MAF test for cycling

[tenko]

Hi
I was trying to come up with a good measure of my cycling fitness. A good one in running is the MAF test which involves keeping the HR the same and seeing what time you do a certain distance in. I cycle with others so can't keep my HR the same, so wanted to control for this. So, for a given circuit of about 8 km, I:
- record my average speed in kn/hr
- record my average HR over the same time.
- do a little simple maths to get meters travelled per heart beat. This is what I track and want to improve. For me it turns out to be a smidge less than 4 m/hb.
Anyone have a view as to the efficacy of this measure of fitness? Ta

[Nearholmer]

Isn’t a huge amount going to depend upon how steep/flat your test circuit is? If it’s 8km up a steep hill, you will get very different answers from 8km down a steep hill.

That’s not even thinking about confounding factors like wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity/rainfall, changes in bike resistance, etc.

I suppose it might work as a relative measure, to track personal changes over time, but unless you translate it to laboratory conditions, and control all the variables, I can’t see it working as an absolute measure.

[tenko]

The circuit is the same each time, starts and finishes at the same point. I don't compare one reading to another just trends so hopefully that averages out changes in temp, wind, etc.

[Psamathe]

Hi
I was trying to come up with a good measure of my cycling fitness...

I'm no health expert but I'd think there are different forms of "fitness" e.g. Stamina (being able to slog along at 8 mph uphill fully laden into headwind and rain for 100+ miles) vs sprint (covering 1 mile on a light carbon bike very quickly). To measure something do you need to peoperly define what you want to measure?

Ian

[Nearholmer]

The circuit is the same each time, starts and finishes at the same point. I don't compare one reading to another just trends so hopefully that averages out changes in temp, wind, etc.

In which case, why bother calculating beats per metre, why not just look at trends in average and outlier heart rates over time?

I had a few goes at this on a fixed 2hr route before getting a bit fed-up with it when I realised that the biggest influencer wasn’t my fitness but the season of the year! Ambient temperature was amazingly influential, with a really noticeable increase in average and outlier HRs once things got below about 5 degrees, and attempting to maintain the 2hrs in windy weather did the same. And, it was boring doing the same circuit!