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Need of Powermeter?
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Hi Forum,

During the last 10 years i have been riding my bike a lot, and been running on a recreational level. The ladt years i have done some sprints as well. And i want more. In start May i have my first OL.
Thus I have begun swinming with a trainer, bought a Giant Trinity + fit and a bkool for additional training.

From Marathon and 300 km bike races i have a pretty good experience with taking care of my power. But Will it be the best investment for now? Or is it the sweet looking 88mm carbon wheels?

BKool states an FTP at 327W and my best TT at a tri last year was 26 min at 18 km on a roadbike.

BR/Jens
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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As an aside, if you can run a sub 19 min 5k and have an ftp in the 300w+ range - you should be easily going sub 2:15 in most Oly races unless you are an absolutely horrendous swimmer.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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You don’t need a power meter. If you’re doing 300 km bike races, you have a pretty good idea of your cycling capabilities and won’t have issues with starting out too fast and bonking. Definitely spend it on race wheels
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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Depends on how you train. If intensity control is a big factor in your training I would definitely go for a power meter. It is also a great pacing tool if you decide to give longer distances a go.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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Thx, sounds like the race wheels then. And yes, I am a really bad swimmer, I hope doing 30 min on the swim, 1:00 to 1:05 on the bike, and 45 to 50 min running. The run i plan a bit slow, as I am comming back from injury
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Schnellinger] [ In reply to ]
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Schnellinger wrote:
Depends on how you train. If intensity control is a big factor in your training I would definitely go for a power meter. It is also a great pacing tool if you decide to give longer distances a go.

On the BKool I am really using it power, to help not getting lazy, my casual outdoor training is more like a lot of commuting, always being behind schedeule.

I hope doing some 70.3 later, but work and three kids, limit my training time to around 10 hours pr week.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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If you're doing structured power training indoors, then I'd definitely say the wheels are a better investment. The indoor training will help you improve bike fitness but will also really help you to calibrate RPE and HR against power, which you can then take across to your outdoor riding and racing.

I have both, and training with power has certainly helped me become a stronger cyclist, but I still find that on race day I pace primarily by RPE and use power/HR as a sense check more than anything else, certainly at sprint and Olympic distance. If you took my power meter away on race day I genuinely don't think it would have any impact on my performance, if you took my smart trainer away I'd be a slower athlete. And obviously race wheels are a guaranteed time saver regardless of how fit you are.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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Dane82 wrote:
.....I hope doing some 70.3 later, but work and three kids, limit my training time to around 10 hours pr week.
10hrs a week is plenty to do 70.3. Don't worry about the huge hours some on ST talk about training.

cartsman wrote:
If you're doing structured power training indoors, then I'd definitely say the wheels are a better investment. The indoor training will help you improve bike fitness but will also really help you to calibrate RPE and HR against power, which you can then take across to your outdoor riding and racing.

I have both, and training with power has certainly helped me become a stronger cyclist, but I still find that on race day I pace primarily by RPE and use power/HR as a sense check more than anything else, certainly at sprint and Olympic distance. If you took my power meter away on race day I genuinely don't think it would have any impact on my performance, if you took my smart trainer away I'd be a slower athlete. And obviously race wheels are a guaranteed time saver regardless of how fit you are.
+1 to all of this
I like having the PM for reference but it's not my primary means of pacing up to 70.3 distance races. I didn't have one when I did IM but it may have been more helpful for that. I'd go with wheels first unless you needed the PM for indoor training.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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Power meters are excellent for structured training especially indoors but it is much harder to use power outdoors unless you get super serious about it. Even for racing I find power a mixed bag and far from a necessity. Given you have power on the indoor trainer I would go with the race wheels. Decent wheels do make a tangible difference in terms of speed and feel over basic box section alloys.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [Dane82] [ In reply to ]
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Also on the PM question. There is another important benefit of using for data analysis. Golden Cheetah has this fantastic report called PMC - I use it to gauge my fitness, form and fatigue, especially for the taper weeks. That report feeds off your power data - so that's one really important reason for me to have a PM.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [cartsman] [ In reply to ]
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cartsman wrote:
If you're doing structured power training indoors, then I'd definitely say the wheels are a better investment. The indoor training will help you improve bike fitness but will also really help you to calibrate RPE and HR against power, which you can then take across to your outdoor riding and racing.

I have both, and training with power has certainly helped me become a stronger cyclist, but I still find that on race day I pace primarily by RPE and use power/HR as a sense check more than anything else, certainly at sprint and Olympic distance. If you took my power meter away on race day I genuinely don't think it would have any impact on my performance, if you took my smart trainer away I'd be a slower athlete. And obviously race wheels are a guaranteed time saver regardless of how fit you are.

for sprint and olympic, I'm certainly closer to redlining it. HR at those distances I don't really look at. On the bike, I might glance at power to make sure I'm pushing hard enough obviously always factoring in RPE. At half and full distance, I definitely keep an eye on the PM more to keep my power within a certain range. But again factoring in RPE so I could dial it back if I'm not feeling great. But PM helps me not push over the range I'm looking at. HR for half and full distance, I'm just looking for my HR going way too high and never budging even when my effort changes.
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Re: Need of Powermeter? [mickison] [ In reply to ]
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Many thanks for a some usefull answers. I look after some second hand race wheels, and just keep it at max for my oly.
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