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Training w/ Power
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 2009-09-17 3:16 PM |
Master  1547   |  Subject: Training w/ PowerFor those that train with power what do think the main advantage is? I am trying to learn more about it. Also, if you have a favorite link or publication talking about training with power on the bike I would appreciate it. |
| 2009-09-17 3:28 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
Champion 9407    Montague Gold Mines, Nova Scotia | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power This is a great free read: http://velodynamics2.webs.com/rcgtp1.pdf Shane Edited by gsmacleod 2009-09-17 3:29 PM |
| 2009-09-17 3:47 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
| 71 | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power In a race, it tells me when I'm slacking, and when I"m going to hard (especially on hills). After the race, I can look back at my race, and see exactly what I did wrong for next time. For training, I have a number in front of me that exactly quantifies how hard I"m going. Since I know where it should be for a given workout, it helps motivate me to hit it right. I don't think I train as hard without my power meter in front of me. |
| 2009-09-17 4:06 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
Champion 8540 the colony texas | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power I found out my hard workout wasn't hard enough, |
| 2009-09-17 4:15 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
Champion 19812 MA | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power Helps me learn to pace better and keep power even. Makes it a bit of stupid meter when doing longer races like HIM and IMs, follow your power numbers especially up hill ie not going to hard to set yourself to potentially run better. To many folks go out to hard and fade having power meter teaches you how to avoid that or improve that skill. If you have a coach that knows power you send him/her your files and they can evaluate your race and rides to help you improve. Doing intervals with power is the absolute best..trying to hit the numbers is fun...even more when you have both power and cadence numbers to aim for. |
| 2009-09-17 4:30 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
Expert 1170 Southern Pines, NC | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power A power meter keeps your hard efforts hard (but not too hard), your easy efforts easy, tells you when to take a rest day (if you learn to use it), and maximizes your time on the bike. Racing with a PM keeps your effort constant and keeps you from "burning matches" needlessly. There are all kinds of fudge factors in HR, speed, cadence, etc, but there's no cheating a power meter. A good idea is to pick up Hunter Allen's book "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" to see if it's something you'll actually use. It's a good read and goes over some basics. You DO need to be willing to learn some number crunching or have a coach do it for you--without analyzing the data it just becomes a really, really expensive speedometer. Edited by DrPete 2009-09-17 4:32 PM |
| 2009-09-17 6:48 PM in reply to: #2412537 |
Champion 7233 | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power a power meter tells you what you are doing, not what you think you are doing. i have never read about power for cycling (well i have started now, but a solid two years after starting training with power). all of what i use/know for the most part is carried over from rowing and using the erg. same principles, diff numbers. |
| 2009-09-18 5:52 AM in reply to: #2412389 |
Pro 4353 Wallingford, PA | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power So.... can somebody edumucate me on power meters? Powertap vs. crank-based systems? Wired vs. wireless? If you buy a powertap hub, I guess you have to take it to your LBS and have them build a wheel around it? How expensive is that (assuming you use a wheel you alread have, not purchasing a new one....) The base (wired) level of power tap is now in a price range that I would consider paying for a power meter, so I'm considering it again..... Anyone ever bought a used unit through ebay, etc? What might the risks be of going that way?? How old a unit would be considered reliable? Seems like there might be some pretty decent values, especially with wheel included. Thoughts??? |
| 2009-09-18 7:01 AM in reply to: #2412389 |
| Master 1963 | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power I think it's better to think of power like the equivalent of horsepower in a car. If you walked into a car dealership, and the salesperson assured you that all of the cars the offered go at least 75 mph, you would turn around and walk out the door. Speed and cadence (or RPM's in a car) are both not great measures of how hard you're actually working. To carry it a bit further, if you take 100 horsepower and apply it to a flat road you may only go 50mph in a car. That same 100 horsepower up the side of Mt. Everest and you may only go 1 mph but in either instance the engine is working just as hard. Ok, perhaps that's enough with the metaphor  Training with power allows you to take a lot of stuff out of the equation (like wind, road type, grade or steepness of the road, hillyness, etc). It's more pure since it's what you're actually outputting. Now you can more easily compare different courses and create and then apply a pacing plan regardless of what the course is like (for example 100 watts for 10 mins, then 20 watts for the next 60, then 10 mins at 100 watts cool down). One could drop you off in the middle of a course you've never ridden and you should be able to apply that pacing. That's different than saying "oh I want to go 22mph on my next ride".Many shops (including some of the BT sponsors) sell a power tap ALREADY laced into a hub so you don't have to do that. The downside to using a powertap versus a crank based system is you have to use that wheel (or get another race wheel) on race day in order to use power during the race. Wireless looks cleaner but wired is a less expensive solution (think wire from your rear backstay all the way to the handlebars). I think this is a good link http://www.saris.com/t-powerBasics.aspx I hope I helped a bit at least! |
| 2009-09-18 7:23 AM in reply to: #2413166 |
