Heathpack 

My SRM units have been flawless!

<Haha just saying that because I know how irritating it is to be frustrated by power issues and have people chime in about their lack of power issues.>

Actually you have my genuine sympathies.

shovelhd

So we have a long club ride tomorrow. I could ride the Redline with 28c tires and +3.5 pounds and a working power meter, or the Felt with no power. As much as I appreciate having the power data, I don't really need it as I'm not training. I don't want to swap the cranks although I could. I'm leaning towards riding the Felt.

revchuck 

You could always just ride with your heart rate monitor and figure TSS from that if you're still tracking TSS. Or not.

TheKillerPenguin

Power hipsters doing the training equivalent of busting out vinyl copies of Beyonce

tetonrider

They're close but not the same. One is *functional*. Think of it as the difference between FTP and MLSS, or CP.

globecanvas

Felt. The point is to have fun, right?

shovelhd

That's right. 6kft of climbing is fun for an old retired crit racer. There's a chance of showers in the afternoon so I'll check the forecast in the morning. If there's any chance of rain during the ride I'll take the Redline. The Felt just got a new chain, cassette and a thorough cleaning.

mattm

Holy **** is that a thing?? I hope it is, love me some Bey.

Doge

@Heathpack
As you just did Tahoe / altitude TT recently...Any feedback?

Heathpack 

Are you asking if I think a TT is best paced on HR vs power?

To fill the rest of you in, I raced a TT yesterday at Loyalton (5000ft) and I was 9-10% down on power. I live/train at 1200 ft. Because I was down on power, and my power numbers made no sense, about 7 miles into the TT, I abandoned my power targets for the various legs & switched to racing on HR & RPE. I had a power target for each leg and I switched over to having a HR target. It worked as far as my pacing went as I intended, although my overall time was nowhere near what I hoped to do.

I think it's an important tool to have, the ability to pace a TT with HR and RPE, for the times you need to. But I still think pacing with power is more precise. HR and RPE are just much looser things. For example, when my HR was over LTHR at the end, did this reflect my true effort vs a bit of dehydration.

So always I like power best for pacing a TT. But having the ability to pace without it is worth practicing. Someday it can salvage a race and get you on the podium. No need to go weight weenie on a TT bike anyway.

Doge

Not vs HR - just the experience. HR is off too. HR is elevated at rest and lower at max.

Heathpack 

I still think power is important because there's a lot of subjectiveness to how you feel on the bike. To me, cross-checking how you feel vs what your power & HR numbers are telling you is the best way to do it. Along with a willingness to disregard any of the data if they are not correlating with what the rest of the picture is telling you. Also not accounted for in any of the numerical data (but I guess maybe in RPE) is rate & quality of respiration, which is a huge piece of the puzzle too.

The more data the better IMO but just don't be a slave to any one number/factor. And since I believe more data is better, I think you should ride & train with all the data too. So you get used to what it all means & what variation you can expect with each element. But I also think we are all different and the "no data, ride by RPE alone" approach might work better for some people.

Just one perspective and a pretty rookie one at that. I'm sure there's other more experienced opinions here that would hold more weight than mine.

Doge

I just thought it was interesting input. They changed the venue for National this year from that course after just one year. Normally it is two years at a venue. I don't know why, but was wondering if the altitude had something to do with it.
I'm trying to get Daniel to use his power tap up Pikes Peak in Sept after being off the bike for 2 months. I expect it will be depressing.

Voodoo76

I was discussing cadence issues with Power2Max on the Track forum but curious what others are seeing here. Doing accelerations, peak cadence occurs 3 to 4 seconds after peak speed. Anyone else seeing this kind of offset in data?

beatlebee 

Can't comment on the above but I have noticed that the p2max has a lag in displaying power (the only metric I tend to focus on) compared to a powertap hub. It is only about a second or two.

Voodoo76

I see that as well. I think it's related. Power is a function of cadence and torque, so if you lag one you lag both. The lag gets longer if your rate of change (acceleration) is bigger. This also chops off peak power (by a significant amount) compared to PT. It looks to me like they are averaging cadence in firmware.

Ygduf

I was talking to Billy Innes about puppydoge and Brandon McN. He said puppy was good and could have been better but he was too smart, unwilling to bash his head against the wall for 3-4 years it would take to really develop. I don't know what that means for Brandon, but Billy said Brandon's power #s would make half our (race ride) group "give up the sport".

Doge

Is that a power post because Billy has not seen Daniel's power?
I saved his sprint power for BF only which just started arguments.

revchuck 

This is BF. Of course they just started arguments.

tetonrider

these kinds of statements are always funny to me.

"if you guys saw warren buffett's baseball card collection you'd quit the hobby."

insha allah brandon will go on to the World Tour or something similar if he doesn't discover girls, avoids injury, doesn't burn out, etc. i think it is really cool to have been crushed by him in a race.

kind of like being on lebron's junior high team....

the only ones it should really effect are the 28 yo's who have visions of turning pro (a half dozen people i consider good friends fall into this category, off the top of my head) but have yet to realize they are doing this as a hobby.

(I realize it wasn't you, @fudgy, saying this -- just commenting on the conversation.)

tetonrider

PTs are known to overstate peak power, esp if one is looking at 1" power.

Ygduf

I just posted here because I was talking to a guy who knows your boy and I saw you in this thread.

Voodoo76

Agree, Quarq is about -3% from PT and P2M is about -15%. The number itself is just motivational, however where it occurs in time and how it drops in time vs a given gear matters for an F200 or 500m effort. I realize this doesn't relate to most training involving power. I'm just inquiring what others are seeing out of this meter.

Doge

Thank you for thinking of him.
I agree with Billy's assessment. Even his rowing choices were hard for some to take. Funny as the USAC CEO is a Princeton grad (which was why Daniel was rowing).
Anyway 17 is too young scrap everything for cycling. For Brandon, Adrian - OK, for others that we really won't know until mid-20s how good they are - 17 is too early.

Edit Add - June 30 proof point: https://2016.axeoncycling.com/news/USAmateurRoad_TT
If you review his history Geoffery was always very good. Just not this good.

shovelhd

So I get back from vacation with a supposed replacement for my twice failed 6 month old SRM, and they sent me just the spider. The spider, which requires a special $60 tool to remove along with heat. WTF. I didn't buy a spider. I bought a complete crankset. I should not have to own that tool because I have no intention of taking the spider off the crank arm. That's SRM's job!!! WTF. They owe me a complete crankset. If they wanted to reuse my crankarms and rings they should have said so!!! More delay. More frustration. I'm pissed as hell.