Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy

Another metric I use all the time is HR compared to power. HR/watts goes up, I'm getting dehydrated, HR/watts goes down, I need fuel.

Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy

got PM results very similar to those previously estimated on long steady climbs.

Originally Posted by penlu

Um, so, I guess this is kind of obvious in retrospect. On several people's advice I've bought a Garmin Edge 820 off Ebay. It seems sufficiently feature-complete and there's a clear upgrade path (just get more sensors!). For now it just has to work with my phone and my Polar H10.





Very helpful comments. I hadn't actually thought too much about what my goals are. I think at the moment I'm largely just trying to improve my abysmal cardiovascular fitness. That this translates to increased speed on the vehicle is certainly fun, but speed is a secondary concern for me right now. I am still getting measurably faster on my commute just about every week. Last week, for the first time, rather than seeing a speedup, I saw a lower average heart rate -- the speed is starting to get a little scary for me. I am seeking advice on what to do about this.

To sum up, I certainly don't need a power meter to hit any training goals. For me right now it would just be a way to see some neat but ultimately unnecessary metrics.



I've been using Strava for speed/heart rate/estimated power. Have read a lot about how unreliable the estimated power is, but in the absence of additional data I've been using it to ballpark.

Many thanks for the detailed Golden Cheetah writeup! The bike computer is coming in a couple of days; I believe I'll be referring back to this soon! The charts have me EXTREMELY excited. Currently my primary motivation for spending money on a meter is to have the data to plot like this.



I thought I had been imagining this. Makes sense! Of course my only way of getting power is to guess, which is why I thought this was my imagination.

My methodology for guessing power in a steady state: I've thrown my gears and a bunch of cadences into a speed calculator, and the speed numbers into a power calculator. Memorized a bunch of music with known bpm to estimate my cadence while riding. Memorized a few of the table entries. With that I can get a rough wattage by 1. looking at my current gear, 2. figuring out what bpm I'm lining up with, and 3. adjusting for the headwind or tailwind I recall from forecast.



I'm totally distracted by the numbers & should probably pay more attention to spurting blood. To be fair, looking at the numbers I can get has also been a major motivator for me; seeing that I need less and less bpm to achieve a given speed is neat. And even without being able to see the number live, it's helpful to know afterwards -- for subjective difficulty calibration -- that e.g. I felt like I couldn't go harder but I was only at 90% HRmax for this segment or whatever.

I intend to attend my first ever group ride tomorrow. Will post about how much blood I spurt!!!

Originally Posted by RChung

It's a little simpler when climbing a steepish hill because you don't have to worry quite so much about aerodynamic drag -- when climbing a steep hill, there's a rule of thumb that gets you close to the right watts/kg.

For a steep hill, multiply the hill's gradient by your speed in km/h, then by 3. If you measure your speed in mph, multiply by 5 instead of 3.

Originally Posted by terrymorse

HR/watts going up can also mean fatigue is increasing. Some increase is normal, but a big increase may indicate it's time to dial down the pace.