Cycling gadgets

[Benedict XVI]

BAN THEM ALL!

Radios, GPS, cadence meters, heart-rate meters, power meters - all that c**p.
Is cycling the only sport where the athletes put all this garbage on themselves measuring their every fart? Why did it come to this?

Could you, please, enlighten me - are there other sport disciplines which use so much stuff in the field, not training? Marathon running? Sprint running? Swimming? Skiing? Soccer?

This sport is becoming more and more boring (this year's Sky in the Tour is the example)
Every pro measures all their outputs, they all know their limits, sustained effort, heart rate, blablabla, and everyone of them is like a robot - affraid to take risks, affraid to blow up, they know how much they can push in the red, for how long to attack, when to accelerate to catch a break, etc.. All stage races are like races of robots with different engines. No passion, no love, nothing - bo-ring!

Use it ALL for training, measure and tweak your body to perfection, but drop it when it's time to race. Race like a man, not like a robot.

Does it make sense to you?

 

[Parrulo]

it's not a question of being the 21th century or not imo, it's a question of most of those gadgets turning riders into robots and not bike riders.

right now a rider can be riding in the group and wanting to attack and being told to do the opposite by his team via radio or by his power meter because he sees his HR and what watts he is producing and he knows that he can't attack and sustain that level.

imo a part of being a great bike rider is knowing your body's limits and to analyze how you are feeling during the race and not having a computer telling you.

 

[cineteq]

Banning most of those gadgets will add to the unpredictable nature of a race, allowing for more tactics to be played out.

 

[ElChingon]

I think many confuse gadget to overly cautious DS too worried about sealing another sponsorship deal. All are tools and like any tool well their usefulness is up to the end user.

We may not have the most random attacks but then again we also don't have the big bad day for the high end riders, sure they have bad days or the day they tank in the standing (GC riders) but not like in previous years when a rider would over do it and then have a terrible second day.

Want to see more attacks and anti-robotic racing (according to you), have their salaries be majorly weighted by the wins/placings/etc.

 

[Boeing]

ban them all.

how many of you all here could do it yourself though. Take all the gizmos off your own bikes and just ride by feel?

 

[Cancellator]

ban them all.

how many of you all here could do it yourself though. Take all the gizmos off your own bikes and just ride by feel?

I don't even have a speedometer! I find that I spend too much time staring at it when I have one. The only downside is that I don't know the number of miles I did in the day unless I ask some of the others at the ride, but in the end the answer is "not enough!".

I am starting to think that they should at least ban radios or have them all just receive the "Radio Tour", so everyone does have some info but the DS can't order them around in real time. Of course, you can still take orders from the car, but they won't be instant.

 

[piemonster]

ban them all.

how many of you all here could do it yourself though. Take all the gizmos off your own bikes and just ride by feel?

No gizmos on my bike, that said, not really going fast enough to warrant a speedo

 

[piemonster]

I'd much prefer to see gadgets reduced or banned.

Especially radios, a bit of guile would enliven a race

 

[BillytheKid]

No ban, except for race radios.

 

[taiwan]

Not a fan of powermeters. At a certain point you might as well have a rollerrace. Looking at data from races is interesting though, I've just discovered.

They should relax the rules on bike design, short of allowing recumbents.

 

[Bala Verde]

How many riders use a power meter during a race? I thought a number of contenders didn't ride with them being afraid that competitors could read their output/ values etc and see if they were in the red... Any truth in that?

On the other hand, if your domestique uses one and he rides in front of you, he can tell you basically what you are cranking out as well.

 

[Bespoke]

I don't even have a speedometer! I find that I spend too much time staring at it when I have one. The only downside is that I don't know the number of miles I did in the day unless I ask some of the others at the ride, but in the end the answer is "not enough!".

I am starting to think that they should at least ban radios or have them all just receive the "Radio Tour", so everyone does have some info but the DS can't order them around in real time. Of course, you can still take orders from the car, but they won't be instant.

I'm sure you know but, you can use an app like maymyride or strava to record the ride via gps. You don't have to look at anything during the ride, just set it at the start and finish it at the end.

 

[Dr.Sahl]

Banning most of those gadgets will add to the unpredictable nature of a race, allowing for more tactics to be played out.

I agree completely with this.

 

[taiwan]

How many riders use a power meter during a race? I thought a number of contenders didn't ride with them being afraid that competitors could read their output/ values etc and see if they were in the red... Any truth in that?

On the other hand, if your domestique uses one and he rides in front of you, he can tell you basically what you are cranking out as well.

I think the only way you would give advantage to your rivals by having a powermeter is by publishing a lot of data online, which they could analyse to determine what you can do and for how long. And that would be hard knowledge to use.

From the little I've learnt about power output, the important metric is W/kg, and that's going to be similar for everyone riding in a single group. So you could tell how close someone was likely to be to their limit just by observing their speed relative to you and your own power output. If you're doing 6W/kg chasing someone and the gap is still going out, you know they'll probably crack (like the anecdote where Bruyneel calls Ferrari after Pantani attacks).

