john m flores 

The paid version of Strava estimates power. My Fitbit measures heart rate. I use these along with speed and how I feel to gauge my progress. I'm not racing though, just trying to stay fit. I'd love a power meter just to see how paltry my watts/kg is compared to the pros. I did the math once and it was laughable.

penlu

I have a chest strap HRM -- the Polar H10. I just use it with Polar Beat on my phone, which also gets GPS data, though my phone's GPS seems to often be a little noisy. When I ride I just start the tracking and stick my phone in my pocket; I currently have no practical way to actually look at any of this information unless I'm stopped.

Got it back in 2020 to measure heart rate on foot. It works great! I know it's accurate because it has an (apparently archaic) 5 kHz broadcast option for sending HR to gym equipment and my earbuds are cheap and poorly shielded against interference. The upshot is that if I unplug my earbuds and coil the wire around the HRM while I'm wearing it, I can hear a quiet chirp (at just about 5 kHz!) every time my heart beats.

I've bonked after just 15 miles... to be fair I hadn't eaten in 24 hours. I was feeling great until I suddenly wasn't! My heart rate dropped from 190 to 140 and pushing harder made me feel like I was gonna pass out. I figure I ran out of stores and my blood glucose tanked. Felt awesome after getting home and eating starch.

A bike computer also seems like a prerequisite to get good use out of meters, so I guess I'll be looking into one of these instead. I read that there are head units that the user can program with a route and which will give cues for route-following. That would be a significant improvement for me when I go places I haven't gone before! My current approach is to stop and fish my phone out of my pocket when I need to figure out where I am.

In February or so I found a power-measuring stationary bike at a gym and tested out what 100/200/300 watts feels like. My sprint (pushing into what felt like a wall, 100 rpm, sustained for like 30 seconds, but in the saddle) is apparently 250 watts, which I am given to believe is lower than a fairly normal serious cyclist's FTP. Just given how much faster I've gotten since then, I am sure the numbers are better now, but I'm also sure they are still laughable!

Carbonfiberboy 

[QUOTE=penlu;23223394]I have a chest strap HRM -- the Polar H10. I just use it with Polar Beat on my phone, which also gets GPS data, though my phone's GPS seems to often be a little noisy. When I ride I just start the tracking and stick my phone in my pocket; I currently have no practical way to actually look at any of this information unless I'm stopped.<snip>

The whole point of instrumenting oneself is real time information. Yep, get a Garmin. I've always purchased my Garmins used on ebay 'cause I'm cheap. Riders upgrade and sell their old unit. Anything from an 800 on up. I just bought a 1030 there, upgrading from my ancient 800. Very happy with the device - much easier to read especially on a sunny day. I see there is a "renewed" 1030 on Amazon for about what I paid for mine on ebay. Snap it up. Yes, Garmins are expensive but you really get your money's worth out of them through more and better riding. You'll also need Garmin speed and cadence sensors and a bike mount to affix it to your bars.

chaadster

Good use? You're not getting *any* use out of a power meter without a computer. As I said earlier, the computer is the essential piece, the starting point. If you do not have one, get one, then start talking about power meters.

I recommend Wahoo cycling GPS computers because I find their interface and operation easier and less fussy than Garmin, though Garmin has made improvements since I last used one. In any case, the way Garmin Connect works with the devices and other sites is often wonky according to what I see and hear from other cyclists. I liken the situation to the Apple vs. Microsoft paradigm: if you don't get your kicks digging around the hood and debugging, go with Apple or Wahoo.

sir_crash_alot

A lot of great responses, so I figured I'd just share my opinion with the caveat that it is only that: an opinion, which is one of many.

Like most things in cycling (and life in general), when a pm becomes useful is dependent on your goals. If your goal is general fitness and just getting out regularly, you almost certainly don't need a power meter. If your goal is to track progress and become stronger/better/faster etc, then a power meter is quite valuable, but not the only tool you could use to do this. In fact, there are other tools and metrics that have worked for years, including among pros that could work instead and are more financially viable:

1. Training with a heart rate monitor can be used to structure your training w/ intervals, similar to a power meter.
2. Training to time trial: work on improving speed over selected distances, and use time as your metrics.
3. Training for distance: simply "chamois-time". just work on spending more and more distance and time in the saddle, and have faith your fitness will improve (if you're consistent, it will).

