power training without a power meter

Now that I have had motivation, blood test, equipment and objectives all sorted out for 2009, what is the best single on and off bike exercise for getting more powerful without using a power meter. I have a large number of hrs at disposal to train. Colleagues are 5%-10% more powerful and this is the first season I want to see how training intelligently for the first time since 2006 can get me back into the fastest 8 climbers in our group combined with gong down from about 68kgs to 65kgs in 7 weeks.

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Scott Addict 2008 R4
HED JET 50mm 2007
Record/Chorus/Centaur/Ultegra mix
50/34 12-25
7,54kg

Cannondale Six13 Pro
Mavic Cosmic SL 2009
Dura Ace 7900/7800
12-25 52/39
7.70kgs

I hate to state the obvious but your answer would probably lie with riding lots and riding consistantly hard. Kinda like "getting the miles in" but done at a pace that's tough to keep going for a few hours. Since you love to climb you can go do this workout out in the hills but don't forget about being able to crank over a big gear at high speed on the flats too.

Since you don't have a power meter, a heart rate monitor would be a good substitue for longer efforts but for those shorter sprints I'd go on perceived effort.

Off the bike I'd be more concerned with rest and recovery than any other exercise but stretching and some basic 'core' exercises may be of some use especially if you notice that you're not really that comfortable on the bike after an hour or so.

The best way to do this imho is to find some local climbs of 15+ minutes with known gradients and then check by your ascension rate (VAM). The relevant VAM will depend largely on the gradient, but your results on the same climb will be quite accurate.

I would take a 20 minute effort and multiply that VAM by 0.95 to get a rough threshold effort, and then use that in lieu of power.

Here are some examples of the relationship between power and VAM (from 53x12.com):

"Repeated measuring on a climb with a rider weighing 64 kg and pedaling at 300 watts gave the following results:

5% gradient = 1180 VAM (m/h)
6% = 1215 m/h
7% = 1250 m/h
8% = 1290 m/h
9% = 1340 m/h
10% = 1400 m/h
11% = 1475 m/h
12% = 1565 m/h
13% = 1675 m/h"