I’ve been faithfully tracking my HR for the last year. at times it has been very very interesting to me.
I have seen my efficiency in terms of lower HR per given power get better.
but I have yet to make one decision either during the ride or planning with HR data. I have heard some people use HR for their Zone 2 rides…my HR never correlated well enough for that. it fluctuates a good bit based on cadence.
I know it’s not a huge deal to put it on, but it is an extra thing to think about…I mean I wouldn’t wear a sun visor when it’s cloudy.
what am I losing if I just stop it with the HR monitor?
If you do any rides without power but with HR, TR will make TSS estimates for those rides imported to the calendar.
Been a while since I saw it, but I believe that HR is one of the factors include in AT analysis along with power and your survey response. No idea how big a part it plays to know if you lose anything significant, but they have mentioned it is nice to have.
I can’t remember for certain, but along with AT it may play into AIFTPD as well if you use that.
Hoping a TR rep can make that clear, but I do think there may be some minor connections to bits of the service at least.
@mcneese.chad is right. We do use heart rate data in AT (Adaptive Training) and AIFTPD (AI FTP Detection) when we have it. @alexstenerson
Personally, I go back and forth between wearing a HRM and not. For me, it does depend on how I’m feeling and what type of ride I’m going on.
For Endurance or Z2 rides, I tend to focus on HR more than power, as I find that on longer rides my power will start to drop for a given effort and effort is what I’m focusing on in those situations.
In addition to that, HR can be beneficial to compare to your power as a way to see your body’s response to certain types of efforts over time both short and long-term.
You can also then factor in conditions such as heat and altitude as well to see where your performance may start to dip. This could then serve as a good benchmark when trying to improve in those conditions with different hydration or cooling techniques (etc.) as well as a way to see if you’re adapting to those conditions over time.
Lastly, if I’m feeling particularly fatigued I tend to wear a HRM and pay a bit more attention to it to monitor what’s going on inside alongside my overall RPE to help ensure I’m not overdoing it. It’s usually pretty easy to see if my heart rate is considerably off from normal which tells me to take it easy or call it a day.
Power is a great way to read the data of the actual work you’re doing in watts and kilojoules, but doesn’t tell the story of your internal stress which is still really good information.
P.S. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend finding your lactate threshold heart rate and basing your zones on that. It’s likely going to give you the best data to follow.
I’m like @eddiegrinwald, going back and forth from religiously wearing the HRM on every single ride or ditching it for a few months. Lately, I was in the latter phase until this past weekend.
I don’t have power meters on any of my outdoor bikes, but I had a race on Saturday and was wearing the HRM. TR estimated the TSS (which in itself I don’t really care about), and RLGL prescribed me 2 days of total rest and even replaced my today’s (Tuesday) VO2 workout with an easy endurance ride. Whether I follow the instructions or not (this time, I will because I’m thrashed), it’s good to have them. With that being said, I’m going back to using HRM more consistently.
My theory is, always record more data than you need TODAY because tomorrow you might wish you had “historical” data. You can never get the data you didn’t record.
You’re losing sight of an objective measure of what’s going on inside your body during your rides. Might not matter to you if all you do is short rides, say nothing more than 3 hours. But if you are doing longer then it can be a useful tool combined with power and RPE to work out just how you are getting on and whether you need to change your hydration, fuelling, effort etc.
I only use HR when I race (I still record power, but I don’t look at it). Maybe it’s because I only do XC, but I find power data pretty much useless in live time. I think it’s easier to judge my perceived effort with HR.
I also use HR very much like @eddiegrinwald . If I’m doing a Z2 ride in controlled environment on the trainer, it helps give me some indication of how recovered I am and also keeps the effort in check. For most other type of rides, HR is affected so dramatically by caffein and temp that I don’t bother with it. All that said, it’s a data point and a HR strap is not that big of a deal to wear. I tell myself every year I should start wearing one regularly, but here we are (another year with no HR data). At some point, all the analytics might be able to glean something useful from HR data and having the history could help the system do a better job. Next year…
Maybe that’s the difference as to how much people pay attention to HR as one of their metrics. Firstly I don’t have lots of caffeine and I don’t get these dramatic effects on HR. It’s pretty consistent.
yeah 98% of my rides are < 3 hours and if I go more it’s never hard
I have noticed my power to hr ratio getting better…and that was interesting. but I’ll just assume i’m getting fitter if I keep riding.
I guess it comes down to my HR data never changed anything for me in ride or planning.
I suppose wearing it here and there is a good compromise just to check in. I’m taking it off of my display on Garmin though. would like to look at as little data as possible when I’m riding.
I think initially was some sort of a habit. I rode for years without a PM, and still don’t have one on my Gravel bike, so HR monitor was/is my only source of stress measurement.
I still gauge my endurance rides by HR, and don’t care much about power while riding. I check it later.
Aerobic decoupling would be one interesting data. It can also be a good fatigue indicator impossible to measure with power as it is an output. Pw:Hr is also interesting, although I am not confident in how to use it.
