Defining the problem Any given training ride or race will contain periods of sustained effort, sometimes to exhaustion. Perhaps during the last sprint, or over a long climb, bridging a gap or chasing on after a roundabout or corner. Being able to identify these efforts is rather useful. The trouble is, deciding what represents a maximal or sustained effort is often discussed, and generally has fallen into discussions about intensity and FTP or Critical Power. These discussions have tended to then focus on trying to account for the interval duration, periods of freewheeling and applying smoothing etc. But we already have an excellent description of what constitutes a maximal effort. It is the primary purpose of any power duration model. Power duration models estimate the maximal effort you can sustain for any given duration through to exhaustion. So if you want to identify maximal efforts its your friend. Using the model below we can see, for example, that the athlete it re...
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