Originally Posted by
RChung
I think the comparison isn't PM alone vs. PM + HRM. I think the comparison is RPE + PM vs RPE + PM + HRM since you always have RPE. I'm sorta surprised that many riders seem to think they no longer have to think about RPE.
It's as if they asked themselves the question, "Now that you have HR, are you still checking RPE?" and they answered "No."
Good point. Having a PM for the last 9 months has really helped me to develop a finer sense of RPE. Our tandem doesn't have power, just HR, but now I can do a decent job of estimating my power output from pedal feel. That enables me to do a better job of guessing at time to exhaustion than just watching HR, which is sometimes depressed if I've been training hard on my single. More data is better.