Originally Posted by
waters60
Define “ most users “. Think of HR as a metric of what you have been doing and PM as a metric of what you are currently doing. Let’s say you are riding up a 1/2 mile hill with varying gradients. As you start up a steeper pitch and want to be sure you are either not going too hard or not hard enough HR is worthless. By the time you are done with a 50 or 100 yard stretch HR may be reflecting what you had just done but will have offered no feedback while doing it.
Actually, in your scenario HR is exactly what you need to make good decisions on how to ride what's ahead, especially where the efforts are extended, like a climb or hard, long tempo.
Yes, there is a slight delay in how your system/heart reacts to efforts, but it's just a sec or 2 delay.
Your HR tells you where you are within your own capabilities. If you're already into the red zone, knowing what your power level is, is academic. Because it's certainly not going to rise or hold for very long. Push further in the red zone and the inevitable 'blow up' will happen. Power numbers mean nothing if they aren't placed into some definition of the standing of your system.
Key to using any of these tools is knowing and defining yourself within the parameters and metrics each system provides. If that hasn't happened, then the numbers are just numbers.
Having both systems and defining/ knowing how you line up within both, is the best of scenarios.
If on your hypothetical 1/2 mile hill, you find yourself well into your anaeroblic zone, then how much power you're producing or think you can produce is, again, academic.
If, however, you're not yet fully Red, then digging deeper for more power, might be possible.
There are constant reminders of this, watching the Pro races. Very often riders get 'dropped' (actually holding their current effort and not reacting to jumps) and find their way back to those who dropped them. Not because their power was inadequate, but because they know themselves enough to not be tempted to go Red and blow up. Marc Soler showed exactly that, very clearly, in his recent win in the Vuelta, and in more than one stage.
HR has much to tell a rider, if properly understood, used and defined - as does Power. If one doesn't put them into a well defined personal framework, they're just numbers.
Ride On
Yuri