Personally? my favorite has been the power meter, but that's just me. It fits my lifestyle and goals. It is pricey, but it's an upfront cost largely, like a start-up cost that you only pay once and it pays back over time. But it's important to consider this option within the range of other options you could use to achieve fitness goals.

Hope that helps!

Carbonfiberboy 

Depends on what one calls a HRM. I use the term "HRM" to mean the sensor and readout combination. It's the readout that's expensive, not just the sensor. Used to be you could get a watch for $50 and the strap for $25.. Not anymore. Now everything's has to be way fancy with attractive whistles and bells. I like the Garmin Dual or Polar H10 straps and transmitters which also have both ANT+ and Bluetooth, connected to either a Polar watch or a Garmin bike computer. These 4-lead electrical sensors have ECG accuracy and are more reliable than optical sensors. That said, if your chest is really hairy you'll have to shave where the electrodes go.

terrymorse 

I've given up comparing today me to younger me. Now I'm focused on comparing today me to others in my age group (65-69). I'm moving up on -- and sometimes beating -- guys who used to thrash me soundly. So even though I am getting slower, I'm slowing more slowly than my peers.

Pick your fights.

Thread content: The power meter is indispensable these days. An increase of just 3 Watts on the same course is reason to celebrate. Those Watts don't come easy.

Yes, but those Strava power estimates can be far removed from reality.

Harold74

At this point, month to month progress is already so low, on a percentage basis, that it pretty much disappears in the noise of other things. Quarter over quarter (3 months) I'm still seeing about 1.5% improvement on a good quarter. Luckily, I don't require great amounts of progress to stay motivated. I just need steady, measurable, progress. This is the most helpful thing that power has given me thus far. I don't train to be fast on a bike. I train to improve my fitness. As a result, it makes no difference what kind of bike I ride. It only matters that I stay motivated to ride.


Up here in Canada, conditions can be pretty rough in the spring. Lots of loose gravel and debris on the roads. To combat that, I typically ride my $300 3X8 hardtail for the first month of the season before switching to a proper road bike. That impacts my ability to train my engine... not at all. If I had a power meter, it would be in the form of power meter pedals which would cost me about $1,200 Canadian. And I wouldn't hesitate to put those pedals on my low rent hard tail for the first month of the riding season. For me, speed is irrelevant. Motivation is all.


I've come to view my indoor training with power as a laboratory of sorts where I test out potential improvements to fit and technique and evaluate whether or not my no-power outdoor training is working. In addition to improvements in overall fitness, I've been able to parse out the efficiency gains associated with some common cycling strategies that I've adopted over time. All of these things have provided discernable bumps in Joules/Heartbeat:


1) Riding in the flat back position that better engages my glutes. This initially lowered my efficiency but it increased after an adaptation period.


2) Lowering my seat to level out my feet at the bottom of my pedal stroke.


3) Shifting my cleats as far back on my shoes as they would go.


4) Pedaling at low RPM for low power efforts. In Z2, I'm most efficient waaaay down at 65 BPM. No doubt that somewhat reflects a general lack of fitness and coordination on my part.


5) Staying well hydrated and eating every 40 minutes.


This evidence based experimentation is also a source of motivation for me. Could I have sorted all of this stuff out without power? Surely. Would I have? I didn't until I had power. I don't have a coach or even real life cycling friends to help me out with this kind of thing. All I have is the internet -- mostly this forum -- and the data that I'm able to collect.

rm -rf

Left side power meters
I had a 4iiii left side crank power meter that quit working 4 months after the warranty expired. They weren't any help to me, no repair or discount on a replacement.
I rode without a PM for 5 months in the fall and winter, and missed having one. So I got a Stages left side, which is better. No false 1-second spikes in power that the 4iiii had. (Now Stages seem to have gone out of business, surprising.)

I use it for many different pacing situations, for after ride analysis, and occasional seasonal trends tracking. I like it.

