*What do you think is a more valuable training tool? Powertap or Computrainer? *
That’s a tough call. If you can ride outdoor most of the year, I would say definitely get a powertap. A computrainer works wonder for the long winter months, although many of the workouts prescribed by my coach are intervals on the flats that could be done on any trainer with the power tap.
Francois in Montreal
I have used a PT since it was a Tune product (1999) and failed if you dribbled any water from your bottle on it. I now own 4 complete PT’s (even on the MTB). I also have a SL built into a Zipp 808 wheel. It is the ONLY truly quantifiable method of measuring cycling improvement. I would rather have a PT and Kurt Kinetic trainer than a CT any day (in fact sold my CT on this site).
If you have any questions about training with power, feel free to PM or e-mail me.
Kurt
I feel better now. I thought I was bit PowerTap fanatical for having a race wheel, a training wheel and a MTB wheel. I was thinking about getting another wheel so I could have one wheel on each cyclocross bike and another on the road bike for cross season road rides.
Yes…powertap… switch the wheel between road bike and tri bike…also fun on the fluid trainer…like it…nice gauge for training…especially on easy days…so you dont push too hard…and with interval training… so you can measure your effort and keep it even over the whole duration of the interval.
yep. been on a powertap pro since Nov 2003. Had two 10% increases in 20min power in the first year, and I was already a cat 1. Another 5% increase already this year. Of the athletes that I coach that get powermeters, all experience at least a 10% increase in the first 8 months.
Can we get some actual numbers on this? I would think that a cat1 has got to be quite a bit stronger than myself, so…my 20min power is right around 5w/kg, so that would mean I would go from 5 → 5.5 → 6.05 → 6.37 in a pretty short time span. I’d be pretty stoked to go from ~350w for 20min to 448w for 20min in about a year and a half.
Awesome job John.