Most cyclists dread ramp tests - but I can't get enough

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It turns out I have more in common with retired pro Alex Dowsett than I first thought. I’ll point out the differences first; he’s a former Hour Record holder, two-time stage winner at the Giro d’Italia, and six-time national time trial champion. He also rode on the WorldTour, cycling’s highest level, for 12 seasons of his career.

I’ve never come close to the WorldTour. I’ve never even done a race. And yet, Dowsett and I seem to have a shared interest: we both do ramp tests for fun.

For the uninitiated, a ramp test is a quick way of working out your functional threshold power (FTP). It typically involves hopping on an indoor trainer and increasing your power output every minute, until your legs give way and you collapse over your handlebars. Think of it like the bleep test from school, except there’s no PE teacher making you do it. The better riders (see: Alex Dowsett) will last for upwards of 20 minutes. Us mortals run out of breath in the time it takes to boil rice.

A few weeks ago, Dowsett posted an Instagram video of himself on Zwift. “Two years into retirement from pro cycling I’m trying a ramp test,” he wrote. There was, I assume, no sports director or team manager hanging over him, holding a metaphorical gun to his head. It seemed a personal life choice, one made for the love of the sport.

I remember doing my first ramp test last year. I had signed up for a Zwift winter training programme, and the test was planned as my baptism into indoor riding. Its results, I was told, would become the yardstick for all my sessions thereafter. I naively blocked out an hour of my evening to do it, and it was over in 15 minutes.

The test began at 100w, an output at which most toddlers can ride comfortably. It then increased – or ramped – every minute by 20w. I levelled up and up, 120w, 140w, 160w. I felt like I was freewheeling. Then came 180w, 200w, 220w, and the screw began to turn.

As I eked into the high 200s, I sensed my limit on the horizon. The whole point of the test is to break you, leave you sweat-drenched and alone in your front room, an empty, breathless shell. There comes a moment when you fall onto the back foot, and the ramps keep demanding more. For me, that moment came at 360w. I bowed out with a yelp. A ferrous taste of blood flooded my mouth.

And yet, the next week, I went back for more. Masochism is the derivation of pleasure from pain, and I had fallen head over cleats for the cruel ramp test. I liked the dopamine hit, the sense of achievement, that came with each level increase. The feeling of my heart racing in my chest made me feel alive.

While most people might do one ramp test a year, and begrudgingly too, I ended up doing three last winter alone. I’m now plotting my return, for no reason other than my own will.

For those interested, Dowsett’s results were “significantly slower” than they were during his pomp. Mine will no doubt tell a similar story. But, in a sordid kind of way, I’m looking forward to the drama of it, all of it, from the hopeful first pedal strokes, to the final depleted one, and the aftertaste of blood.

I'll almost certainly go back for more.