I’ve been thinking about splashing out on a power meter for a few years, but haven’t been able to convince myself I’d get much use out of one. One reason I’ve held back is that most of the bikes I’ve ridden have been a bit unusual (different wheel sizes and chainsets etc), so that a power meter which works on one wouldn’t on the others. However, there’s more choice nowadays, plus prices have reduced a bit.

I’m not a racer, but have tended to ride audaxes when I can get the time to do so. One of my ambitions is to be able to get around an audax at the 30kph (18mph) maximum allowed speed. I tend to follow a fairly unstructured training plan these days, although I did work with a BCF coach for a year or so. However, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a massive increase in performance.

If I’m being honest, one of the main reasons I’d like a power meter is simply down to curiosity. I’d just like to see what sort of power I can put out on a ride, and to see why I’m so far off the pace compared with the time trialists I read about.

I know power meters are simply a tool to train with, and I wonder if I’d ever get my head around the figures, and be able to work out a training plan. Every time I read an explanation of ‘training with power’ or look at other riders’ training charts, I feel my eyes glazing over.

Anyway, I’d appreciate hearing about your experiences – did it make a lot of difference to the way you train, and did you see a noticeable improvement as a result, or did you stop using it after the initial interest wore off?

There’s a maximum speed limit for audaxes? What happens if you exceed it? 😕

You get out what you put in. You either need to spend time learning what it’s telling you, or pay someone else to do it for you. Won’t magically improve your performance, as I think you know.

Ive had a PowerTap for 5 years, it is excellent when you want to do targeted training, or measure your progression, otherwise it’s just numbers.

There’s a maximum speed limit for audaxes? What happens if you exceed it?

Its to do with control opening/closing times, if you’re early you can wait for it to open or just bounce it and carry on.

As njee20 says it is just numbers unless you get a handle on what it all means, pointless to compare your power to others size, shape, weight and position on bike make a huge difference.
However saying all that my wife and I got stages power meters this year, first time power meter users, with exactly the same intentions as you.
Once you get a base test in the rest can be fairly simple, it’s made road riding more interesting for us as rarely use ave speed and mileage as a measure of a ride, it’s all about the power 😉
There is a lot of information out there which can be confusing but I for one do like to have a power figure to work with, doesn’t matter if tailwind or headwind you know what you are doing and heart rate can be very slow to react if ever do intervals.

Thanks. That’s helpful.

I’ll have to have another read of the power meter training manuals and see if I can understand it. From what I remember you do a time trial over 20 mins or so, and that gives you an FTP figure from which you can base training rides. Is it more straightforward to ride at a percentage of FTP rather than a percentage of maximum heart rate? I suppose it might also help to monitor effort on long rides.

Riding at a constant power output is far harder than a constant HR because response is so much faster.

You get to a very short rise, get out of the saddle for 2 pedal strkoes and your HR maybe increases 1-2bpm, you power output can triple instantly.

To do steady power stuff I’d never look at less than 3 second power, and 10 or even 30 second can be easier to smooth it a bit.

It is the ultimate pacing tool for time trials and what not, can be used for longer rides too, but you obviously need to know what you can actually hold for that to be of use.

Edit: also bear in mind that the vast majority of power meters are not entirely fit and forget – you’ll need to calibrate/zero them at least once a ride, or you’ll get reams of meaningless data!

For audax events longer rides, I’m happy with my Powercal HR monitor. Normalized (i.e. average) power up to a point in a ride tends to be accurate enough to tell me how hard I have worked on the ride. 30 second power isn’t too bad. It isn’t really suited to interval training 😉

I also have a Stages, and find it useful for some training, but if you want to train in a controlled fashion, Trainer Road on the turbo is probably more reproducible (no traffic, wind, hills), far cheaper and less likely to fail.

One of the guys I cycle with is somewhat obsessed with power meters – he’s blogged about it here: Jon’s Blog

You might need to navigate back a bit to see the bits where he’s compared them directly but there’s a fair bit of information there. (Or drop him a mail). I think he’s compared / evaluated about half a dozen different direct and indirect measurement meters.

Thanks. He seems a good chap to know! He’s not a million miles away either, and he’s also got an iBike, which is something I’ve been interested in, if it could be mounted on my recumbent where I could read the display.

My 2p – Read the Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan Phd book, it is literally everything you need.

I really hate to bad mouth companies in open forum however do yourself a favour and avoid the powertap G3. My experience is that it’s failure prone and the speedy palligap warranty spoken of in years past is just that, a thing of the past. It failed 3 times in the first year on the last time I got my money back. When you spend that kind of money you expect the thing to last at least 1 training block.

They’re a fantastic resource and the data they pump out is really interesting. It’s doubtless that others will disagree with my experiences however Powertap / Paligap have put me off the concept of powermeters until either reliability increases or prices drop.

