what's a power meter worth

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 20:19:09 +0000, Kinky Cowboy <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I see a lot of hype about using power meters for training, and it
nearly all comes from people with a material interest in the market.

Do you race or coach people who race or are interested in improving
atheletic performance?

Yes, I race

Quoted message said:

Just because something is oversold to people who don't need it's
benefits does not mean that it's benefits do not exist.

We are actually in full agreement if this proposition reflects your
true opinion - there are benefits, but not enough at the current price
to make them good value for all the people who are now buying them.

Kinky Cowboy*

*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary

On Mar 17, 11:05 am, Kinky Cowboy <[email hidden]> wrote:>

there are benefits, but not enough at the current price

Quoted message said:

to make them good value for all the people who are now buying them.

Kinky Cowboy*

*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary

I disagree. I have seen marked improvement as did my wife as do the
atheletes she coaches. While the results might be avaible through
other training methods those methods are not useable due to the time
involved. Use if a powermeter allows for training to be focused in
useful in the what is often a small window of time for training in a
day. I will agree that a power meter is a tool that is only as good as
the person reviewing the data. Riding along and looking at the watts
with no knowlage of what they mean dose render it a expensive and
useless toy.

E Ball said:

On Mar 17, 11:05 am, Kinky Cowboy <[email hidden]> wrote:>

there are benefits, but not enough at the current price

Quoted message said:

to make them good value for all the people who are now buying them.

Kinky Cowboy*

*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary

Quoted message said:

Riding along and looking at the watts
with no knowlage of what they mean dose render it a expensive and
useless toy.

and as much 'fun' as looking at you speedometer or HR monitor.
For training purposes you can better spend 1000 euro on a power meter
than 1000 euro extra on a bike.

Lou
--
Posted by news://news.nb.nu (http://www.nb.nu)

richard said:

Quoted message said:

How cheap would a bicycle power meter have to become befor you bought
one. I don't thing i would by one unless there is one below 100 bucks.
Is there anything like this in development this cheap

The cheapest I've seen is the one I have (a Polar Power Sensor), with
a new model just out, you should be able to buy the old one for ever
decreasing prices. I bought one used off eBay for about $160USD. I
was lucky enough to already have a Polar s702i to plug it into. You
can see some things I've done with it here 0> http://www.lbrc.org/blog

It isn't perfect, but it's a reasonable introduction to power meters.
The best thing I've found is being able to easily compare different
rides or seasons - esp. when using CyclingPeak WKO+ software.

R.

When the older polar works it's okay for ride comparison, but they're
not very accurate or consistant. Mine stopped working several times
in a couple years requiring trips back to manufacturer. And chain
slap wears down the plastic on the sensor. They gave me a new one
once, AND fixed the old, so I was up to 2, but the last time the last
one failed they tested it claiming it worked and sent it back broken.
That was the end of my Polar adventure. And you can't call and talk
to whoever is fixing it. Really bad customer support.

Powertap is a whole different story, but forget about self servicing
their hub because you dissassemble and potentially break the sensor or
miscalibrate it. But for about $80 they make it like new, up to
complete replacement of innards, no matter how broken or used. Great
customer support, reasonably priced. And it's a reasonably sturdy and
lightweight hub. They want to stay in business.

Wish I'd have gotten the crank-based SRM though, and now just use the
Powertap for periodic testing and races now, because it's a shame to
not be using all the other wheels (that I can service) for std
training rides.

Anyway, after using the powermeter enough you just learn what 220
watts feels like, or 280, or whatever, and don't need the
instantaneous feedback, and you can setup an infinitely complex
workout on the Garmin, and ballpark the power using your now finely
tuned sense of RPE (rate perceived exertion) relative to HR, and
reasonably guess your ride TSS (training stress score) based on
previous similar rides with TSS directly measured by Cyclingpeaks WKO+
with Powertap data plugged in.

BTW, it's not a matter of getting more training in less time, or
saving 37 or whatever minutes training per week for the investment,
but can be the difference between ineffective, or worse, destructive
and badly designed training or over/under training compared to precise
and effective training. Of course there's a huge learning curve
understanding the intricacies and subtleties. And it's not a matter
"winning the race", or playing with some new nifty "toy", but can be
just about the satisfaction of enjoying a far higher level of fitness,
and the intellectual acheivement of just starting to understand how
one can go about achieving that increased fitness. Hanging with the
pack to the finish in a race is a byproduct.

Bill Westphal

Bill Westphal said:

BTW, it's not a matter of getting more training in less time [...],
but can be the difference between ineffective, or worse, destructive
and badly designed training or over/under training compared to precise
and effective training.

I agree with this. I only made the point about better performance with fewer
total training hours because Kinky Cowboy wanted to know how to exclude the
possibility that increased performance was simply the result of training
more hours.

Quoted message said:

Of course there's a huge learning curve
understanding the intricacies and subtleties.

Actually, I think the learning curve was easier than learning the
intricacies and subtleties of using a HRM.

Bill Westphal said:

When the older polar works it's okay for ride comparison, but they're
not very accurate or consistant.

I beg to differ. I have over 3 years of "consistent" power data from
a Polar PM (including "head to head" comparisons with a PT wheel) that
says exactly the opposite.

When set up properly, the older Polar PMs are accurate AND consistent.

Tom