Originally Posted by
rmueller
Just curios, why is such a device necessary when most of the sites will estimate power albeit post ride. I can see if you are all pro and need every last watt squeezed out of the machine (you+bike mechanics), but for a ride in the park...what am I missing.
the reason I got a power meter was to keep track of my training stress. If it's too high, I need to cut back. It is also useful to tell if I'm getting too far into the red. Most of my structured training is on a trainer in my basement. If I'm doing a lot of road riding, then I modify what I'm doing on the trainer.
I got an old power meter that doesn't talk to my gps, so for now I'm estimating training stress on trainerroad for my road rides. Strava is bad at estimating power, from what I have seen comparing what I have seen on the power meter head unit and the same ride on Strava.
The value of the power meter is that I can now estimate my power output from my perceived level of effort quite a bit better.