6/21/14 8:47 PM

Once you start 'spitting up a lung', as in hyperventilating uncontrollably, you have no more than 4 minutes before your power output will drop dramatically even if you continue to ride at what you believe to be the same extraordinarily hard effort level. So timing is crucial IF you wish to optimize your performance. This is why knowing the 'course' or the climb is very important, particularly IF you get to stop at the end. If you have to continue it is VERY unwise to go to that level of suffering.

When I do my hardest efforts, particularly when climbing, my whole body including arms etc will be totally numb for the first couple minutes after and it will also take a couple minutes before I can control my breathing. I once had a passing motorist stop and reverse back up to the top of the climb to ask me if he could take me to a hospital. Between gasps I somehow managed to convey the idea that I wasn't going to die and that the suffering was completely self inflicted and planned. After an effort like this I'm usually not the same for the rest of the day and at best it takes at least an hour before I can forget what I've done but the memory will surface very quickly IF another real hard effort is required.

Obviously no one will be surprised to hear I think a powermeter can help, particularly on flats and descents, mainly because it will not allow you to bullshit yourself into thinking you're going reasonably hard when you're not. It will force you to make more power when you normally and naturally tend not to and thus it isn't a coincidence that virtually everyone I know who can really hammer on a down hill, rides with a powermeter.

6/23/14 7:07 PM

So what about the old school heart rate monitor? I can't afford a power meter (don't race so no reason to), the the $45 investment of a heart rate monitor and the 45 second lag to a power meter can't be too bad can it? That is if you know your body, which after a while the heart rate monitor tends to keep you honest. Just curious as to your thoughts on it for a poor man's version.

6/24/14 8:21 AM

Certainly a HR monitor has to be better than nothing...although I haven't used one for about 8 years. I did use a HR monitor for the first 7 years I had a PM but eventually realised it was a waste of time since the PM was all I ever looked at.

What I did see over those 7 years using both was that HR could be misleading because it varied due to many factors not related to power output...things like heat, humidity, hydration, fatigue, etc. I was shocked to see that on occasion when my HR was supressed due to fatigue I could still put out very similar power to when I was fresher, but of course IF I'd been using only HR I would have tried to go too hard and blown up (assuming I wasn't smart enough to realise the extent of my fatigue). Same can go for hard efforts in the cold, HR will be suppressed and thus it is easier to go too hard. Of course the opposite could be true when it is very hot, you might end up holding back unnecessarily because you're not used to seeing such high numbers. Then of course IF you're dehydrated your HR will be lower and if you don't realise this you will push too hard.

Of course there is also the issue of how slowly a HR monitor responds to changes in effort...like IF you've been going too hard and thus see too much HR, when you back off to get the HR to come back down chances are high you will back off far more than necessary. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Soooo, with all of that said, certainly a HR monitor has significant limitations but with experience and knowledge you can at least mitigate some of those limitations...and like I said at the outset, I believe some form of objective monitoring is always better than none.

6/24/14 8:54 AM

HRM wise, watching recovery times from efforts is what I watch more so than peaks etc. Especially for
watching recovery windows while still putting out power, albeit less than the effort.