gawd, i was youngish then. Thanks Robert.
It was weird, i started collecting power data in 1994 (i was 25 then) but wasn't overly sure what exactly it meant. I turned up to Uni (to do a degree in sports science in 1995) and it literally took a month for it all to come together. I remember riding a "Kingcycle" (there's something to google) at 200 W and proclaiming that this was about the average power of a road race (which caused raucous laughing, as everyone said it was way harder than that). Turns out that many of the road races i do are less than 200 W (and it's simply the stochastic nature that make them hard). i then started collecting data on other riders (gawd this was before stuff was downloadable) and worked out power curves and estimated powers from a ramp test for all sorts of durations. Happy days!