12 Jun Bike Terms

All industries and sports have a language specific to their craft.

Cycling / Spinning is no different

Here are some of the more common terms and those that increase the sports specific understanding .

WATTS/ POWER: A watt is a measure of how hard you working at any given time.

FTP: Functional Threshold Power is the average number of watts that you can sustain, in a steady state effort and acts as a current measure of fitness.

FTP is typically calculated by a 20-minute effort (but a 60 minute FTP is also used).

Over the months and years of training, you can test and retest your FTP to see any improvement or decline in your base fitness.

In most cases,your FTP score is calculated using 95% of your average power across your 20 or 60 minute test.

PTP: Personal Threshold Power is the average number of Watts / power across a 3 minute effort. The score is calculated at 100%

RPE: Rate of Perceived Exertion is the numeric estimate of your exercise intensity.

An easy scale for reference is 1 – 10

1= Really Easy,

10 = Really Hard,

Max is All out Effort

ZONE: Meaning the Training Zone used to simulate a given effort intensity.

RPM/CAD: Revolutions per minute or how fast your pedals are rotating around 360 degrees per 60 seconds. RPM and Cadence are interchangeable terms

AEROBIC: Efforts where the body is producing energy with the use of oxygen.

These are longer sustainable efforts

ANAEROBIC: Efforts where the body is producing energy without the use of oxygen. These are shorter, more explosive efforts

Cycle Collective uses Zones, Watts and Cadence/ RPM in all sessions

Collective On Demand – Ride – Uses RPE, Cadence/ RPM in all sessions