Power meters - should they be allowed in pro cycling?

[Netserk]

I know several people who have lights on their racing bikes, I'm sure the pros do as well when out training. Or maybe that's why Wiggins got run over.


The fact is people only complain about power meters because of Sky. They've been around much longer than Sky and no-one had a problem with them before. It's also been shown this season that it doesn't matter if you have a power meter. If you don't have the legs you're done.

People only complain about radios because of Sky! All bad is due to Sky!!!

 

[King Boonen]

People only complain about radios because of Sky! All bad is due to Sky!!!

I'm pretty sure we're talking about power meters

 

[biopass]

Just because SKY use them in one way, and is succesfull with it, doesnt mean they cant be used in another way.

When Landis rode the peloton apart that day in 2006, do you think it was all clinic based? The hell it wasnt, he wouldnt have done it if he didnt knew his maximum FTP and VAM.

 

[spalco]

I'm against powermetres in pro races, but I'm not convinced it would actually change anything in the way most opponents would apparently expect. I think it wouldn't change anything in fact.

 

[ThirdWorld]

They must ban any cicling computer.

 

[Miburo]

I'm against powermetres in pro races, but I'm not convinced it would actually change anything in the way most opponents would apparently expect. I think it wouldn't change anything in fact.

Yea i don't think it'll change that much too honestly, races aren't gonna be more exciting, i'm not an expert at this though but I think we just looking for something to do against sky...

 

[More Strides than Rides]

I don't think a ban will change anything. Style/tactics will vary rider to rider. It just happens that the most dominant team now has a boring style.

The smartest racing will always be the most boring. Power meters don't change that.

 

[Afrank]

Every thread is.

No, only threads that are duplicates of threads we already have.


Anyway, on topic. Still think exactly what I originally said in the first thread.

Give all the pros Garmin 200's; Speed, time, distance, elevation gain, calories, max speed, and average speed. That's all you need during the race.
Go ahead and use the powermeters for training and in testing your efforts. But there really isn't a need for it during the race.

I would much rather see cyclists racing according to their heart then their screens. Or as Bernard Hinault says "as long as I breath, I attack."
Cyclists shouldn't be looking down at their screens and think "already pushing 350 watts, better hold this pace or I'll tire myself out" they should be thinking "getting tired, but I didn't get into this sport to ride at tempo and come into the finish with everyone else like on a casual group ride! I'm going to attack and make something happen here! It won't kill me."

Cycling holds it's roots in the epic rides the riders of the past embarked on, guys like Merckx, Hinault, Kelly, Gaul, etc. These guys didn't think about whether they might overdo it, or go out too hard on a attack, or the risk of the attack not working out. They just did it and hoped for the best.
They raced according to their heart, not their screen.

 

[Afrank]

I know several people who have lights on their racing bikes, I'm sure the pros do as well when out training. Or maybe that's why Wiggins got run over.


The fact is people only complain about power meters because of Sky. They've been around much longer than Sky and no-one had a problem with them before. It's also been shown this season that it doesn't matter if you have a power meter. If you don't have the legs you're done.

It's not only because of Sky. The way Sky uses them just demonstrates how they can be used to stifle exciting racing.

 

[Heckler]

No radios, no power meters. Give back an edge to the guys with a brain.

Power meters can also be used to help hide a doped performance by allowing the cyclist to maintain a more humanly realistic pace and doing just enough to win.

 

[icefire]

I would allow them on the condition that data is open to the public.

 

[yetiyeti]

I would allow them on the condition that data is open to the public.

I like it. Maybe the live data should be available to the other teams too.

I don't dislike Sky, or idea of live power data.... but the Tour was so boring last year, not because of Sky's dominance, but because of the slow steady way that they reeled in any attack.

I actually began the Tour cheering for Wiggins and got so bored with the riding style that I found myself cheering against him. If the live use of power data in the team cars contributes to this then I don't like it.

Hopefully Froome's style will be different and we will see a different type of race this year.

 

[cineteq]

Ban power meters and team radios. I do NOT want to see predictability!

 

[MatParker117]

Adapt or die. Hell in a few years I imagine that read out along with any time gaps will be displayed on the riders glasses.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

If the live use of power data in the team cars contributes to this then I don't like it.

Live telemetry of rider's data was not and is not permitted already.

 

[Pippo_San]

The way UCI handles the technological advancements in cycling is ridiculous at best.

We're still stuck with bikes that need to stick to a certain paradigma regarding its geometry (say for example why should they have that "main triangle"? who says it's the best way to develop a bike?), its weight (no less than 6.8 kg...WHY FFS?!?!), or its extras (I'm still angry about the Spinaci-affair).

Then you have race radios and SRMs that completely alter a race and they're ok.
What's the criterium they're using?!?

Because the thing here isn't to adapt or not to adapt. It's to have some good SENSE in defining the rules!

 

[oldcrank]

Gregory James LeMond, the universally revered three time
winner of the Tour de France, called for compulsory power
meters not that long ago.

 

[nick101]

Funny, because to me the intelligent use of information is one of the attributes that most defines us as human.

Why is being smart equated with not being human?

