The Power Meter Handbook: A User’s Guide for Cyclists and Triathletes

Heart rate and RPE tell us nothing about performance—they simply reflect what the rider is experiencing. When compared with power, however, heart rate and RPE also tell us something about the rider’s fitness. When power is high and heart rate and RPE are relatively low compared with previous rides on that same hill, we know that the athlete is fitter and faster.
OUTPUT AND INPUT
    There’s an important point in the last paragraph that I want to make sure you got: “Only power and speed are directly related to performance. Heart rate and RPE tell us nothing about performance—they simply reflect what the rider is experiencing.”
    What I’m describing here are output and input. Power and speed are measures of output. They tell us what is being accomplished during a ride. Heart rate and RPE are input. They tell us what the effort is to create the output.
    This is an important distinction. Races give out awards based on output— who got to the finish line first. There are no awards for input—who worked the hardest to get there. In fact, if everyone in a category is trying to win a typical race, input will be much the same across the entire field. Everyone will be working hard. Input will be high. But despite that, only one person will come across the finish line first. That person will have had the highest output.
    Both factors are important, but only one produces actual results. In Chapter 6 I’ll show you how the relationship between output and input is an important indicator for your training.
WARNING!
    Power meters are not perfect. There are definite downsides to training with power. (Sounds odd in a book on power meters, huh? Let me explain.)
    I’ve already touched on one in the earlier portion titled “Feel.” The “safety” bike (the successor to the “penny-farthing” bike with the huge front wheel) and bike racing, in whatever format, have been around since the late 19th century. Throughout most of that time, training and racing on a bike were almost entirely an art form. Athletes did whatever seemed right at the time based almost entirely on how they felt. They were magnificently in tune with their bodies. They had no choice.
    Today, however, I’m afraid athletes may be losing their sense for the “art of racing.” Bike-related sports have most decidedly become more science and less art in the past 30 years. This is probably true across the board in all sports, but especially in cycle sports. The heart rate monitor started this trend, but the power meter has taken it to a whole new level. Bicycle road races still demand a great reliance on feel and art since such races are largely unstructured, and the race circumstances and demands on the body changefrequently as the race progresses. One of the only ways to develop a sense of feel and art is through racing itself, as races give us the best chance to experience those changing conditions.
    Nevertheless, training for road races has very definitely become a science. Steady-state bike races, such as time trials and triathlons, and even mountain bike racing to some extent, are very close to becoming all science all the time.
    This lament may sound strange coming from me since I am probably one of the strongest proponents of the science of training. But I feel a bit of a loss as athletes change the way they prepare for and compete in their sports.
    Having a sense for the art of training and racing is a worthy trait that leads to greater insight into what your body is experiencing. I’m afraid that we may be losing that ability to some extent. To stave off that loss, it may be good for your total development as an athlete to occasionally—perhaps once a week—not have any numbers to look at during a ride or a portion of it. For these times, you can remove the handlebar computer and put it in your back pocket if it is wireless. That way you can still collect the data for later analysis to see how your “feel” for riding a bike is coming along. If your device is not wireless, put a piece of tape over the computer display.
    This leads to my next warning. For some riders—mostly the scientist-athletes among us—numbers are addictive and even highly motivating. For them, training is all about producing numbers, especially high numbers. That’s okay on days when training is meant to be challenging. But it’s not such a good thing for recovery days. Trying to keep the numbers high for these workouts is counterproductive. If you find yourself