 

[Magnus]

Not a fan of powermeters. At a certain point you might as well have a rollerrace.

Why ?

 

[Christophe]

I train and race with a power meter. I find that apart from time trials, I very rarely have time to look at it. It doesn't influence what I do in a mass-start event at all.

The benefit is primarily over the long term -- working to peak for specific events, and shaping my training along the way to address weaknesses.

 

[Magnus]

Every pro measures all their outputs, they all know their limits, sustained effort, heart rate, blablabla, and everyone of them is like a robot - affraid to take risks, affraid to blow up, they know how much they can push in the red, for how long to attack, when to accelerate to catch a break, etc.. All stage races are like races of robots with different engines. No passion, no love, nothing - bo-ring!

Use it ALL for training, measure and tweak your body to perfection, but drop it when it's time to race. Race like a man, not like a robot.

Does it make sense to you?

Nope. If anything powermeters should be banned in training (which of course would be very difficult to implement in real life). In training powermeters makes a difference for riders who doesn't naturally train in an optimal way and thus gives a disadvantage to riders who naturally is good at training.
In a race? What difference does it make? If you can follow a wheel when going up a mountain you can follow that wheel. If you can't you can't. A rider might know at what level (s)he can perform in training and controlled circumstances but that is different from performing 10 days into a GT with accumulated fatigue. The body isn't constant. It changes every day. The powermeter can tell you something about average performance. Exceptional performances (good or bad) happens when the body is at an exceptional level.

 

[taiwan]

Why ?

Probably contradicts what I said in the other post, but if the race is boiled down to comparing wattages, you could do that at home on your turbo trainer. Was my thought.

 

[Benedict XVI]

Interesting results so far - 18 yes vs. 17 no

To be fair, I don't think many pro riders are racing with their eyes glued to their computer. Radios are a different song, though.

Getting rid of all this equipment is more like clearing the head, and I think that both riders and spectators would benefit from it.

 

[will10]

Fact of the day: Most people who want to ban powermeters have never used one.

 

[Cancellator]

I'm sure you know but, you can use an app like maymyride or strava to record the ride via gps. You don't have to look at anything during the ride, just set it at the start and finish it at the end.

I know, but until recently I had a dumbphone and now that I have something that can actually run apps, I'm not that anxious to take in on the ride and destroy it in a crash. I'll probably get some protection for it and do it soon.

 

[Magnus]

Fact of the day: Most people who want to ban powermeters have never used one.

Clearly anyone who has ever used a powermeter is biased and unable to consider these things objectively. Only those who knows nothing of the use of powermeters can truly be objective on the matter

 

[goggalor]

Ban it all. Race radios and power meters in particular lead to boring, robotic riding. Smart riders and riders who know their body should have an advantage.

edit: oh, and triathlon bikes in TTs, can we get rid of those?

 

[element]

I think radios should be banned, and powermeters should only be allowed in training. I know from experience that sometimes sitting at a given wattage feels a lot harder than sitting at that same wattage on a different day. If let's say Nibali attacks Wiggins on a climb, Wiggins knows that all he has to do is hold a steady say 450watts, and Nibali will come back slowly. He knows the exact amount of watts he can sustain without blowing himself up. Some days it might feel easy to ride that figure, somedays it might feel hard, but he knows from acres of data that he can do it. Without a power meter, he would have to rely solely on feel. If he's feeling great he might try to peg Nibali back at a pace that's slightly too high, and burn out. If he's feeling bad, he might ride overly conservatively, and lose a chunk of time. People complained that the Sky tactic of steady pace mountain train was boring. Ban the power meters and it makes that tactic a lot more difficult to execute succesfully. It should result in more instinctive, variable racing, with more attacks and more riders blowing up.

 

[Christophe]

I know from experience that sometimes sitting at a given wattage feels a lot harder than sitting at that same wattage on a different day.

Absolutely. The body, weather & environmental conditions, what has happened already in the race, all these things are highly variable, and have variable effects on your capabilities. The power meter isn't a 'pushbutton' predictor of how you can handle a given output on a given day. Perceived exertion is the only real predictor -- That feeling that you're gonna crack is what tells you you're gonna crack if you keep on putting out the same numbers, regardless the number & how it relates to your historical averages.

If let's say Nibali attacks Wiggins on a climb, Wiggins knows that all he has to do is hold a steady say 450watts, and Nibali will come back slowly. He knows the exact amount of watts he can sustain without blowing himself up.

Nibali doesn't also use a power meter? Evans wasn't using a power meter the day he cracked?

How does Wiggins know Nibs is going to crack? He still has to ride judging by his own exertion level, not some number that, while statistically relevant, doesn't necessarily apply in the moment, as you pointed out above.