Originally Posted by globecanvas

45 minutes of technical single track on the MTB for the inaugural power meter ride. Went really hard and was basically destroyed by the end. NP was right in the middle of Z2 and the zone distribution is totally unimpressive. 4 minutes each in Z3, Z4, Z5, and Z6+.

Granted I slept horribly last night and it's outrageously muggy, but still, that's amazing to me. I had to cut the ride short because I had nothing left.

I was surprised by the numbers when I uploaded the file, because whenever I would glance at the power in the middle of a tough climby section I would see 500+ watts.

So why is perceived effort, well not just perceived but actual physiological effort, so crazily much higher than power for mountain biking?

- Torque. Maybe this varies from person to person, but I find high torque low cadence efforts to be much more exhausting than the inverse, even at the same power output. On a road bike you can manage cadence; grinding up a rooty 25% hill in 22/36 not so much.

- Arms and core strength used keeping yourself upright, which doesn't go into the pedals.

- No recovery. Here's a random 3 minutes of power output. AP for this piece was only 217w, but there are 5 separate efforts over 450w.