Simple analysis

Strava has some simplified analysis charts, but that's kind of a sideline for Strava. The charts aren't very useful or well designed, like much of Strava.

ridewithgps can show a sidebar of averages and a chart for any section of a ride. I just drag the red elevation chart to select. That can be useful:



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Golden Cheetah

For interesting data analysis, I like the free, open source Golden Cheetah.
It has a bit of a learning curve, but it's usable with it's default settings. It's really designed for training with power, but I use it for simple analysis of rides.

I plug my Garmin in via USB, and upload a set of ride recordings. GC will skip over any already loaded days, good.
On the Activities tab, I select a ride, and usually give it a descriptive name for future reference.

The Golden Cheetah charts I like

The Ride chart
It auto calcs best intervals, 1,5,10,15,20,30,60 seconds. 5,10,20,30,45,60 minutes. And major climbs.
I can drag the chart to make my own selections, and can give them a name.
the "W`bal" is an estimation of short term power reserves. That sprint I selected, just before our rest stop, did take a while for my breathing to get back to normal! It shows I used up my short term reserves, yes, that's accurate.

Double clicking the interval will zoom the chart to show just that interval with more detail.



A selected interval will show on the Maps tab with that part of the ride highlighted, so I can see where it occurred.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The CP chart
This is my best watts efforts, from 1 second to my longest ride. (Strava has a similar chart called Power Curve. Like much of Strava, it's not really useful--their design is too simple.)

I keep the ranges in mind for pacing all-out efforts -- what's my best 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes (which is a lot lower than my 1 minute), 5 minutes (the duration of many of the local hill climbs), etc.
For over 15-30 minutes or so, there's always some coasting, stop signs, etc, so the values are lower than I probably could maintain for that time period if I time trialed it.

It shows a dotted curve for my best efforts over the selected time period, which can be the current season, the last 30 days, a couple of years, etc.
The current ride is shown, and if there's an interval selected, it shows too.

Hovering over a spot on any of these curves shows the data numbers for that spot. Good.