No you’re right – G3s are cack, and I think it’s because of that that Paligap are now snowed under and not as quick as they used to be.

Kind of the conclusion I drew but when you buy a top line product and spend that much cash it tends to make you less sympathetic to the dilemma the manufacturer finds themselves in.

Mmm, my 5 year old PT is back at Paligap getting fixed (or rather condemned I suspect) right now. It’s taken them a week to email with acknowledgement of receipt!

I have four mates with Stages and they’ve all had to be sent back due to battery problems. Some of them on multiple occasions. Needless to say none of them are impressed.

Good to know about the PowerTaps. I also remember reading that they can get through bearings quite quickly, and they need to be replaced by Paligap.

I suppose there can be problems with all units. It’s difficult to weigh them all up, especially with different requirements for different bikes. The Garmin Vector S (left pedal) might be okay, although it requires Look cleats which I’m not currently using. However, I suspect I have a bit of left/right leg imbalance, so a left-side-only power meter might not be ideal. I also wonder if the SRM is worth the high price. However, I currently have road triples on a couple of bikes, so would need to think about something like a 36/52 double instead. I’d probably have gone with an iBike before, but for the fact that it needs to be mounted level – I wouldn’t be able to see the display on my recumbent.

Good to know about the PowerTaps. I also remember reading that they can get through bearings quite quickly, and they need to be replaced by Paligap.

They do, but can easily be done DIY. The newer ones are DT240 hubs basically, so bearing longevity should be vastly superior, it’s the expensive non-serviceable bits that have got shit. Annoyingly!

I’d say an SRM is massive overkill for someone dipping a toe into power training. Get a Stages and spend £2000 on training!

Personally I’m still waiting to see on the 4iiii Precision, looks to tick all the boxes to me.

It’s the same as training with HR, but it’s a much better metric. Your power is what you actually want to be measuring, we just use HR cos the monitors are much cheaper. HR is proportional to power output but also a lot of other things, and it’s slow to react.

You can do 30s sprints or even 10s sprints at a target power – you can’t do that with HR.

Second the comment about the new G3. I got one of the newer old Pro ones recently with the G3 cap thing, couldn’t get a consistent ANT+ connection from it so it went back. Got a Vector S instead (as I couldn’t wait on 4iiii) and am very happy with it so far (but then I used Look pedals anyway.)

Also got an older PowerTap Pro and a Power2Max. The old Pro has been going for a few years now on the turbo. The Power2Max has only seen a few ride, it’s a nice bit of kit but can’t really comment on long term performance. I have a PowerCal too, which is pretty good for NP and TSS, but I wouldn’t try and ride to the power it displays (it’s actually not too bad on 30s but that’s a pretty long lag on effort.)

Power really is the best way to train. Certainly if you want to get the most out of your training time. Though TBH if it’s only a curiosity thing you could save a lot of cash and just get a PowerCal (or wait a bit and get a 4iiii.)

Best thing about power is it eliminates any guess work and it tells you exactly where you are with your training & racing. If you do venture here’s some tips etc, don’t ever compare yourself this is a fruitless exercise & will probably demoralise you and it’s not the reason why you use power. Remember power fluctuates over time & what your FTP is at one stage of the year will be different at another, this is why it’s used to such effect to peak for chosen events. It isn’t rocket science read the book as mentioned get to grips with the basics and then move forward. My suggestion though would be the same as mrblooby it’s a lot of money just for curiosity, if that what you wanna quench just go to a lab and pay for a ramp test when you feel your fittest or hire one ? Good luck

I might have a Powercal up for sale shortly as I have just bought a Stages. 😉

I bought it to see if it can help me improve my race speed – by training more specifically in a limited amount of time. However, I’m not sure about it yet, cos I (used to) do a chunk of training using trainerroad with virtual power – and then it seems to me that training by heart rate zone is fine out on the open road for endurance rides.

But we’re all interested in gadgets right? 🙂

If you’re really just curious have you considered hiring one? A guy I ride with occasionally hires one in the Spring to see where he’s at and what “needs done”, think you can hire ’em in 3 month blocks.

I think experiences with PowerTaps are very mixed. I’ve had 2, an SL+ and an Elite+, for over 5 years and they’ve worked faultlessly. The Elite has done ~18k miles commuting and training in all weather and is still running the original bearings! The SL+ has done nearly 10k miles riding and racing. Some people seem to look at ’em funny and they break.

I also have a Power2Max that’s been on my race bike for about a year, though I was ill for a large part of last season so it’s not had much milage. It’s going on my Tripster when it arrives, so we’ll see how it holds up then.

Oh yes, I’ll second what gypsumfantastic said; Get a copy of TARWAPM.

And Golden Cheetah is more than good enough for analysing your data.