When I started riding bicycles for recreation as an adult, it was as a roadie. I was interested in things like timing myself on the local road climbs, FTP (that's Functional Threshold Power, for you unwashed lot known as mountain bikers.), heart rate zones, and interval training. I enjoyed the local hammerfest group ride. I borrowed a power tap wheel from another local cyclist to try it out. I trained with it, I raced with it, I got faster with it. Does it work? Sure does. Ask the people I ride with. In less than 6 months of riding, from when I bought a bike, to my first race, I had a W(FTP)/Kg of above 4 and had no problem dropping the field in my first road race and nearly soloed away to victory, and then still won the bunch sprint with only about 2 minutes of recovery.
Does this guy look like he's fucking around? No, no he does not.
Looking back on that performance, I feel that I could not have accomplished what I did as fast as I did with out a power meter. Why? Is nerding out over the numbers and statistics after every ride and following strict training plan absolutely a requirement to be fast? Nope. You know what you need to get fast? Suffering. Suffering and a general understanding of the concept of recovery. Now the caveat to this is that the less time you have to ride, the more regimented your training is going to have to be in order to work in enough training stress to get fast. This is where the more scientific approach to training is going to be more effective. But the real value in a power meter? Once you know your personal power curve, it's a bullshit detector. When you know you can hold 300 watts for an hour, you know that you are bullshitting yourself when you feel like you're suffering holding 240 watts on the front of the pace line. Crank it up wuss, just cause everyone behind you is huffing and puffing doesn't mean you get to be lazy. A power meter enforces suffering. Once you know your data, it won't let you half ass a work out, because it knows when you are feeding yourself a line of shit and that little number is going to tell you about it.
"MOAR WATTS WUSS" -power meter
photo credit: Brett Simpson
The problem is that power meters are expensive. Like 4 digits expensive. Like more expensive than a lot of beginning rider's bikes. A lot of people can't justify the money, and while all that data is pretty nifty, it gets boring analyzing it after a while. Another problem is that training by power doesn't work as well for mountain riding because your efforts are often dictated by the terrain rather than the pace you want to maintain. As much as you might like to do a threshold interval set, this here trail is like the "you must be this tall to ride" sign before you get on the roller coaster, and those rocks are the rough looking carnie that's about to bounce your out of shape ass right off the trail. Finally, using a power meter can literally suck all the fun out of riding.
When you spend your whole ride staring at your SRM, you might as well be at home on your trainer.
Who do you think is having more fun?
So what is a mountain biker to do? Fortunately the power meter is not the only suffering enforcing device on the block. Enter the singlespeed mountain bike. While also a bit pricy compared to a book on training, it's also a hell of a lot more fun (sort of, in that sick cycling kind of way), and more importantly, it's also a new bike. If you're anything like me new bikes are a good thing. New bike day is like Christmas but it can happen more than once a year if I have the cash, making it better than Christmas. If you want to minimize cost, you can just get an old, quality, but outdated mountain bike from craigslist and convert it using a chain tensioner, single speed cog, and spacer kit. If it's heavy as hell, good, it'll make you that much stronger. If you want a super bling, 16 lb single speed, get one, either way this is gonna hurt. Set it up with a gear that you can just barely climb an extended 10% grade on. Boom, you're done, now go ride that sweet beast out on some single track. Are you ready to get fast? Because it's gonna happen.
When you have one gear, you have the same two choices you have any time you ride a bike. Ride or walk. Walking is for pussies, so avoid it if possible, but take comfort in the fact that if you have to do it, you are riding single speed, and therefor only have to take shit about it from other SS riders. You will probably be faster on your single speed at first compared to your geared bike. Having one gear means you can't be lazy. In order to keep those cranks turning over at an acceptable rate uphill you have to crank out those watt-thingies I was talking about earlier in the post. Once you get to the top of said hill and coming down, your single speed will force you to rest because that climbing gear...you know...the only one you have? It spins out pretty quick going down. Hey look! You're doing intervals! Your trail buddies will never let you live this down! We'll keep this between you and me though, nobody else has to know. It'll be a few minutes before they catch us.
Oh how you'll suffer on your new single speed, but you probably will be less aware of it because you have no choice if you don't want to walk. Outside of the fact that a single speed forces you to suffer there are other benefits that will make you a better rider that are a little more subtle. Riding single speed is a much more pure experience than riding a geared bike. They are quiet. No clicking, grinding, or crackling, just a soft whir from the chain working over the cogs. You will never run into a sudden uphill section and say "Fuck me, I'm in the wrong gear!" You'll just stand up and power over it and make that sucker your bitch, or you'll spin out and stall, OTB, slide, etc, and you can just blame it on not having gears and try again next time (or go back and try again this time, we'll wait). Rock gardens become a new and different beast on a SS. You'll learn to carry momentum better because once you get slowed, grinding that gear you're running in the gnar is gonna suck. It's ok though, because you aren't worrying about what gear you should be in, you'll be much more focused and you'll probably recover and power out of the rock garden no sweat.
So bottom line, do you want to get faster and be a more proficient cyclist and have blast doing it? Get yourself a singlespeed mountain bike and lets go ride!