See my notes added to this screen shot.



~~~~

Power-Time scatter
It's interesting just how much my power numbers change from second-to-second.
This example is one dot per second, with 5 second averaging to smooth it a little.
I just find it interesting, I'm not sure how this can be useful for training purposes.

I selected an interval, which shows in blue dots.




Other ride tabs
Bar charts, with adjustable bar widths from very detailed to summarized bars: Watts, Heart rate, Speed, Cadence.
The Map shows the route and can show the selected interval locations.

And there are other charts that seem quite technical:
Heart rate vs power over the course of a ride.
Quadrant Analysis: Effective pedal force vs pedal velocity.
etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seasonal Trends
There's a seasonal Trends section, with a selection of charts for tracking seasonal improvements.
It's Summary tab shows weekly numbers, maximums, activity scatter summaries, power zone percentages, total times, etc.

The Stress tab or the PMC Performance Manager Chart are two different methods of tracking training "stress" improvements.
These track short term and and longer term training loads. Useful.

There are Aerobic Power and Anaerobic Power charts, tracking best watts over the selected time frame. Aerobic is 5,10,20,30,60 minutes peak power, Anaerobic is 5,10,15,20,30,60 seconds peak.
I like these two.

Power: Time in power zones as a stacked bar chart, each bar is a ride. I've never used this chart.

PeteHski

To me the HRM is just another BT/ANT+ sensor. The Polar OH1 has its own logging capability, but I use it with a Garmin head unit. My OH1 was less than £50 from memory. When worn on my upper arm I find it just as accurate and reliable as a chest strap. But I find it more convenient to wear. I find chest straps uncomfortable and a pita to use.

RChung

I sorta have a love/hate thing going on with the Aerolab chart.

surak

Saying the HRM is needed when one has a PM is a stretch. There's no need for heartrate in widely used fitness measures like a PMC and its associated metrics, which are plenty for a regular amateur athlete to rely on for training.

Once I incorporated power, HR became a vestigial organ. Sure, HR has uses, but on-bike they're pretty niche for typical training. With power being an objective measurement, HR isn't any more useful to me than RPE.

And I'm not the only one with no use for a HRM. A friend trained solely with power to become multiple state TT champ in his age group.

terrymorse 

Power to heart rate ratio is a useful measure of efficiency. If the ratio drops during a ride, it's an indication that fatigue is setting in.

surak

Yeah but so is feeling fatigue at the same power. No need for a HRM to tell me that.

terrymorse 

Okay, as long as your subjective measuring device is consistently accurate. Mine tends to vary.

spelger

the unpaid version does too. and it does it not very well.

chaadster

I’m not a student of training programs, and am only vaguely familiar with even the big players, like Coggan, Allen, Friel and Seiler, all of whom recognize HR monitoring for evaluating the body’s response to training. I’m unaware of any program which totally ignores HR, but maybe that’s because I’ve never looked. When I started power-based training in ‘10, my coach used both and it made sense to me since I’d been using HR for some years already.

RChung

Umm, pretty sure that's not entirely so. Andy Coggan has repeatedly said that if you have power and RPE (and you always have RPE) then at best, HR is redundant; at worst, it's misleading.

john m flores 

I have no illusions as to the accuracy of Strava power estimates. I'm not competing, so it's little more than a tool to measure progress. If I go up a regular climb quicker and faster than previously, I expect the power estimate to be higher. Power after all is simply work over time.

And I'm not sure if the OP has responded to the question regarding their goals.

chaadster

I’ll take your word for it, because as I said, I’m only vaguely familiar. I may also be ascribing Allen’s thoughts to Coggan since they co-authored Training and Racing with a Power Meter, and I know from Allen’s Power blog that he said , “It is still useful to measure your body’s response to training and to compare heart rate with power data.”

https://www.hunterallenpowerblog.com...-rate.html?m=1

I also wonder if there’s not a distinction to made between elite athlete’s training regimens and amateurs in regard to HR monitoring, and if maybe one or the other of those guys may have been drawing on that? Personally, and in part because of chronic arthritis pain, RPE for me is not really useful in training, because I often think I’m dying even when I’m in low HR zones! Having HR is a visible reminder that I can keep pushing through the pain and get to a place where the training impulse is impactful

PeteHski

I still find HR a very useful metric alongside power.

RChung

There are many areas where Hunter and Andy have agreed to disagree. That book is sort of "you write that chapter, I'll write this one, and we'll bind them up together." One pretty clear example is that Hunter was the advocate for the 20 minute FTP test--Andy disavows it. The usefulness of HR when combined with power (and RPE) is another area where they differ. I try not to have deeply entrenched opinions on this but I am aware that "views differ."

Carbonfiberboy 

For the most part, I agree with you - for those who do short likes like your friend. However I took my morning and standing resting HRs for decades - until I got a pacemaker - and found that practice produced valuable metrics w/r to training status. I also used Elite HRV for the same purpose, slightly different metrics, also very useful.

On the bike, an HRM produces more valuable data during long rides than does a PM. PM measures stress in, an HRM measures total physiological stress, much more valuable on long rides. Sure you know when you're tired w/o a HRM, but then what? You still have many hours to ride . . . 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.

Another good metric for folks who are just getting into cycling is just HR while riding around. It starts out high and gradually comes down over the weeks as one gets into cycling condition. One doesn't need a many 100$ extra device to tell them that it's getting easier. I'm all for minimizing barriers to getting into serious cycling. I rode for decades, before power meters came into general use, and did just fine with HR. It's actually not necessary to do formal training rides at all, for which a PM is well sutied, just go out in hilly terrain and "ride lots," for which a HRM is all the information one needs, if one even needs that. Just hold the wheel in front of you until the blood spurts from your eye sockets. Devices can be a distraction from the work that needs to be done. I see too many riders on here, just starting out, who spend too much time worrying about numbers, when all they need to do is ride more. That said, if they find they can't ride more, a HRM might be just the thing.

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!!!

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.

For example, suppose you're climbing a 10% hill at 11 km/h. 10% * 11 = 1.1, and 1.1 * 3 = 3.3, so you'd need to be producing 3.3 watts/kg. If you measure in mph, 11 km/h is about 6.5 mph, and 10% * 6.5 = 0.65. 0.65 * 5 = 3.25 watts/kg. So the only thing you really have to remember is 3 if you measure in km/h or 5 if you measure in mph.

Of course, sometimes when you're climbing up a steep hill it's hard to do arithmetic, so there's that.