Anyone ditch their power meter and just ride by feel/RPE now?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve used a power meter for years. I bought the Quarq Cinqo Saturn when it first came out and never looked back. I’ve used a couple of different Quarqs, a Stages, and most recently the PowerTap P1 pedals. Great tool but I’m finding it to be less useful on race day, or at least I’m using it less. My last few races I’ve barely looked at my power numbers and just went by how I felt. That has served me well. Heck, in my last race my P1’s didn’t work during the race. Not sure why. Worked great all year during training and my other race. Synced up fine during the morning in transition and then nothing during the race. My Garmin couldn’t even find it during a sensor search or inputting the manual ID. Worked fine after the race. Go figure.

Training is a different story. I do most of my riding indoors and have a Tacx Neo Smart. I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts. I’ve also adopted a more polarized approach to training so my one outdoor ride per week is generally the long ride and that will be at an easy pace. So losing the power meter for outdoor workouts won’t be a big deal. Only racing 70.3 distance for the foreseeable future.

I have read a few postings over the years about people no longer using power and going back to RPE. I’d like to get some feedback so I can make a decision with eyes wide open.

Thanks!

2

Yes, 99% of my riding over the past two years has been on a road bike (no powermeter, although it had one through early 2015), XC bike (no powermeter), and all mountain bike (definitely no powermeter).

My tri bike does still have a Quarq, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ridden that in the past year.

I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts.

I find that an interesting self assessment. I don’t think I’d EVER want to be like that, regardless of whether or not I ride/train with power.

3

I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts.

I find that an interesting self assessment. I don’t think I’d EVER want to be like that, regardless of whether or not I ride/train with power.

For the most part I just do whatever the prescribed and structured workout is for whatever plan I happen to be following at the time. Neo, Zwift, ERG mode and away I go.

4

Yes, 99% of my riding over the past two years has been on a road bike (no powermeter, although it had one through early 2015), XC bike (no powermeter), and all mountain bike (definitely no powermeter).

My tri bike does still have a Quarq, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ridden that in the past year.

^ That was me until half a year ago. Put my tri racing on hiatus and rode and raced the road and MTB bikes. No power, often no HR. Still trained hard, still improved. Now that I’m back on the tri bike I train with power, but I’m definitely not dependent on it.

I had power on the MTB for a while, it was borderline useless for anything but smooth-ish fire road riding. On anything remotely technical, the correlation between fatigue and power numbers disappeared - can’t measure the fatigue of 700m vertical loss on singletrack, nor the width of the grin that results.

5

I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts.

I find that an interesting self assessment. I don’t think I’d EVER want to be like that, regardless of whether or not I ride/train with power.

For the most part I just do whatever the prescribed and structured workout is for whatever plan I happen to be following at the time. Neo, Zwift, ERG mode and away I go.

Same boat here, exactly.
I sometimes miss the social aspect of riding outdoors, but I don’t have time anymore with kids, etc. I’m ditching my crank PM for this season as well, have never felt it helped me in all the races I’ve done.

6

I’m also a very big fan of PE. Like you, all or most of my training is power (and HR) based, but racing is by PE 1st, HR next and power last of the 3, although I do believe all give feedback that is important. I use each to validate the other, except in short races where all metrics are off. I feel power is best used during training, as that is the bulk of your riding, and it is a very good way to record and evaluate training in a controlled environment. If I could tell you how many times I’ve read a race report of a pro who couldn’t understand why his run sucked, as he “held power numbers” fine. Sometimes the conditions dictate you should not hold those numbers. This is a very interesting subject…

7

I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts.

I find that an interesting self assessment. I don’t think I’d EVER want to be like that, regardless of whether or not I ride/train with power.

For the most part I just do whatever the prescribed and structured workout is for whatever plan I happen to be following at the time. Neo, Zwift, ERG mode and away I go.

Same boat here, exactly.
I sometimes miss the social aspect of riding outdoors, but I don’t have time anymore with kids, etc. I’m ditching my crank PM for this season as well, have never felt it helped me in all the races I’ve done.

I’ve said this before that triathlon is such a selfish sport that I just don’t have the time to devote to social riding or riding outside much at all. I have to drive 20 minutes each way to get to a safe riding spot so let’s just call it an extra hour on top of however long the ride takes. I don’t love cycling outside anyway so hopping on the trainer just makes a lot of sense. So the trainer probably accounts for 75-80% of my riding. I just don’t know how much I will miss having a power meter for that 20% plus race day. Probably not at all. I’m not one that does any kind of analysis pf my power files after a ride or race. The most I will do is look at my NP over the ride.

