I love my power meter but I’m happy to be without it
I have a love/hate relationship with my power meter. Due to a miscommunication on equipment, I recently ended up training without one for a couple of weeks. It was liberating and frustrating in equal measure. When doing longer endurance rides, it was nice to just pedal around without looking at my wattage. I’d find myself looking at the scenery more rather than the number on my Wahoo computer. The important part of those days is getting the hours in rather than doing X number of watts for Y number of minutes.
When it comes to proper training and getting the intervals done, however, a power meter is essential. I despise training without one. Each morning, I check my training plan to see what my coach has assigned me for that day. When you’re training with your power meter, it’s black and white. You’re either going well or you aren’t, and the numbers can tell you that. I did an interval session purely based on rate of perceived exertion (RPE), I ended up getting way too big for my boots in the first effort, and then I suffered like a dog for the remaining five. If I had been using my power meter, I would have paced myself better on the first one and got more from that session. Power also provides an objective set of data which you can use to analyse performance trends.
Power meters get a lot of stick from fans; as a racer myself I can confidently say that we don’t race off of our power meters. It is impossible to race on power. There are so many variables which mean that your threshold can change from day to day. Ineos Grenadiers have previously got a lot of stick for racing from their power meters but take it away and they’d use the same tactics. When racing, we’re all pretty good at judging efforts. Take power readings away and the best guys would still be the strongest.