I love backcountry MTB racing and sometimes find myself all alone on a long climb in the middle of the race, kind of lose focus, and end up doing 20-30 watts less than I should. Last week I had the bright idea of hitting the lap button and watching my lap average power, which actually helped a ton, but I’m thinking that Garmin must have a better or more interesting way to pace climbs. I really only use the most basic stuff on my data screens, and sometimes look at climb pro to see how much I have left to go. Are there other features I can be using? When I search for pacing, I’m finding mostly stuff for running.
Personally - My Lap Button gets a hell of a workout. I have a data screen that shows 3S Average Power, Lap NP, Lap AP, and HR. Basically I have a climbing power target, hit the lap button and then monitor for the most part my NP and HR trying to stay in a specific zone.
Target though depends on the interval, or the event, or what I’m out for. Sometimes the goal is to keep it Z2, other times might be a threshold interval, or extended climbing at Tempo or Sweet Spot.
3 Likes
I love the graphical power field for pacing. I don’t look at my head unit often and seeing 1-2 minutes of what I’ve been doing at a glance really helps. I even use it next to lap power when doing intervals so I can see immediate power, short term power, and lap power all at once.
1 Like
you can set alarms for being under or over power targets, just like in TR workouts, can’t you?
1 Like
Two “conditions”. What version of Edge do you have and is it new enough to support Power Guide? Second, do you follow a set course or just a free ride?
If you ride a course and your Edge supports it, use the power guide feature to build a power profile that suits the level that you want to hit.
1 Like
Giving credit where it is due… @BCM gave me some tips last year about using Garmin (I have 530 Edge) as more than a timer 
Based on his advice and further tinkering I now do the following:
- 1 screen with lap time, lap NP, lap 3s power, lap power, cadence, grade % (to ease the mental suffering), max HR%
Pacing is more of a running thing, because you are trying to avg 8 min miles or whatever. This might just be semantics but your “pace” on the MTB isn’t super relevant, it is your power, right? So for me that 3s, lap avg, lap NP on one screen gives me the data to know if I’m hitting the powers I want.
1 Like
I have an Edge 1040 and it looks like it has Power Guide. If I know the course I usually just free ride, but there’s always a Strava route or GPX available to download. Very interesting, I’m gonna give it a try next weekend. Thanks!
Yeah I wasn’t very precise with my language. I mean average power, not pace.
I’m gonna give the power guide a try, but if I don’t like it, seems like the best thing to do is make good use of my lap button with the data screen you mentioned.
1 Like
If it hasn’t been mentioned already, one thing to consider is if using NP instead of avg power might be better, especially over laps where there is a fair amount of power variation. My 840 has Lap NP and Last Lap NP, as well as NP for the activity. IDK, but I expect Power Guide might be doing something like this with its suggested power.
The loosing focus thing - I don’t think the garmin is your answer. 100mg of Caffeine is your answer. The precision hydration caffeine gels are the most palatible ones I have found so far.