Training

    Guest post: Why nobody spends on MTB power meters?

    During the last several weeks, I’ve been to a ton of races in North America. It’s winter now in New Zealand, so I took one of my athletes to train on the World Championships XC course in Mont Sainte Anne, Canada, gain some UCI points, and experience a new-to-him MTB racing culture across the east coast.

    We hit 6 races in 4 weeks, and it was awesome! The weather was awesome, the food was great, and the racing was furious.

    A successful day at the US Cup East Junior Championships.

    But I was confused.

    Over the last 10 or so years, the prices of bikes have gone up, but so too has the level of data we can collect while riding.

    And while I saw lots of golden cogs and carbon fiber everythings, I saw very few power meters.

    To me, this means that riders have been increasingly willing to spend lots of money on the best bike possible… but not willing to spend money on technology that will make them faster!

    How is this possible? How can we spend 10,000 on a bicycle and not know what we are doing with our engine?

    This would be like getting a new Ferrari and asking the mechanic to remove the tachometer, speedometer and fuel gauge to save a little bit of cash.

    We know that knowledge is power, and that guided decisions in training and racing can help improve athletic performance. So why are riders not yet fully convinced that a power meter will make them faster? I can’t imagine it’s the cost!

    You can spend thousands of dollars on drivetrain upgrades that won’t make you measurably faster…

    Or you can get solid components and spend a few hundred dollars to measure how fast you are.

    I know which I would choose.

    Next time we will go over some power files and I will show you what I mean 😊

     

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Dr Matt Miller is a MTB performance specialist working with athletes around the world. He has extensive experience analysing and interpreting MTB braking and propulsive data, as well as testing product. You can follow along on Instagram or on the web.

    READ ON!

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