Training with Power - useful or another way of spending £'s?

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Training with Power - useful or another way of spending £'s?

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TimW

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:22 am

Joined: Sat May 09, 2009 1:52 pm
Posts: 285
Location: England, UK

What everyone said up above. Personally I find a PM quite motivating.

Another book along the same lines but an easier introduction to Power Meters (and a lot cheaper if you have a Kindle or Kindle software) is "The Power Meter Handbook - a user's guide for cyclists and triathletes" by Joe Friel. It's only about £6 on Amazon.co.uk at the moment and reads quite easily. Only published fairly recently.

Cheers.

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DrGalactus

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:22 pm

Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 am
Posts: 44
Location: Bristol, UK

One of the horrible things about training with power is that it knows when you're not putting enough effort in.
You'll be there pedalling along thinking 'this is a bit hard maybe I shouldease up a bit' at which point your powermeter output starts mocking you because it knows full well what you're capable of and that you're just not trying hard enough. It's also usually right

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mattydubs

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:12 am

Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:57 pm
Posts: 79
Location: Denver

Don't need to quote the post above

Agreed. It really tells you what you are or are not doing. HRM doesn't do that.

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gummee

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:21 pm

Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:01 pm
Posts: 68

roadiesean wrote:

Hi

I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I'm looking at buying an SRM, but am I wasting my money ? I am a late 40's sportive rider, who does some races and loves riding his bike.

I want to get fitter and better at all aspects of my bike riding, especially in the mountains - the thing that would help the most would be getting skinny I'm sure.

I have an HRM, but really just use it to see how hard its banging when I'm working hard, I don't want another screen to look at just for the sake of looking at it, but if training with power is the business, then it make sense.

Any thoughts guys ?

Cheers
Sean

First step: training plan. Save the group rides for weekends or racing. I personally use a Wednesday hammerfest as a hard workout with the Cat 1s. If I can hang/pull with them and kill myself in the process, it makes for easier racing. I've been using Friel's book fairly successfully for the last few years.

Step 2: learn to ride according to your HRM. Easy days = easy. Hard days = truly hard. LSD rides should be within a certain range. etc.

Step 3: power meter. This is the spot where I am. I just don't have the $ for one just yet, so I make do with the HRM.

HTH

M

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DrGalactus

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:28 pm

Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 am
Posts: 44
Location: Bristol, UK

If you're not sure it's worth it for you and you have a turbo trainer(+laptop,speed/cadence sensor,ant usb sitck)) try http://www.trainerroad.com/ It's not totally accurate +/- 30 wattsish but it is consistent.

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emkod

Post subject: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending £'s?

Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 2:50 pm

Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 1:53 am
Posts: 11

Power meters are horridly expensive if you don't use it.

Just bought a PoweCal combined HR and PowerMeter. It uses an algorithm to calculate effective power rather than actual crank based. I've done the research and its 2-5% of a PowerTap or SRM do, as a training tool, I think that's not bad.

At $100 AUS it's a lot better way of learning how to use it than $1800 and never use it properly. Might be relatively useful for IRTTs although the lag in the computer means its probably not going to work for sprint efforts. Lucky I cant sprint to save myself!!

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rkwaki

Post subject: Re: Training with Power - useful or another way of spending

Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 7:14 pm

Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 9:01 pm
Posts: 25

Steps to success:
1. Diet
2. Follow a structured training plan with no PM
3. Buy a pm once you can follow structure

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