I can see why it is an effective tool for road/tri…enlighten me if you think it is effective for MTB training.
I have been waiting for the MTB mags to buy a few for their test fleets…they are always saying
things like ‘this tire felt fast’ or ‘this bike climbs like a scared squirrel’ and I think a PT hub would be
a great way to get some objective data…at least on things like a tire shootout or a head-to-head test.
It IS really hard to ‘meter’ effort on an MTB. I will sometimes bail on a road ride if it looks too windy and
try to replicate something like a 2 x 20 Min interval with my HRM. I’ve never been able to hold nearly as steady
a cardio profile as I can on the road…even on a pretty gentle ‘training loop’ I have nearby.
The only place I could really see using Power on an MTB effectively would be on (relatively short) hill repeats.
Climbing a fire road for 2-5 minutes at x% of FTP would be close to a road efforts…but that is a pretty
narrow use case for a spendy piece of gear
.
I’ve worked with one dude that had one. Basically we had him do an all out race sim on a local course then inserted some subjective feed back into the spiked sections (i.e. i went too hard or i paced well on that little climb) then took the numbers from that and then created workouts from there that we could apply to doing on the road bike or MTB with slicks (the road is a controllable environment and thus easier to execute on). The PM won’t help with the skilz dept but you can use it to build in excess capacity and then be wary of how much head room you have left when encountering certain situations.
I like mine.
But then again, i don’t like zeros in my log/PMC/etc…
g
Thanks guys! I’m getting a PT disc hub from Saris at a reduced rate due to an old road PT hub petering out. I have enough road hubs so thought I’d get the off road one and slap it on a MTB or I might build it around a CX wheel and put it on my cross bike as I’ve got miles of sparsely populated rail to trail type trails that I could use in the winter/inclement weather and as they are flat I could get in controlled intervals.
I used an off road version several years ago in the pre disc brake era. I found it was usefull for post ride analysis, but not so usefull for looking at while riding/racing as your power numbers tend to fluctuate a lot. As Marky V notes its better for getting an idea of power zones and torque/cadence demands which you can then duplicate on road training. For example I did a comparison riding the McDowell race course on both hardtail and full suspension bikes and found out the full suspension required less power for the same lap times over that course. Its interesting that Velonews recently did a similar comparison and found the same thing. The problem was the weight and reliability of the old standard version of the powertap was poor so I did a 130mm axle conversion and sold it a few years back.
The new Powertap wireless mtb catches my eye, but its still pretty heavy and really increases unsprung mass in the rear wheel which I thought adversely affected handling.
Kevin