Originally Posted by burnthesheep

When I race (rare) or do WNW (more often than not nowadays) or do a TT, the only fields I see on my gps are HR and power and total ride time. Speed is irrelevant. Even then, the wheel in front of you disappearing to drop you doesn't care what your HR or power says. Do or do not.

I will say I disagree a little bit with the talent and talk bit. Folks like to have fun. If you're not a dirtbag braggart running your mouth and just talking shop, have your fun. We've a guy on our team that's a 4 that does every crit in sight. The 3/4 and 4/5 every week he can. He is NOT a sprinter. It's a always a sprinter's venue. He's worked so hard trying to make breaks or late moves stick and recently has figured it out and gotten on podium. We always LOVE his fun race reports on the team Facebook page.

Also, I see his Strava posts every week. It's a coin toss as to whether his 3/4 or his 4/5 race has a faster average speed. So, ymmv on that one. Nobody can claim hard and fast that one of those two is always faster. Sure, the p/1/2 field will smoke. But around here a lot of 4's are really plenty strong enough to be 3's but don't race often enough to get points. Which fuels the anomaly of fast 4/5 races.