I'm after details of What you use and how you use it please.
Know a few on here use Stages on their cranks. Common to see them wrapped up with a bit of inner tube and tape / zip ties. I'll probably get a 4iiii to stick on my cranks when available.
What do you mean by "how do you use it?"
In the same way you would use any power meter?
Ok ...by use it I mean the data will be fairly jumpy on a mtb so require detailed analysis after. I don't think you can ride to a certain power on a mtb ride, do you set wider zones? Do you limit power on climbs? Etc.
Use for intervals when climbing? Etc
How do you find it compared to road powermeter if you have both?
You'll always need to do some analysis if you want to get the most out of it. You get out of a power meter what you put in - simply having numbers doesn't make you any better a rider! Power is very very jumpy anyway, it's difficult to hold a power without concentrating fairly hard, unless you're on the turbo.
Personally I'd not bother doing really targeted fitness training off road, with the exception of hill reps. To that end I've never really seen that much point in fitting a power meter to the MTB, although I'd be interested in the numbers retrospectively. If you only have a mountain bike, and want to train as efficiently as possible then go nuts.
Yep understand how to use power and analyse it, Iv a few mtb files from friends that I'm currently looking at but you have to get a lot deeper into a mtb file compared to road then turbo.
I was just curious to the usefulness of one off road? I read that some 24 hour off road racers use them ?
Kinda makes sense for 12/24 hour racing, but apart from that, racing is racing, either you go with the pace or you don't, same as road racing really.
If I only had an MTB, (ooh the thought), then a Stages would be quite interesting, but as said, its easier to train to a number on the road, and even easier on a turbo, so stick one on the road bike.
I've got the "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" book and most power graphs go up and down more times than a bride's nightie!
It seems that the data from a single ride isn't really that interesting, it's data from multiple rides/laps/intervals that begins to give up information. Unless you know exactly where in a data file you climbed a hill or whatever I think you'd also need GPS data so that you could use Strava or similar to narrow things down. Also looking at power on it's own doesn't seem to be very useful, it's power against HR or power against speed that you need to be looking at.
Referring back to the power meter book, even when the text points out "markers" in the output graph the data doesn't look that different to any of the others so it does need a practiced eye to get the finer points and how that relates to what was being done and needs to be done on the bike.
Knowing what your FTP is and how specific efforts relate to it can be a help but this is probably best done on a turbo and then you can transfer that knowledge outside.
I train with a stages PM off road. I got it to persuade me to spend more training time on the MTB than the road bike. It succeeded. I ride out to the trails so can ride a steady long aerobic pace and measure it.
You can use it for Intervals on the trails surely.
Break an XC race down into what it is. Our racing scene is usually several 1-2minute high power efforts per lap with little recovery. You can do this easily on a road bike but... A) Your MTB position is different B) It doesnt replicate being able to ride a downhill competently when breating through your arse.
You don't have to ride "to a number" but you can track your avg power on the last interval on your garmin for example so you can still use it to figure out when to call it a day or whether you have another wee bit in you.
One of my favoured sessions when getting closer to races is to do my short intervals on a steady steep fireroad climb which has a singletrack descent back to the bottom. Forests the world over are littered with them.
I've used it for CX and XC training by "racing" myself on race simulation sessions on a set course. Hit lap every time you complete a lap. Check how your power maintained or tailed off afterwards.
Incredibly useful tools for training.
I find a lot of people have power meters lately, since they have become really fashionable to have, and just ride around collecting data for no reason.
EDIT - I found it really useful, in CX racing especially, to determine just how well or badly you performed. The gut wrenching of a race situation clouds your judgement badly so you are only guessing in truth when you cross that finish line.
Yup - Stages on winter and race MTB (swap). My road riding is done on my winter mtb where I ride to a power zone which prevents slacking on downhills etc. Also used for hill reps etc when I used to run my HR up into the red then slack off until it came back down.
Good to be able to track power vs HR to see improvement (Zone drift) and to be able to reset power zones through doing my own FTP tests once every 2 months or so.
