PowerTap

I have been riding with a power meter for a little over a year and have logged a little over 1000 miles. This is pretty meager mileage for anyone who claims to be a cyclist, but I am very pleased. The power data has been entertaining, but I am not at the point of training with power.

My analysis was primarily focused on Training Stress Score (TSS), Chronic Training Load (CTL) and Acute Training Load (ATL). I finally revisited Allen & Coggan’s work and am looking at histograms of power, heart rate and cadence. I have most recently started plotting force and velocity on 4 quadrants. It is no surprise that most of the data falls into coffee shop riding as I don’t do hills, sprints or fixed gear riding.


I still think the PowerTap was a great purchase and I have gotten some marginal benefit in the time I spend on the bike. Given this success, I will probably still pursue a Di2 upgrade next spring, but will hold off on the race wheels until my Functional Threshold Power (FTP) and weight warrant an upgrade.