Originally Posted by
OBoile
... Improving your power is the reason why people train. Sure it's not the only factor, but it is the biggest.
That may be the core of our disagreement. Outside of this forum, I don't know folks that train to do anything but be faster and/win more (they can be different). Power helps do both. But, certainly if power is the goal, you have a point. I think you'd get more power with the proper gym routine than on the bike, but the PM would be the best tool to measure that for you.
Originally Posted by
OBoile
Does it not make sense to actually track your progress?
If your goal is power, it makes perfect sense.
Originally Posted by
OBoile
And what's foolish is that you've taken advice given to someone coming from an endurance background and transitioning to a short event that has a large glycolitic component and thinking this applies to the general cycling population. It's also pretty foolish to use training advice from the 1980s. The vast, vast majority of cyclists, even those doing events as short as a 4km pursuit are spending far more than one hour a week on their bike. Yes, I'm sure just about every pursuit rider is also lifting weights, but I'm equally confident that if they had to choose between dropping workouts on the bike or workouts in the gym, the vast majority would drop the latter without hesitation.
Those that do well in the short power aerobic events can do well in semi longer, which is I assume where most posters here ride - in that 2nd group. Obviously the 3min mark is a combo of aerobic and anaerobic power, but the same individual can do well in both.
<3 min (Track)
3min -> 90min (Some track, Crits, group rides, pros and amateurs in MTB, cx, TTs)
>90min->300min (USA amateur RR, pro single day)
>300min (Fondos and Pro RR)
Multi day and depends on length of daily races (Pros in stage races, nutjob amateurs like RAAM)
I don't see the foolish part about thinking short time events and longer events in that 2nd group cross well. This year:
Colby Lange is a USA pursuit rider that trains under Chris with weights) won the Boulder Roubaix race this year.
Wurf I named earlier was a 7 min event guy (WC rower) now an Iron man guy. Sure, I doubt he would have broken the Kona record had he spent the time just in the boat, but I think he would have done well.
Of course they train a lot of hours a week. For a non pro competitive cyclist, on limited hours, doing a routine that decrease time on the bike in favor of high resistance exercises can generate higher numbers on that PM. If those numbers are your goal, you certainly need a PM to measure that. If getting Strava KOMs, winning races, being faster on the group ride, or lowering a time on a course are goals (like those I know personally) the PM may not help.