Maui Velominatus Dave is tapering for this Saturday’s Cycle to the Sun. It is more mass start, time trial to the sun as there is nothing like 3.3 km of continual climbing to sort everyone out by their power to weight ratios. After 2 km of climbing there is no pack and no draft. Everyone climbs as hard as they can and almost everyone is riding alone.
Dave has been training like a bastard. He doesn’t have a coach but he does have a power meter and an analytical mind. As we talked about his up-coming race he could not contain himself any longer, “I don’t know how you and Frank can train without power meters. They are fantastic. They make your bike an extension of your body.”
What? I had never considered this as a possibility. Isn’t this something we all want; the rolling centaur? This is a feedback loop: the brain to the legs to the cranks to the strain gages to the head unit to the eyes to the brain. The bike is getting involved here. The bike is telling you how hard you are riding it. Dude.
Presently I’m just riding with a V-meter. I’ve used heart rate meters and cyclometers but got tired of seeing how slow I was. I wanted to simplify; I wanted an unadulterated ride. Also, I obviously didn’t want to formally train anymore, just do rides that I barely made it home from. Is that training? To quote Roy Knickman*, “you are what you train.” His admonition is something Abandy should take to heart; if all you do is train in the mountains, that’s all you are going to be good at. I might have been just training to barely make it home but really it was not training. Training should be more work and less play.
We all need cycling goals. We all need something to get fitter for, even if the goal is as simple not to get shelled as quickly on that same climb.
Let us be very clear on the idea of training rides versus other rides. A training ride may not be too much fun and most importantly there should be a clear plan for what will happen, see Rule #71. This is where the power meter has to shine; it is the most reliable, direct and accurate instrument for monitoring effort on the bike. The prices are coming down and the model choices are going up. Here is a nice amateur guide for them.
The head unit stays at home on the weekend group ride to the café and back. That ride is why you did the training ride(s) earlier in the week. Don’t try to mix the two or you will be abused. We do the training rides so we can drop our friends on the weekend, that’s what friends do. And nobody wants to be accused of staring at their power meter when they should be looking where they are going, no matter how well they ride.
I am intrigued by the concept of the bike becoming more of an extension of the body through the power meter. Does this violate The Rules? Does this make you a stronger cyclists?
*Who is Roy Knickman? American Hardest of Hardman of the 7-Eleven and La Vie Claire era, FFS.
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@Nate
http://www.velominati.com/tradition/the-man-with-the-hammer/
@GogglesPizano
So marginal gains says remove the deflection. Any deflection is lost energy. If that's how they work then I can understand there being no loss, but if that is how they work I'd be surprised if they could detect low power as that would imply something of a noodle for a crank arm?
@Chris
No kidding, car free roads, not a pothole in sight, packed lunch from the restaurant carriage, bike carriage, helpful attendants, etc. Progress eh. Try to get more than 3 bikes on a train now.....
@Puffy
Yep, I can't speak highly enough of my coach. He has more runs on the board than any rider I personally know...former track sprinter and then stage racer in South Africa before moving over. He coaches multiple elite riders and has even had one of the former Rabobank squad come to him, albeit for his bike fitting knowledge. Apart from the training plans, the key to my success with him is his ability to motivate me through dark periods when I don't think it's going too well, to explain the science in easy to understand terms and to help me relax more as a rider. The realisation that I don't need to kill myself to be better has been a revelation. His service is money well spent and over the 8 months we've "worked" together he's become a friend as well as coach. Did I mention that he is also an awesome wheel builder and bike fitter?
Interesting question posed here.
I've always been a bit of a heart rate guy...heart working to pump blood to muscles doing the work of making my bike fly has always struck me as a more valuable metric to observe than something as simplistic as speed for example.
However, I think there can be a risk that you will allow the numbers you're seeing cloud your perception of the effort you're putting out. For me, 165 bpm had become a redline of sorts as time after time I'd soon find myself in trouble if I tried to keep hammering at this operating temperature.
And then, a couple of weeks ago on an awesome ride with a big group of fast guys, where speed and the moment distracted me from all else, I realized after the fact that I'd done more work at and beyond my perceived red zone than ever before.
Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
@kixsand
I can't look at my heart rate during a race. It freaks me out when it is higher than expected, and then my brain starts plotting against me.
@kixsand
And this is why the use of a power meter should be cautious. So to quote @frank (who gets more and more eloquent with each passing post)
@frank
@DeKerr
That's like saying that because the sledgehammer didn't work you should avoid the nutcracker.
HR is a blunt instrument compared to power for exactly this sort of reason. It doesn't reflect the work at the exact time that it is taking place, and it is itself affected by other factors so it is no more than a guideline.
Just a thought but in applying the KISS principle, has anyone ever been told simply to train with a heavier bike?
@souleur
True, the CogFather is, well, fuckin Eddy. Why would he need any such thing- he simply devoured anything in front of him? Gino was too busy racing secret message under the eyes of fascists to even be bothered with watts/kg nonsense. As a velominatus budgetatus I cannot imagine trying to justify a powermeter to the VMW. Just wouldn't go.