Looking at purchasing one to help with my training/monitor progress.

Mostly will be used on the road bike in training sessions, but then obviously mtb sessions too. Idea is to get fitter to put down better lap times in this seasons endurance events.

Just wondering who has bought one and has really found it helps vs. people who have bought one and just ended up recording numbers pointlessly?

Definitely helps if you are focussed.

Power is better, but much more expensive.

If you know what the numbers mean then an HRM can definitely be useful.

i use one all the time, if my heartrate goes above 150 bpm i go home.

Used one on and off for a few years, got two or three sitting in a drawer somewhere…

To be honest, and at the risk of getting shouted down, I never found it to be much use. I did use it as well as I could, being quite dedicated about the right zones and so on, but at the end of the day, whether you measure heart rates or power, you still have to do the training.

My take on it is that it's the actual training that counts, not the way you measure it, and it can get to easy to get hung up on 'I did so long in Zone 3' or 'I did so many watts for so long'.

By the end of the time I used it, I could tell what the HR monitor would be displaying without looking; it just gave me a number corresponding to how I felt rather than any useful info.

What was interesting was wearing it for a weeks racing trip abroad; as the fatigue accumulated, it got harder and harder to get close to my maximum in races, but I already knew I was knackered!

An interesting toy rather than a race winning tool in my view.

I'm embracing the whole HRM thing now and I'll probably upgrade. I know/assume for example that today my HR was down for the same output. And it's been a great indicator of health before a race.

@shaggmiester, if my HR is 155 I haven't left home 😐

Use one all the time, but fairly pointless unless you know your zones and have a training plan that references them. As njee20 says, power is better as it reacts pretty much instantly whereas HR has a lag.

Perceived exertion can be pretty good too, once you are used to relating how you feel to the training zones. I can generally guess my HR to within 5 bpm when I'm riding.

and try not to do anything scary like riding off a curb as this will raise your heartrate quite drastically!!

I use mine quite a lot. Not for training, but rather to check that I'm pacing myself properly and will be able to last the entire ride/climb. Like a metronome. Otherwise I go too hard at the start (of the ride, or the particular climb) and can't finish. I can look down and if it's 165+, I know to slow the hell down until it's 150 (or ideally 130).

One thing that's been worrying me is that my max heart rate has been very high recently, particularly on long descents/singletracks. Yesterday somewhere on the North Downs I seem to have hit 223! I'm worried because in the past it's never been more than 210, and this coincides with me having become quite a lot less fit in the last few months.

Yesterday somewhere on the North Downs I seem to have hit 223! I'm worried because in the past it's never been more than 210, and this coincides with me having become quite a lot less fit in the last few months.

I suspect equipment malfunction & a spurious reading

I've been doing (rightly or wrongly) a couple of time trials with the local road club recently and found it difficult to get the levels of exertion right for the duration – would one help this, or do wind and other uncontrollable factors make too much of a difference?

and found it difficult to get the levels of exertion right for the duration – would one help this

yes – but you need to understand what the figures are telling you – lactate threshold etc.

and how do I find this out? Website/book etc? Any recomendations?

Google will give you loads of stuff to look at

I just use a HRM on long events – as someone else said – so I know when I'm over doing it

"I suspect equipment malfunction & a spurious reading"

Hopefully! But I suspect the 223 reading was accurate, as it was in the ballpark, and I've hit 210-215 before…if it had been, say, "850" or "2" I'd be suspicious.

I normally freak out when it's 200+ so to get 223 was worrying – a controlled heart attack basically!

Abba Zabba/Blind Terror rocks though 🙂

Use the one with my Garmin Edge but it's just a curiosity thing certainly not for training.

Why would you freak out if your HR hits 200+ when your max is over 223?

My max is around 190 & I regularly see 185

I would have thought you'd hit your highest HRs on the climbs rather than the descents

It's an interesting one isn't it?

I can't know when I hit the 223, because I wasn't really looking at my watch on this ride. But I never get above 195 when I'm on a road ride, even though I'm seriously exerting myself, so I think I only go 210+ when I'm doing hard DH.

I have Garmin GPS & Polar HRM's, both are very good training tools but as already mentioned a power meter of some kind is considered an excellent tool for serious training. Even second hand they still seem to cost big bucks so at the minute I'll stick to using a HRM along with matching cadence to levels of perceived effort.
It's good for making sure that you train in the correct zones, but it helps if you understand the science behind training with a HRM as there are a few things that can influence the readings such as cardiac drift etc. ideally you really should carry out some form of testing to determine your training zones i.e. max heart rate etc. so that you get the most out of your training and don’t over or under train.
The method of using 220 minus your age is not a particularly accurate way to determine this, although it can be used as a guide. I use a 20 min time trial as a way to measure my max avg. heart rate, I find this is best done indoors on a trainer as it enables consistent results. Make sure you have a good warm up first, about 30 mins at a fairly moderate pace with a few short hard efforts thrown in to get a bit of lactic build up then do a 20 min TT. Try to go as fast as possible and record you avg. heart rate for the first 10 min and then the last 10 min, the higher of these two readings will be your max avg. HR. From here you can then determine other zones such as you LTHR and which zones you should be in for base level training and recovery etc.
This kind of testing is something you should carry out every few months to ensure that you are still training within the correct zones and not short changing yourself. All in all it’s a good tool when used as part of a structured training program, I use it when on the trainer or when on the road, I don’t find it that helpful when off road riding XC as the power and heart rate rises and falls constantly due to the hard efforts needed to match the terrain so it’s difficult to maintain a particular HR zone but as all my intervals are done on the trainer or on the road I don’t find that a problem.

Just having a flick through Issue 41 which talks about 'perceived exhaustion'. This seems ok in theory, but something unrealistic to record unless you make notes whilst riding – you forget pain!

So generally, good to have one if you use it and kkow how to, and really only any good on the road.

Any pointers on features worth/not worth having? Do I need to be able to set my own ranges, or just use pre-set %ages of my max?

Use one for high intensity sessions where you are looking to be 85-95% of max. I find you have to work harder than you first imagine to get into that area-certainly when on a turbo anyway