With training underway in the hope that my local XC race season starts up again in the spring, I’ve been looking at getting a power meter to aid training in conjunction with a structured plan (yes, I really am that boring).

There’s plenty on here regarding the use of PM’s on a road bike and specifically which one to buy but there isn’t much on their use off road. The nature of road riding lends itself to PM usage due to the lengthy spells of even pedalling meaning it’ll be easier to keep within a specific ‘zone’. Off road, it seems, appears a little trickier given the nature of the constant change in terrain, efforts etc meaning more difficulty in sticking to a specific power range.

Is anyone running a PM on their MTB and what experiences have you had in their use? Are there any benefits or is just an expensive nightmare?

For me it’s useful when I start anaerobic stuff on the MTB – this time of year I do more steady miles on the road bike. It’s more useful generally for analysing races rather than strictly for training on.

If I just had one, I think I’d have it on the road bike, unless you’re willing to do road work on your MTB?

Picked up a cheap XT Stages a while back and used a bit on the XC bike. You do end up using it differently to on the road bike. No reason you can’t ride to power if you have long flat bits I guess but that sort of thing is more suited to doing on the road bike. Shorter intervals are easier, e.g. hill reps. You could ride to NP based splits which would probably be a better way to gauge XC efforts. Though find HR based intervals tend to suit XC better.

It’s useful for post ride/race analysis too. E.g. how hard was that climb, what was my peak power each lap, how much did my output drop off in the later laps, etc. Which you can then use to inform your training.

Edit… mostly what schmiken said 🙂 I also know a fair few who do long (mostly) road rides on their XC bikes too, more specificity.

I use one on MTB most of the time, not so useful for XC but couldn’t ride a marathon event well without one!
The data you collect from them is very useful but will be course dependent in XC racing.
Iain.

I’ve got power meters on two of my bikes. Enduro and XC.

The riders I coach who have power meters also have the most efficient training and biggest performance gains.

Budget, compatibility and quality of data are things to consider before buying. Along with how you plan to use it! And, if the money would be better spent somewhere else (bike/coaching/skills training)

They are extremely useful for looking back and analysing your rides as well as being able to train more specifically in future training sessions.

You can also race with better tactics if your cool headed as you’ll know where your current limits are based on current fitness so you don’t blow up too early in races.

Having seen power output data of my own and also seen walk through analyses of other rider’s data, interpreting the data isn’t easy. Definitely useful on things like laps, hill reps or interval training where you can see and compare the effects of fatigue and HR drift against power. Also figuring how hard you can push during the recovery parts of a course and still recover in time for the next effort or knowing if you can cover the next attack.

Ive often thought of this question, and concluded it’d be best for short training reps or Marathon length races whereby id want to measure my effort on long hills. I use a 4iiii on my road / turbo bikes for training.

Id be tempted to put one on the “marathon” bike, but can you get a PM for GX Eagle ?

i have an inpower on my xc bike, find it useful for data collection after a race, and also useful to stop me going too deep at the start of a long race, used to affect in 12hour races, keeping NP output consistent early on, all goes to sh#t when its mega muddy and rains and can’t see the thing!

Sign of the times (and my current mindset) – I read the title and thought this would be about potential ebike updates…I’m clearly not in a fit state as as soon as I read the first 4 or 5 words I knew it was about fitness!