8

I’m also a very big fan of PE. Like you, all or most of my training is power (and HR) based, but racing is by PE 1st, HR next and power last of the 3, although I do believe all give feedback that is important. I use each to validate the other, except in short races where all metrics are off. I feel power is best used during training, as that is the bulk of your riding, and it is a very good way to record and evaluate training in a controlled environment. If I could tell you how many times I’ve read a race report of a pro who couldn’t understand why his run sucked, as he “held power numbers” fine. Sometimes the conditions dictate you should not hold those numbers. This is a very interesting subject…

My last race was the Cartagena 70.3 back in December. It was unbelievably hot and humid, especially for us coming from the U.S. where I hadn’t seen temps like that in months (I live in Texas so I know hot and humid but not during the winter). This was the race where my power meter didn’t work but I wonder how my ride would’ve been affected had I chased a power number as opposed to following RPE and HR since it was so hot/humid. Probably wouldn’t have changed things too much since the run was a total death march anyway. :slight_smile:

9

I’ve used a power meter for years. I bought the Quarq Cinqo Saturn when it first came out and never looked back. I’ve used a couple of different Quarqs, a Stages, and most recently the PowerTap P1 pedals. Great tool but I’m finding it to be less useful on race day, or at least I’m using it less. My last few races I’ve barely looked at my power numbers and just went by how I felt. That has served me well. Heck, in my last race my P1’s didn’t work during the race. Not sure why. Worked great all year during training and my other race. Synced up fine during the morning in transition and then nothing during the race. My Garmin couldn’t even find it during a sensor search or inputting the manual ID. Worked fine after the race. Go figure.

Training is a different story. I do most of my riding indoors and have a Tacx Neo Smart. I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts. I’ve also adopted a more polarized approach to training so my one outdoor ride per week is generally the long ride and that will be at an easy pace. So losing the power meter for outdoor workouts won’t be a big deal. Only racing 70.3 distance for the foreseeable future.

I have read a few postings over the years about people no longer using power and going back to RPE. I’d like to get some feedback so I can make a decision with eyes wide open.

Thanks!

I’m a long time power user, have Garmin Vectors, Power Tap P1, Stages, Power Tap wheel, I was power wh@#re, looking at TSS , performance charts and all the performance benchmarks, pure number “nut” mid summer I peaked, and could not improve at all, no matter how many hours I put in.

last October I switched to training with Moxy monitor, fairly quickly I was able to find out what my limiter was (actually few limiters) my top end power (sprints) on trainer improved 30% in just few weeks by changing the technique, in literally 2 weeks I was able to hit my personal best, doing some simple tricks.

I can finally see when to stop intervals and when and how they affect my body from physiological perspective, I can see at warm-up I will have “heavy legs” day and adjust accordingly not to be heavy but have the same physiological load.

So far I didn’t get sick yet this year, I’m not tired after my base, I have better legs than ever.

My performance chart CTL dropped from 105 in Oct to 56 today, my FTP is 20W higher and my top end is 30% higher.

Watching power numbers is cool when they grow, but once they stop growing no matter what you do it is depressing… working with physiological feedback makes you more balanced and understand your body better.

Did you ever wonder during intervals why we do 2min@100% then rest for 1 min not 30 sec or 2 min, and why do we do 2min@100% not 3 min or 1 min or 5 min? And why everyone does the same workouts if we are all different?

And is the sweet spot the same for everyone? Looking at muscle oxygenation you can see SweetSpot physiological load is very dynamic number, it might be 88% one day, 85% another and 66% the next, depending on many factors.

I’m blown away why not many people is using it, Moxy monitor it is really holly grail of training.

10

I’ve used a power meter for years. I bought the Quarq Cinqo Saturn when it first came out and never looked back. I’ve used a couple of different Quarqs, a Stages, and most recently the PowerTap P1 pedals. Great tool but I’m finding it to be less useful on race day, or at least I’m using it less. My last few races I’ve barely looked at my power numbers and just went by how I felt. That has served me well. Heck, in my last race my P1’s didn’t work during the race. Not sure why. Worked great all year during training and my other race. Synced up fine during the morning in transition and then nothing during the race. My Garmin couldn’t even find it during a sensor search or inputting the manual ID. Worked fine after the race. Go figure.

