I have been training intensively on my bike since August 2022, first on my own and from November 2022 with JOIN. In short, 20 months, in my previous blogs I have already written about the progress I have made in FTP. I once started with 152 watts and recently hit 357 watts, but now that I’ve been busy for a while I’m starting to wonder whether my limit has already been reached.
Written by: Klaas Salverda
Started cycling in August 2020, at an age of 38. No professional sporting background, an amateur-cyclist trying to be become better every day. JOIN helps me with an adaptive schedule, so I can give other things priority when needed.
Year-Over-Year Effect
I have set the availability in JOIN to maximum and try to follow the training schedule as best as possible, but will you get better over time? Is there really a year-over-year effect?
The reason this question arises is because, for example, I pedaled my best ever minute value (603 watts) on April 23, 2023, and my best 2 minutes on July 10, 2023 485 watts.
That was quite a long time ago… While in the meantime I have cycled several Gran Fondos where I feel I have really gotten the most out of myself.
In addition, my FTP has also dropped over a period of three months in the past year. My goal is to see how good I can become, but haven’t I already reached my ceiling?
Let’s compare
To find out, I compared the activities of March 2023 with March 2024. Firstly, because the most recent one is a full month. Secondly, because I trained as best I could in March both years without other sports such as ice skating in between. In both cases I was ill at the end of February, so that makes March very comparable. In terms of weight, I am currently comparable to March 2023, namely 72 kilos.
I have omitted the rides without complete data (uncalculated heart rate or power data) to ensure a fair comparison. The data shows the following:
| Average per ride | 2023 | 2024 | Difference |
| Distance (KM) | 87,9 | 100,8 | 12,9 km longer |
| Speed (km/h) | 29,9 | 31,9 | 2,1 km/u faster |
| Hearth rate (bpm) | 142,4 | 138,9 | 3,5 beats lower |
| Normalized power (watt) | 211 | 234 | 23 watt higher |
| Other data | 31-3-2023 | 31-3-2024 | Difference |
| Join score | 38 | 44,5 | 6,5 levels higher |
| FTP | 303 | 357 | 54 watt higher |
There’s a difference!
Conclusion, quite interesting. In any case, my heart and lung function has really improved, because with 3.5 beats less I pedal 23 watts harder. As a result, the average per trip is also more than 2 kilometers per hour higher. I was of course already aware of the difference in FTP.
In short, there is a real difference year on year in March. Now I am very curious how this difference will work out in June 2024 compared to a year earlier. On May 19, 2023 I hit a new FTP of 340 watts, so a big step compared to March 2023. That was also the highest FTP of 2023. I’m going to do another FTP test at the end of May, so I am very curious whether I can still make a step from March to May 2024!
So far so good, thanks to JOIN! If you want to follow my progress, everything is available on Strava.
