Originally Posted by
Dalai
As long as you have basic knowledge of training periodisation, training zones and testing methodologies (or just pay a coach) you can easily benefit from having a PM.
In regards to 'PM on every bike" - I personally don't think you need to record every session, only the key sessions to get huge benefit. Once your RPE meter is calibrated, it is easy to ride the other days at the appropriate effort and if really want to track TSS just manually estimate and add these to your training log.
I have to be a little careful here, I am coached and it is highly likely he stalks around here
. It has been suggested that I need to get a power meter. Being good a good engineer I do agree that more data means more informed decisions (if properly analyzed and applied). But there's the old school part of me that came of age at a time when computers were a luxury, I did not have one for many years. What I have now isn't much speed cadence distance combined with a fairly fancy heart rate monitor. But with testing, that data and my account of the workout gives a pretty good picture of what's happening. It was discovered that my RPE may be a bit on the low side likely because of my past. Can't say definitively I pulled out of the pedal at the beginning of the last stage
although the test was technically over by then I hadn't yet hit what I felt was a maximal effort IE I was still upright.
For me it's validation. No body is standing over me cracking a whip so it's my evidence that the effort was made. Sending it up to training peaks so it can be analyzed is a part of the fun. Unless I scored a 1.1+ IF on those days when I'm supposed to be making a hard effort I'm disappointed. Much like the old days of gauging your effort by how long it took to walk normally again after a ride. I still do that also
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