Training is a different story. I do most of my riding indoors and have a Tacx Neo Smart. I train religiously with power and I’m a slave to the workouts. I’ve also adopted a more polarized approach to training so my one outdoor ride per week is generally the long ride and that will be at an easy pace. So losing the power meter for outdoor workouts won’t be a big deal. Only racing 70.3 distance for the foreseeable future.

I have read a few postings over the years about people no longer using power and going back to RPE. I’d like to get some feedback so I can make a decision with eyes wide open.

Thanks!

I use power when on the trainer…I reference it (along with HR) outdoors (social, alone, races), but mostly ride by RPE. I don’t really ride with groups much, but I doubt I’d care what my power was if I was trying to hammer, or drop a group.

11

I’ve had this “metrics” conversation many times with a friend of mine who ran track in college. My conclusion from all of those conversations is that the more experience you have training the more you can rely on RPE. He would always yell at me to stop looking at my watch and just run at an 8 or a 6 or a 4 or whatever and I would just shake my head because those numbers meant nothing to me. I could run at easy, moderate, and hard but I certainly couldn’t run at 1, 2, 3 etc. up to 10. He, on the other hand, could say with certainty that he ran at a specific RPE and consistently hit splits.

Bottom line is that the more in tune you are with your body and your paces the more realistic it is to use RPE and throw the metrics out the window. However, people new to the sport or those that just don’t pay close enough attention to the process and how they’re feeling benefit greatly from metrics.

I can tell you that I fall into the second category and would destroy myself for the run if I tried to do RPE for a longer triathlon.

12

I’ve been training and racing with power for about 8 years so I’m pretty in tune with power to RPE. The run is a different story as I need to pay attention to pace and HR more as I don’t have a natural feel for it like cycling.

13

Train with Heart Rate with eye on power and pace. Race almost exclusively with RPE and Heart Rate. My worst races have always occurred when using power or pace as primary metrics

14

I ride 95% of the time by feel/RPE (including many structured interval workouts), but all my bikes have PM’s so I record and have the data. About the only times I actually look at power while riding are in the first 3rd of a TT, while doing VO2 Max intervals, or on the first part of a long climb if I’m with a group that goes super hard.

15

I got rid of my stages for riding out. It was annoying the daylights out of me, and was too jumpy to rely on.
All by cadence and PE now.
Indoor workouts are wahoo so power/HR/cadence

16

The biggest thing I have been trying to do the last year or so is go more by feel. I have power and love using it but sometimes it is nice to not stare at the number. There are a few times when I will do intervals and cover up my power number so that I can see how good/bad I was at judging effort. For you, since you already have power, I think you should keep it but maybe cover it and use it as a guide post race or just use it as a reference, I know it is hard to not go by the numbers though! But for 70.3 pace and below I think it isn’t the end of the world to race without power since you are pretty dialed in and if you make a pacing mistake it won’t turn out as bad as an IM.

17

I sold my PM a few years ago and just by feel now, no workouts or any structured rides. That said, I don’t ride indoors, if I did, I would want a PM or at least a HRM. Did the same with running, ditched the GPS watch and just run by feel, rarely even use a watch at all unless I’m doing something really long and want to know how long I’ve been out or for tracking vertical gain. Obviously not getting the most out of my ‘training’ but I enjoy it more now and still get pretty good results (which is nice but not why I do this stuff).

18

Whenever I do intervals I can clearly see that after times pass my PE is not consistent with my power output. So it feels as if i keep an consistent PE, but the wattage’s are slowly dropping. Maybe this is something that can be learned over time, but for now I’m sticking with my power meter.

19

I’ve been without power for a week or so, due to my di2 RD going out on my roadbike, and my Stages not fitting on my gravel bike (not enough clearance on the chain stay for a NDS power meter).

On group rides, it doesn’t bother me at all, or any long distance ride for that matter. I can estimate TSS pretty well for those types. Last night i did my first 2x20 session in months, and tried to go off heart rate (i haven’t used a HRM in years). I hated it. I really missed the instantaneous feedback I get with a PM. I know i still got the training benefit out of the workout, but without having a number to internalize at the end, it felt like the workout had less meaning. I know that sounds stupid, but it is what it is. For the two or three interval sessions i do per week, i really do enjoy having a PM.

20

Yes I can but I have been doing triathlon for a long time before power meters. Last race of last season, I hit a wrong button and my Garmin tried to calibrate 1/2 mile into the bike leg. I quickly realized I had to just turn it off and ride as the numbers on the Garmin were just a distraction. Within a few miles my old internal system kicked in. But to be truthful I mostly use the power meter in races to keep myself in check on hills and when over taking another rider.