Originally Posted by
pgjackson
$1500-3000 is a lot of coin to shell out just to find out how badly you suck. Save your money, hire a personal trainer. The goal is to go faster from point A to point B. A simple stop-watch will tell you everything you need to know.
I completely disagree. A power meter for some people is worth much more than a cycling coach, not to mention a cycling coach would like you to have a power meter of some sort on the bike. POWER is the best way to see if your training is working or not. Training via POWER is also vastly superior to training by heartrate. I think its silly that some amateur would have a cycling coach before a simple watt measuring tool.
It's been pretty obvious that the OP knew exactly how a power meter works and what it'd do for him, so I'm surprised to see anybody bash the idea. It is obviously a luxury, but it is effective and useful, and I give it 2 thumbs up.
My vote: powertap + Edge 500 computer, then follow the training plan in either the Time Crunched Cyclist, or if you have more hours, pick up the training bible. Dump it all into Golden Cheetah or WKO+, and start measuring your success, aka, how much you suck
