Q-ring time trial pacing

Since I had a comment about my pacing for the Q-Ring time trial, I thought I'd elaborate. After reviewing the data from the 1st time trial on December 19th, I determined that I'd started too hard to optimize time and maybe average watts, too. But my primary goal in the two time trials was not to optimize time or wattage, but to get a direct comparison between circular and elliptical chainrings.

So when I performed the second time trial earlier this week, I made an effort to match the pacing of my first time trial as closely as possible. I intentionally went out too hard again (my first 5-minute power average for both time trials was a little over 300 watts). It's a little hard to see that in my wattage plots on the prior post because I used a lot of smoothing to see the power trend. My percieved exertion was the same for both rides, and my average heartrate was almost identical (161bpm for the December ride and 162 bpm for the January ride). My average heartrate for the 1-hour TT I did on Dec. 2nd was also 161 bpm, so I know that's my threshold heartrate. I didn't take a look at my average wattage until the very end of the TT.

In summary, I'm about as confident as I can be in the results that I've posted.