Originally Posted by WhyFi

I tried a novel thing today - I decided to ride with purpose and maintain a cruising wattage, actively using the power meter that I've had for a couple years.

What I learned is that, left to my own devices, I'm not terribly disciplined. On the flats, I tend to accelerate with good effort, but when I get up to speed, I tend to spin at 100+ and then ease off the power - that puts me right at my endurance effort, which would be great if I were going out for 3+ hours, I guess, but not so much for shorter rides or when, you know, tryin' to get stronger. Anyway, I found that just shifting once more, keeping the pedals a little heavier and cadence in the 95-100 range, made it easy for me to stay at my target of ~90%. Then, of course, there were the undulations and downhills. I'm prolly not the only one that slacks off and enjoys the free ride, but it sure makes a difference when you stay on the pedals.