Yes while that may be true, sky are using them to take any human-ness out of racing. Power meters are being used to create an automated race where their riders purely rely on a specific pre-determined number and not anything else. This is completely robotic racing. U may as well have programmed robots riding instead of humans. Saying that is human is wrong because riding at a high but unvaried pace takes any emotion from racing and makes it a an automated process. Attacks are prevented which certainly isn't human. Throughout the history of cycling, attacks have become an integral part of racing. Is an unvaried speed or varied speed more human?? I say the latter. But I agree where the use of data relates is training - determining how riders are progressing, whether its an off day/good day?, preventing a rider from bonking on a long training ride etc. Its fine for training to help a rider

On a slightly different note about sky, they have a few differences from US Postal (ignoring anything that would involve the clinic). back then power meters weren't around so the team rode not purely based on a specific number or speed, (sure it was a constant speed but it wasn't pre determined like sky, it was determined at the time due to various factors), lance actually attacked a lot earlier than froome which was more exciting than froomes final km sprint, there were more breakaways - they didn't completely stifle the attacks and chase down every single break for a stage win.

 

[BroDeal]

The way UCI handles the technological advancements in cycling is ridiculous at best.

We're still stuck with bikes that need to stick to a certain paradigma regarding its geometry (say for example why should they have that "main triangle"? who says it's the best way to develop a bike?), its weight (no less than 6.8 kg...WHY FFS?!?!), or its extras (I'm still angry about the Spinaci-affair).

Then you have race radios and SRMs that completely alter a race and they're ok.
What's the criterium they're using?!?

Because the thing here isn't to adapt or not to adapt. It's to have some good SENSE in defining the rules!

Cycling already had its era of mostly unrestricted innovation. Check out all the bizarro time trial bikes that were used in the 90s. Eventually rules were put in place to keep the sport a competition between riders rather than a competition between engineers.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Yes while that may be true, sky are using them to take any human-ness out of racing. Power meters are being used to create an automated race where their riders purely rely on a specific pre-determined number and not anything else. This is completely robotic racing. U may as well have computers riding instead of humans. Saying that is human is wrong because riding at a high but unvaried pace takes any emotion from racing and makes it a an automated process. Attacks are prevented which certainly isn't human. Throughout the history of cycling attacks have become an integral part of racing. Is an unvaried speed or varied speed more human?? I say the latter

People are way over attributing such riding/racing style to the power meter. It's a big fat red herring.

Preventing attacks by riding a high tempo is not a new strategy. It's what sprinters teams have been doing forever*, simply applied to MTF's. Very effective strategy if you have the firepower at your disposal. Doesn't need power meters to execute. All the PM does is help you hone your skill in training. Any experienced PM user can knock out a consistent tempo or threshold effort without ever looking at the meter.

If you want "exciting" racing, then change the rules to suit, provide courses that encourage it, reduce team sizes, creative rules / incentives and so on.

Blaming power meters is just looking for a scapegoat when the solutions lie elsewhere.


* and as soon as I see a sprinter's stage is on, I just record and watch the last couple of km just in case Cav gets beat. Else they are dull as bat guano.

 

[King Boonen]

It's not only because of Sky. The way Sky uses them just demonstrates how they can be used to stifle exciting racing.

Feel free to dig up the myriad of threads bemoaning power meters from before Sky joined the peloton then. I won't hold my breath though.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Power meter should be allowed radio not

 

[Pulpstar]

I think that power meters and HRMs should be banned from racing. Or to clarify, noone (Including the rider) should be able to view the data in the race. All the data should be logged to a 'black box' (Under the seat maybe). This can then be viewed by EVERYONE after the race.

Race radios should be driven from a central feed with all teams having the same information given out. (Break members, break time gap). All riders should be able to listen to the feed. (Perhaps English, italian, spanish, french and german language options also available for the feed)

In summary the racing should be a pure contest of the head as much as the legs whilst cyclists are out on the road - all being given the same (limited) information.

After the race everyone should be able to pick over all the bones of the data as much as they want to. It would help pick out clinic issues also I think.

 

[nick101]

Feel free to dig up the myriad of threads bemoaning power meters from before Sky joined the peloton then. I won't hold my breath though.

The reason why people are complaining about power meters is their use to set a tempo which prevents attacks. If team sky actually allowed attacks to work and froome chased them down more, there wouldn't be this problem. Without power meters, team sky wouldn't rely on putting out a specific wattage or watts/kg like we have seen, it'd be more about feel which would allow more attacks. Even with US Postal, attacks actually worked. Taking away the access to data like power in a race leads to more exciting and aggressive racing. It's very difficult to try and put out an exact power like team sky do without referring to a power meter even for trained riders.
Sure riders are trained to do tempo at a specific power but without something to refer to, the ability to hold that exact pre-determined wattage becomes very difficult indeed. This leaves riders more susceptible to outside factors which isn't the case with power meters. The riders in sky are essentially remote controlled robots from inside the team car.

Tirreno Adriatico was the perfect example of the (ab)use of power meters. Uran and Henao were blatantly sitting at a pre determined power, you could tell by their calculated efforts, monotonous speed and the occasional glance at the SRM. If they were merely setting tempo, they wouldn't have to look at their SRM's, set such an unvaried speed, or ignore attacks. Nibali, Contador and all the riders there have confirmed that's what was happening and the team sky domestiques have far from denied this also.

With sprint teams they actually work to chase down breaks for their sprinters, not necessarily prevent attacks. Whereas Sky is all about ignoring breaks and riding at a specific power until the final km and hoping that froome is the only rider not tired.

 

[spalco]

The reason why people are complaining about power meters is their use to set a tempo which prevents attacks. If team sky actually allowed attacks to work and froome chased them down more, there wouldn't be this problem.

So basically you want Sky to act like ****ing idiots just to fulfill your expectations of entertainment?