Originally Posted by
WhyFi
Oh, don't misunderstand me - I'm not at all saying that I'm disappointed or that I don't find it valuable; if it were to break, I'd get another one pretty much immediately. The difficulty in maximizing a power PR over a given duration is a mild knock to my ego massaging, but not much else. I still find it quite useful to look at how my power figures compare over given segments.
How flat is it in your area, btw? I think that a steady, uninterrupted climb would be best, but I think that I could manage with pan-flat, too... with a long enough stretch of road. The challenge in my area is that, while there isn't a lot of elevation, it's undulating and it can be hard to stay on top of the pedals after cresting a slight incline and going in to a slight decline.
Same here. It's pretty much impossible to do outdoor interval training on our undulating roads. But I find a power meter is still very useful in other ways. I use it a lot for pacing. The only bike I don't bother with a power meter on is my mountain bike. I'm riding forest techy singletrack on that bike and wouldn't find power very useful to know in that situation.