carleton

I agree that average power, cadence, and speed are great metrics. But, especially for sprinting, max values are important, especially for fine-tuning. For example, as you know, the Flying 200M is an event filled with nuances. And the key to doing a PB kilo might be 1 gear inch (up or down).

I really believe that more athletes should analyze the data from warmup efforts to gauge how they are riding that day as well as how temperature and atmospheric conditions are affecting them. Having more data takes the "gut feel" about gear selection and makes it more empirical.

I, for one, look for a certain max cadence when I choose my F200M gear. Depending on what cadences I hit on my race gear during warmup efforts, I'll take that data and adjust the gear for the event. Some days I can get "on top" of a gear, and some days I'm always "behind" it.

All of the above wouldn't matter for most racers. But, this could be a valuable tool for coaches or self-coached athletes.

Imagine if a coach asked all of his/her athletes to use normal Dura-Ace cranks. This isn't a big deal being that now many coaches ask their athletes to have power meters on both their road and track bikes. Running normal DA cranks is MUCH less expensive. Now this coach buys 3 Stages cranks in 165, 167.5 and 170mm plus one good head unit (like the SRM unit mentioned above). This coach could then, on a whim or in scheduled "test days", install the crank arm on the athlete's bike and have data instantly. This could also be used to teach a pursuiter what the prescribed wattage feels like or get baseline splits during pursuit efforts.

I think this would be great for coaches of Juniors or College athletes who simply can't afford full on SRMs (and shouldn't feel the need to).

Maybe a track could buy sets and rent them out. It's much less drama than installing other systems (save maybe Powertap rear wheels).

I know plenty of people who like the idea of power meters, but don't want to dive in and spend $3,000.