I just started using a power meter on my bike and have a quick question: How many Watts are considered good? i.e. A pro, A podium age grouper, A typical age grouper? As of now the number seems meaningless as I’m looking at it in a vaccum.
Any thoughts would be very helpful.
That’s about as open ended a question as you can ask. My wife can go up Mt Lemmon at 145w faster than my friend pushing 300w.
Power is not as important as power to weight ratio and how long you can hold it. Lots of the pros have power thresholds in the range of 5-6.5 w/kg; AGers 3.5-4.5 w/kg.
Look here:
http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/...owerprofiling_v4.xls
Please read this first, however:
From what I’ve heard, many people train using power, while if you don’t have a power meter, they say heart rate is the other main way to monitor effort (obviously). It’s hard for me to get my HR up on the bike as I can on the run, which is normal. Last night on my trainer after an hour and a half, when my legs were tired, it was hard for me to spin at as high of cadence as on my first few interval sets due to leg fatigue, and but my HR was staying high. I’m wondering the relationship b/t cadence & HR vs. power & HR. It seems that I could have a high HR with low power, esp at the end of a hard interval workout for example.
for tri’s… pwr/cda… except at IM Nice and L’alpe d’uez triathlons. 
Right, but he’s asking purely, “what’s a good power?” Power/cda can’t be measured regularly for mere mortals with limited cashflow. W/kg can be, and a good extensive, funstional bike fit can minimize cda.
Right, but he’s asking purely, “what’s a good power?” Power/cda can’t be measured regularly for mere mortals with limited cashflow.
Why not?
Which is why training with power is better than traning by HR. If you train with power you should (for the most part) try to maximize power for a given set of intervals, no matter what cadence it takes.
Maximizing HR but riding a 180 rpm and low power to get a high heart rate doesn’t do as much good.
Styrrell
The number isn’t meaningless if you consider it a starting point for your training. If you do a field test and use it as a baseline, you can track your progression.
Like the responses said, don’t be concerned with what other people do.