What power do you use during cycling competition?

Training
1

Hi, good morning,
I have a great questions, when you compete and I would like to know, if you ride inside your zone power? What is your strategy? :love_you_gesture:

Thanks and they have a good day!

JoseluisXC

2

For the racing I do, what matters more is not getting dropped. I’ll look at power during a race just because I’m curious, but not because I want to stay in a certain zone.

3

For mass start events I don’t really ride to power. Either you can hold the wheel or you can’t

In breakaways and time trials I will reference power consistently to ensure I don’t go too deep and leave myself with nothing for the finish. What zone and strategy I use will depend entirely on the time remaining and the course profile - there’s no generic approach I could recommend

2 Likes
4

Thanks Ramon… so, when you racing for sensations?
:v:

1 Like
5

Yes; as the pros say “good sensations in the legs”, except for me that only happens at the beginning.

Then it’s bad sensations.

5 Likes
6

jejeje good!.. that usually happens to me and that is why I turn to the forum

7

As others have said, if I’m in the field I’ll ride at whatever power I need to in order to not get dropped whether that is 0 or 400 watts.

I do pay attention to power for some purposes though. I tend to keep an eye on the normalized power for the race as an objective measure of how hard the race has (or hasn’t) been. I also look at it during breakaways, or if I’m on the front or about to rotate through. It helps in situations off the front where I think I’m riding hard and then realize I’m actually riding high sweetspot to threshold.

8

During my tris, I keep 3S power and NP on my head unit along with distance and that’s it. I manage effort based on that for the long course stuff.

For road races and crits, I display 3S power, but I agree - I only look at it if I’m going to have to sustain power or repeat efforts a bunch of times, so off the front, in a chase or rotating through paceline to make sure I’m not overcooking myself early on. I’m not looking at it for attacks or anything like that, and I’m not looking at it very much during the race either way.

E.g. for a last-lap flyer in a crit, if I know I need to sustain power for 3 min to make it stick, I’ll try and keep it at or just above my max 3min power at the start. Pretty much anything shorter than that, I’m just holding on for dear life.

9

I do better if I don’t reference data while racing. I find it only serves to set a mental limit. I use it afterword to analyze only.

10

Thansk for your anwers, for my is very interesting your commentary… and I realize that uses power meter, for training y not in challenger… The next date, I do use for control during el XCM.
Regards and good week!!
José Luis XC

1 Like