Anyone can benefit

Any level of rider can benefit from having power data to work with – from a sportive rider training for an event like the Etape du Tour or first-time race, to a WorldTour pro or Olympic  track rider.

A power meter will highlight areas for improvement and allow you to work on those areas with greater precision. As long as you have a goal to work towards, training with power ensures you are getting the most out of the work you put in, helping you to complete the Etape or make that race-winning breakaway.

However, one key point to note is that a power meter is only a tool – the data provided is only useful if you put in the hard work yourself. It takes commitment and won’t do the hard work for you.

You can track improvements

Which bring us onto our second reason to use a power meter – you can track improvement in your riding.

As we’ve already covered, your heart rate may not vary much from when you are in great form compared to when you are going terribly. Heart rate is influenced by a large number of factors – sleep, fatigue, hydration, nerves and heat to name but a few – and therefore isn’t a reliable gauge of form of fitness.

Your threshold heart rate is a great example of this – your heart rate when riding a time trial may only vary by a few beats over the course of a season. However, your power could fluctuate by as much as 10-20 per cent. You might even find that at the start of the season your heart rate will go higher – this doesn’t necessarily mean you were going better than later in the season. The problem is, we just don’t know.

Having a power meter means you can measure exactly how much power you are putting out and what the physiological cost (i.e. heart rate)  is if of that power output. If in January you can ride for 20 mins at 250 watts with a heart rate of 175 bpm but that improves in April to 265 watts with an average heart rate of 172 bpm, then there is an obvious improvement and you know your training is working.

You can identify strengths and weaknesses

If with a power meter you are able to track improvements, then it also follows that you can see where you can make improvements.

For example, if on the local club run you always get dropped on a particular climb, you can look at the power data and identify what sort of improvements you need to make in order to get over the top with the group.

This forms the starting point of a training plan – identifying what you need to improve. Having a power meter takes this goal away from ‘I need to be able to ride a bit quicker uphill’ to ‘I need another 0.2 watt per kilogramme for five minutes.’

This is very important as it frames the improvements you are trying to make. Ultimately, it’s hard to set a realistic goal if you are unable to measure your progress and put the building blocks in place to achieve your target.

You can pace your rides

Once you have identified what you need to improve, created training sessions to work on those aspects of your fitness and tracked your improvement, it’s now time to put those gains into practice out on the road.

Because a power meter gives you a second-by-second account of how hard you are going, it’s the perfect tool to help you pace your effort. Nine times of ten, the fastest way from A to B is an evenly paced effort from start to finish. It’s very easy to get a little carried away at the start and go off too hard, or to let the power drop as you start to suffer..

With a power meter you can determine your pacing and stick to it, as you can see exactly how much power you are putting out at that exact time. That brings us onto another drawback of heart rate – lag. Heart rate is relatively slow to respond to effort, so the number you’re seeing on your computer, may not accurately represent how hard you’re working.

With a power meter there are no more excuses for blowing up halfway up a climb. Correct pacing can be the difference between a new PB, a gold or silver time in a sportive, staying in touch with the front group in a race, hitting your season goals or just missing them.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving

The ultimate goal of using a power meter is to make you a faster bike rider.

We all have a budget to stick to when it comes to spending money on bikes and bike parts, so it’s important to get the most bang for your buck.

A new pair of wheels might improve your ten-mile TT time – but it’s a one time gain. Once you have put those wheels on your bike, it will make you faster but it won’t continue to make you faster.

The beauty of a power meter compared with an upgrade elsewhere on your bike, is that as you improve, it will help keep helping you and enable you to improve further still.

The steps described above – identifying areas for improvement, working on them in train, measuring performance, and putting them into practice out on the road – is a continuous process which will help you improve in the short, medium and long term. Only a power meter will give you the opportunity to make those continuous gains.