Champion 7233 | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power jsnowash - 2009-09-18 4:52 AM So.... can somebody edumucate me on power meters? Powertap vs. crank-based systems? Wired vs. wireless? If you buy a powertap hub, I guess you have to take it to your LBS and have them build a wheel around it? How expensive is that (assuming you use a wheel you alread have, not purchasing a new one....) The base (wired) level of power tap is now in a price range that I would consider paying for a power meter, so I'm considering it again..... Anyone ever bought a used unit through ebay, etc? What might the risks be of going that way?? How old a unit would be considered reliable? Seems like there might be some pretty decent values, especially with wheel included. Thoughts??? buying one laced into a wheel is always easier, unless you have a wheel that matches the hub you are buying. i have used a used PT, wired, for a year before i moved to SRM (got an amazing deal, nothing wrong with the PT). the powertap in a training wheel + disk cover is a killer deal for training and racing with power. a lot of people now keep complaining that the wired one takes too much time to set up, etc. this is total BS. with some electric tape it takes almost 5 min to wire the thing up. put the computer on, and you are ready to go. it has one wire, that goes from the sensor up to the computer. i ran mine along the chainstay, up the downtube, and to the bars. if you are not moving from bike to bike, zip tie the sensor in place/poss glue the wires. if you are moving, or dont want to glue the wire, you can mount all/part of the setup with just tape (i did this and only had to reapply tape once in a year). |
| 2009-09-18 7:39 AM in reply to: #2412389 |
Expert 1706 NoVA | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power I've just gotten into training with power (just got my set-up on Monday...) so I can only address buying/looking.... I did pick-up Training with Power to read and while I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet I've already learned a lot---it does a good just of telling you what a power meter can HELP you do IF you are willing to do the work. I had thought about buying "just" the hub and then getting it laced to a wheel but once you start looking around that didn't make sense to me because in the "lower" end of the price range you are talking about a wired powertap and you can get the "full" (no HR) wired set-up for $660---add $100 for a cover and you have a great training wheel that you can then race with AND still have power for $760. I did end up buying a used wireless system (complete) off somebody from the other board---it was a current model year with very low miles...I'd say the risk is the same/lower then buying anything else from ebay or classified sites----at least with a powertap I've heard people say good things about sending them in for service or upgrades (yes sometimes you pay but....). I'm really looking forward to getting my tests in so that I can get my power numbers and then start training "smarter"---seems like you will make better use of your training time since as was posted earlier---you'll know when you are going hard when you are supposed to and easy when you are supposed to---no guessing/fooling yourself (or coach if you use one). |
| 2009-09-18 8:18 AM in reply to: #2412389 |
Champion 7136 Knoxville area | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power |
| 2009-09-18 8:46 AM in reply to: #2412389 |
Elite 3088 Austin, TX Gold member | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power I had the wired PT for several years. I found a good deal on the hub on ebay, shipped it to Rich at wheelbuilder.com and had him lace it to a Mavic Open Pro wheel. I also had him cut me a disc cover for it to use for races. I think the whole cost of the wheelbuilder part was around $400. That was for the rim, spokes, build, and wheel cover. Setting up the wired version was easy, as mentioned above. There's no difference in mounting the receiver to the chainstay. The only difference is that you have to run the wire up to the mounting bracket on your stem or bars. PT even includes clear tape strips for that purpose. I switched over to the Quarq Cinqo recently and have been just as happy with that. I paired it with a Garmin 705 which I much prefer to the PT head unit. GPS, backlighting, and the flexibility of the display are big plusses. The new PT Joule is better, but I'd still rather have the Garmin. It took me quite a while to understand what I was doing, including several visits back to Training and Racing with Power. For me, the two biggest benefits were discovering that my hard workouts weren't nearly hard enough and that you're almost certainly going WAY too hard at the beginning of a 1/2 IM or IM. It took quite a while for me to believe that tempo and FTP workouts should feel as hard as they do. I'd do the FTP tests and figure out my levels, but then not work the sub-threshold and threshold levels. I'd plan a ride with 2x20' or so at 85-95% of FTP, lower level 4. Allen and Coggan call it the sweet spot. But damn! That's hard work and is mentally tough to do. Even worse are the threshold level workouts where you're doing 2x15', 2x20', 3x12', etc at 95-105% of FTP. Those are pretty brutal. What finally started to bring me around was comparing it to speed and cruise intervals in my run workouts. What does it feel like doing 1.5 mile repeats at 10k pace? Pretty damn hard. There you go. Those repeats and your FTP intervals are both going to be right around LT, so they should hurt. |
| 2009-09-18 11:38 AM in reply to: #2412406 |
| Pro 4054 yep, | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power gsmacleod - 2009-09-17 4:28 PM This is a great free read: http://velodynamics2.webs.com/rcgtp1.pdf Shane
Good read.. another great read on Power with some training plans: |
| 2009-09-18 12:23 PM in reply to: #2413814 |
Champion 9407 Montague Gold Mines, Nova Scotia | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power Dlaxman31 - 2009-09-18 1:38 PM gsmacleod - 2009-09-17 4:28 PM This is a great free read: http://velodynamics2.webs.com/rcgtp1.pdf Shane Good read.. another great read on Power with some training plans: I believe that is the same document However, another great resource that I've been looking at lately (especially if you don't want to pay to analyze your data is: http://goldencheetah.org/ Shane |
| 2009-09-18 12:58 PM in reply to: #2412389 |
Coach 10487 Boston, MA | Subject: RE: Training w/ Power Here is a good articel from P. Skiba explaining the advanatages of a power meter http://www.physfarm.com/inside/articles_planetx_meter.html |
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