Doesn’t matter. There’s a new goddamn power meter that comes out every goddamn year that never makes it to Market. Garmin is simply the latest of a string of failures. Point being, I’m not saying these folks can’t do it, I’m saying that I’ll believe it when they start shipping product and said product turns out to be relatively accurate and easy to calibrate.
I’m glad I held off on buying a Quarq because it got bought by SRAM. Same problem with the company that Garmin bought who didn’t quite make it market with their product beforehand. Both good products suffering under corporate ownership for the sole purpose of not letting anyone else have them or license the tech.
I have some misgivings regarding the ability of a left crank arm mounted device. Foremost is the fact that nobody has a symmetrical pedal stroke combined with them choosing the non-dominant leg, for the majority of users, to base a calculated approximation of power from. Drivetrain lossages and rebuilding a hub every so often sounds better to me.
For the last couple years I’ve procrastinated over getting a lab quality PM/trainer, a gaming trainer with metrics, or a crank based PM. I keep coming back to a wired SRM being able to cover indoor and outdoor riding. Especially if I started racing would it be nice to have separate Garmin and power data.
On the other hand I prefer to ride by RPE outdoors without being distracted by what numbers my computer is spitting out. Sitting in the house during the middle of the Winter is where that distraction would be nice. Racing against Strava segments with electronically controlled resistance or being able to solely focus on hitting a power goal during intervals sounds funner in theory than staring a hole into the wall of fans blowing into your face.
I lost my Garmin 500 and really don’t miss it. The little that I ride is much more enjoyable without knowing I had to go for a Strava PR all over the place.
Interesting notions.
The best part about training with power is being able to quantify training stress. One doesn’t even need a display for that. Put the damn thing in your jersey if you must.
^ which i do a lot of the time
especially when riding with other people
I get the training with power as a teaching mechanism for how a sprint should look or specificity in resting.
I get that modern bikes require a different pool of thought from those halcyon days of classics being birthed.
I get the benefits of repeatability in training and to be sure being regular plays a large part in how my daily rides go.
“The Book” is something I will never get. Too much money recently relieved of flocking wannabes gravitates towards it. The illusive peaks are rarely conquered by a path given to supporting a broad avenue that merely needs to be borne out in discomfort. From the first you can’t surely pick out every step you need to take to reach something you can’t likely even imagine correctly.
I think subscribing to the chain of self help services that comprise independent power usage is bullshit. Most instances of information being portrayed as knowledge are. Especially among the older set there is a bad movement towards not questioning what is being left on the wayside that had gotten them this far. Last years domestic road racing season was risky as all hell and everyone knew why but couldn’t stop it from happening. Until some sanity wins out there isn’t much to be gained by thinking along similar terms.
^ wtf did i just read.
I read it twice… Still don’t know.
Rando’s posts are as clear as his avatar.
apparently the rest has done me some good
PR for 5 min power this morning
i think i broke a bone in my foot doing it though 
What is this “rest” you speak of? Can I buy it on the internet?
Uh yeah, too long of a day and it showed.
Short concise version is that most of the PM and aero jive is coming out of snake oil salesmen. The end result is akin to giving someone with too much muscle a destructive tool to do with as they wish. Personally I would take a coach who could watch me ride for 10 seconds before making me go ride for another 4 hours while he scribes out a training plan. Then working with me the next day to correct some weaknesses that can’t be properly worked out without an outside observer. A good coach will ascertain how much of the out of sight training plan needs to be dedicated to correctly building form after determining how little wax on/ wax off mental awareness of your environment you still need to possess. None of that comes out of slaying more depraved monsters the deeper into the pain cave you can push yourself or emailed workouts that detail the battle plan.
It was a rant and hopefully that explains some of my thoughts leading into it. My personal feeling from those who have taken the PM koolaid is that they lost a key bit of individual thought by training and composing their ideas in tune with too many others. On top of that I’ve come across a number of people blocking out their surroundings by focusing on some goal/number for the day or other ridiculous shit.
^ Pretty sure a spammer got past the filters and is coming close to making legit posts.
I just was trying to make sense of what that was about. Better than average chance of me buying a PM in some form soon.
nope
it comes in the form of cute canadian vegans
and it’s not really rest
lets call it core strength work instead
wait so your secret gf is kenzieann
?
[quote=rando]Uh yeah, too long of a day and it showed.
Short concise version is that most of the PM and aero jive is coming out of snake oil salesmen. The end result is akin to giving someone with too much muscle a destructive tool to do with as they wish. Personally I would take a coach who could watch me ride for 10 seconds before making me go ride for another 4 hours while he scribes out a training plan. Then working with me the next day to correct some weaknesses that can’t be properly worked out without an outside observer. A good coach will ascertain how much of the out of sight training plan needs to be dedicated to correctly building form after determining how little wax on/ wax off mental awareness of your environment you still need to possess. None of that comes out of slaying more depraved monsters the deeper into the pain cave you can push yourself or emailed workouts that detail the battle plan.
It was a rant and hopefully that explains some of my thoughts leading into it. My personal feeling from those who have taken the PM koolaid is that they lost a key bit of individual thought by training and composing their ideas in tune with too many others. On top of that I’ve come across a number of people blocking out their surroundings by focusing on some goal/number for the day or other ridiculous shit.[/quote]
I’m glad you have an opinion on the topic, but your speculation is incorrect.
Training ain’t no thing, really. Just ride your bike lots. If you want to get faster, ride it more and harder. The only thing a power meter does is make your training more efficient. Many cyclists have some pretty strong and fairly inaccurate opinions about training with power prior to getting a power meter and using it successfully. Hell, that latter part rarely happens. Most folks just don’t get it.
In the end it’s not about some digital carrot, it doesn’t change anything, it’s just instrumentation, but it’s really good instrumentation.
I think the point rando is making is something along the lines of: “power meters have a tendency to encourage people to focus too much on power and not enough on how to ride a fucking bike”
or maybe that’s just what I wanna read since I have no money for a PM
edit: Although, come to think of it in cycling you don’t have a whole lot to go on to accurately measure performance on a day to day basis, so I suppose used correctly its probably a pretty good asset.
[quote=1percenttruck]wait so your secret gf is kenzieann
?[/quote]
haha no
but next time i see her
i will ask about canadian fj’s