Originally Posted by noglider
I've thought about a power meter of some sort but I suspect I won't get one. Do you find it gives you interesting data? I like data. But I'm told that heart rate correlates roughly with power so I think I'm happy. There's not much sense in comparing my power with others' power, just comparing myself from one day to the next. Thoughts?
As I understand, one could totally get away with using heart rate alone to estimate how much gas might be left in the tank later in the ride.
Last fall I decided to get serious-ish about racing. Kind of a fun challenge to see what my body is capable of at 45. Power data has been pretty important to the way I’ve been tackling things. I’m comparing it to the data I get from regular testing on the trainer to find out what kind of wattage I can hold for different periods of time. Wattage output is my primary metric on a ride, but really only one piece of the story for assessing my overall intensity load and capabilities.
Needed by everyone? Nope. Fun to look at even if you’re not dialing in specific aspects of fitness? Heck yes! Essential if you have aspirations for like a B group podium spot? Maybe, probably not, but certainly helpful. I’m especially excited to see what I can crank out at the end of a cyclocross race where the whole shebang is pretty short but I’m gunning hard for pretty much the whole 45min to an hour.
As for pedals vs cranks, I love that I can pop these pedals off my contemporary gravel bike with a bunch of carbon fiber junk over to the Stronglight cranks on my old Follis if I want to ride that around for a long zone 2 endurance training ride.