LOTS of screens to pick from on the 500--that's what I use with my Powertap. I have 3 pages set-up to scroll through--one has bunch of fields on it---time, 3 sec power, distance, speed, cadence; second has lap stuff--like ave power, distance, time; third is simple--split screen of HR and 3 sec power--nice and big with only two on the screen---great for when i the hurt locker!!
As for what to do--yeah read blah blah blah BUT more importantly is get out and ride and collect data...and TEST!! get yourself a baseline of FTP....

Ride with it and watch it for a month with no goals. Learn what you were doing so you know what you are working with.

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

Like another poster said, ride for a month and watch the data to get familiar with it.
Start downloading all of your ride files. You can use Golden Cheetah (excellent free software) to analyze your rides.
After a month, do an FTP test. Search for the "20 minute FTP test protocol" to see what to do.
Once you know your FTP, then go out and do interval workouts (2x20 near FTP, 4x10 over FTP, etc).
Retest your FTP every 6-8 weeks. The newer you are as a cyclist the more often you may want to test.

BTW, that was told to me by Allen Lim in a face-to-face meeting I had with him. I believe he's one of the lead engineers that developed the Power Tap, so I did what he said.

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

And don't futz with the garmin screens and constantly stare at your power while riding. I nearly killed myself the first couple rides when I got mine :)

3sec power is a useful data point to have on your main screen, BTW.

Get WKO+ or GoldenCheetah

make the CTL line go as high as you can.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Or Training Peaks, which is online version of WKO+. WKO is stale right now although an update is on it's way (or has arrived, I don't know, I haven't opened it in awhile).

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

I don't do web applications if I don't have to.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Ummm...no. He's not.

To the OP...shouldn't you have thought of this before you acquired the PM? :-/

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Why would he think about how to calibrate a PM before he got one?

Allen Lim does Skratch Labs.

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I got nothing.

Blasphemy! The desktop is dead.

*I work for a cloud software company

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

I second the folks saying ride a month or so before doing a formal FTP test. That way you will have a feel of "pacing" before you try to do a 20 minute TT. And you'll also have a "rough idea" of where you should be.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

Ditto.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I build web applications for a living too.
That is how I know how dumb it all is! (in many use cases, such as power file analysis)
haha

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Thirded.

You can pry my SportTracks (desktop) and GoldenCheetah from my cold dead hands.

I wasn't commenting on the "how do I calibrate" question specifically, but on the general question of "now what?" Unless the PT was basically given to him out of the blue, I'd think there would have been just a little thought put into how exactly they were going to use the tool beforehand, no?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

And no subscription fees if you buy the software :)

$130 once, or $120 per year forever.

Nice advice, but alternatively make the overall MMP curve go as high as it can at all durations of interest.

Yeah not as elegant as Jack's good advice but find a balance between maximizing training load (get the CTL line high) and building power across a range of interest to your events (get the MMP curve up). Manage to do those two things and you'll be in good shape. Just don't ride a ton of slow junk miles to prop up your CTL without enough focused work on improving your power curve.

To the OP, have you read the stuff on the trainingpeaks website: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/power411.aspx how about Hunter and Andy's book: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1934030554 those are pretty good places to start.

-Dave

Gotcha. You mean like picking up a copy of Allen & Coggan's book?

Although I am guilty of buying my first PT on a semi-whim, one of the people in my tri club who works at a LBS called to let me know they were going to sell their demo units (CycleOps wheel with PT and Joule 2.0) and did I want one?

You would need like 25 hours a week to get the CTL high with junk miles. Zone 1 don't give you no credit!

I actually noticed that focusing on huge volumes of zone2 and 3 this winter made all my short term power go up too, which I suppose is expected since your 30 second power still has an aerobic component.

But yeah at some point as you get near your A races you want to focus on sprinting and anaerobic capacity if those will play into your tactics.

It is an aerobic sport first though. Can't use no anaerobic capacity if there isn't any left halfway through the race!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

GoldenCheetah is my favorite.

I had already read a lot on PM and the different Pro's and Cons. The "now what" was to try and offer a discussion on the topic and not limit it to just a few things. I've got a gist of the "riding a month or so" to determine your pacing and power efforts. The calibration tips are great.

SW - Already downloaded Golden Cheetah last night and hope to use it a ton in the next few months.

Thanks guys

Yeah, I think we're basically saying the same thing. I'm not actually advocating a lot of L6/L7 work. But I know a number of cyclists that have built substantial CTL on slow weekend warrior plans and century rides that couldn't complete a Cat 5 crit or hold 20 mph for a 40K TT but dang they ride their bikes a lot.

It may seem natural to you and I to do at least L2 work and a fair amount of L3/SST and include some sustained L4 work but I'm amazed at how many folks I've run into that ride a ton but are scared to death of anything as solid as L3/L4 work for fear of over training yet wonder why they can't translate their big day endurance into sustainable speed and power on the bike.

So for my money a reasonably high CTL built on good work which includes some L3/SST/L4 work most of the year and perhaps above when prepping for particular events is the way to go. IOW, pay attention to both forest and trees.

-Dave