where we get exposed.