There's a heap of stuff you can do all contained in "Training and Racing with a Power Meter". I seem to have some form of training complexity block as some of those workouts are too hard for me to read/programme in my Garmin let alone actually do.
Have used a powermeter for last 6 years I'm a triathlete and it is a tool that I wouldn't be without. As you have said it is pointless unless used effectively.
i know my Ftp, np, atl, ctl, blah blah blah the above post is what I'm after how and what you use off road.
Cheers my first post possibly to vague but I didn't want to get into terms and numbers...
In which case the answer is "exactly the same as you're using it for now", perhaps without the pacing in races to quite such the same extent. As TSC says - you either go with the pace, or you don't.
I've a SRM on the current training bike, and have used SRMs/Powertap for racing on in the past.
For training they're good for cross as HR tends to be useless, as for racing...well you don't need it during the race, but you can get some usefull data back at the end.
EDIT: Just seen the OP's response while typing.. seems you know everything about power already so just use it the same as the MTB.
What you use
I really love my Stages crank and power on the MTB. Just over £450 combining a good deal from ze Germans on the left crank and the right crank new from ebay for next to nothing. I only have space for one bike so I just have a MTB that spends time on the Turbo and obviously time outside.
In a nutshell I'd say what I get most from my PM is essentially better self motivation when riding to get a better understanding of what I am doing and why (i.e. be more time efficient on the bike). I am far from the fastest person on a bike and only race from time to time but like it as a progress tracker as much as anything I guess.
I wouldn't say a PM is essential on an MTB at all and Trainerroad and a Turbo will be a massive help to most people I'd have thought. Only problem with trainerroad is that it is a bit of a gateway drug to being curious about power all the time 😀
You get out of a power meter what you put in - simply having numbers doesn't make you any better a rider! Power is very very jumpy anyway, it's difficult to hold a power without concentrating fairly hard, unless you're on the turbo.
Can't agree more. Linked to the first part about what you put in being important.... is that the the PM makes you much more accountable when doing intervals. There is absolutely no shirking away from not putting enough effort in compared to HR for example which hides little periods of rest or recovery. I do quite like the PM from the motivational side too. MTB races typically require lots of very short, very hard efforts and HR is useless for doing these type of intervals due to the lag in HR rising.
All staring at your head unit while riding does is get you your own dedicated [url= http://chrisfroomelookingatstems.tumblr.com/ ]website.[/url] 😀 From time to time and on smoother sections you can have a glance and think "I'm slacking off" or "need to ease up a bit" but there's no way you can ride to X Watts even along a tow path really. Racing is a completely retrospective thing as the others have said.
I was just curious to the usefulness of one off road?
I do do intervals outside on the road or smoother off road climbs (who wants to ride a turbo by choice in Summer? 😀 ) but analysing "intervals" on a tech climb would of course be tricky and a bit pointless. The goal of the first is to improve certain, targeted, physiological aspects where a PM is great, the latter is better suited to improving technique where of course a PM adds very little. Sometimes looking at the power profile and numbers over a specific sections of trail is quite nice to see if you start too hard, pace a climb well or ride sections in similar ways from one day to the next. That is far from essential and more something for interest I think.
the data will be fairly jumpy on a mtb so require detailed analysis after.
As above, any power data is "jumpy". You have to bear in mid that almost all power measures were created to model data typical of road riding. As such, measures like NP and TSS are not terribly relevant to the sort of data you get out of MTB power data although people tend to still use them. Nevertheless it gives a rough idea of progress week to week in that respect if you are mindful of the limitations.
It is quite nice to see the power you have to generate in real, outdoor rides too then relate it back to time on the turbo. There isn't much on Trainerroad for example with intervals over 120% FTP but most of the climbs here require 140-170% FTP for 3 or 4 minutes just to keep crawling forwards in sections- i.e. flippin' tough! Not saying you have to change everything but it does give some nice perspective.
I guess the final point I use frequently is critical power. Again, this is mostly from a motivational and progress checking point of view but also to see the demands of rides/ races afterwards. It can also be nice to see how many time you have to hit X Watts. Producing power is one thing but how many times you can do this is often very important too.
Excellent post thanks