Tempo means time in Italian. Riding tempo means riding steadily, like a metronome. It is an important skill to have and since it’s Italian, it sounds cool. What it does not mean is riding at a constant speed, half-wheeling or killing it at the front. Riding at a constant speed is like having cruise control on in a car; the car seems to accelerate on the uphills and rides the brakes on the downhills. One would never purposefully drive a car or ride a bike like that. Riding tempo means riding at a constant effort, ticking over the pedals. Without getting back into the topic of power meters, riding at a steady wattage would be a good starting definition.
Tempo predates watts or heart rate or even the V-meter. If you are good at riding tempo, then you are good at keeping a group moving along as a group, eating up the road but not shelling riders on every hill the road offers up. Tempo implies some amount of pace. Riding piano is how every flat stage of the Giro d’Italia used to unfold. Riders would roll off the front to visit family waiting on the side of the road; riders would abscond with trays of pastries to be passed around the peloton. Then, with forty kilometers to go, the pace would accelerate endlessly until some Italian threw his arms up in victory. It was as predictable as today’s formula: break escapes, leader’s team rides tempo for a few hours, sprinter’s teams then ride hard tempo to catch break, and a field sprint ensues. I like the first formula a bit more. It is now a rarity for a rider to discuss his personal agenda with the Patron and then be allowed to ride solo off the front for a teary roadside reunion with mom, dad, family and cousins as the race passes through that rider’s village.
Riding tempo should be a sustainable effort. When your teammate asks you to go to the front and ride hard tempo, that is a different thing all together, or maybe not all together. Someone is going to get hurt now, most likely you, unless you have a few friends to share the work.
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@Gianni
He likes a good crash too. Remember this from last years Tour?
@Ccos
Fixed your post.
@piwakawaka Dude, you are so right, should have said "unfair." Still true about the Brikos.
@Ccos cooler than an ice-age to be sure.
@Gianni
so much so that it overpowers the wattage savings of a closed over helmet...
@VeloJello
Was that when my boy Ryder nudged him off the road ? Doh!
I don't have enough friends to ride tempo for a group... so I ride my personal tempo with feedback from a power meter (I'm too shit for a V meter).
Given how much I ride solo, I really should've gone for an aero frame actually. All the websites tell me how much easier life would be with one; it must be true, right?
@Gianni yup, no matter how much style you've got, you're no chance of withstanding a shoulder check with the Weight of a Nation behind it.
@Steve G
or shave the guns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnrE17Jg3I#t=212
@Steve G
If you're training - and I mean really training - based on power it's really quite difficult to ride with groups anyway, or even other people.So your sociopathic tendencies are really not a drawback.
My cycling buddy Tim is pretty good and in a race will be doing just as much as me, but we have different power levels so when I go out to ride tempo he sometimes just sits on my wheel because that's close to his tempo. Other times, if I'm doing higher-power stuff it just doesn't work so we start out together but end up riding alone.
On the aero bikes - there's no right answer. I've got a Ridley Noah and also a Giant TCR. If I had to choose one or the other I would take the TCR to be honest.
The bike is about 15-20% of your aero profile, and wheels are only 10% - most of the aero drag is you. The simplest things you can do to improve your aero profile are to wear shoe covers, have an aero helmet and make sure you've got tight fit clothing with nothing flapping. How you pin your number can have a greater aero saving than spending thousands on a wheelset.
You've got a power meter - you should be able to see that the difference between riding on the hoods and in the drops is about 20-25 watts. That's probably close to 10% of your average power. No bike will give you that kind of improvement.
A few of our guys have the Giant Propel and rave about it. Where I don't like aero bikes is in crosswinds or on descents - I find them much less stable. So to some extent it depends on what type of riding you are doing but overall I wouldn't rate it as a big factor until you've worked your way through all the other more-than-marginal gains.