“For the record, I am a nerd. On top of being professional cyclist I work as a marketing consultant analyzing sales trends. That means lots Excel spreadsheets and data interpretation.

 

Now that I’ve cleared the air it should come as no surprise that I’m completely geeked out when it comes to riding and training with a power meter. I’ve used a power meter for the past three seasons and have experienced great gains in fitness from having “hard coded” numbers to serve as my training compass.

 

The past two weeks I’ve been riding an iBike Aero. Coming from a strain gauge based system I’ll be the first to admit I had my reservations regarding how accurate the setup could be. Those reservations were absolutely crushed by my second ride. Armed with approximately 10 hours of data I saw there was never more than a 1% difference between my iBike and previous power meter. It didn’t matter if I was warming up in zone one or getting after it for a long interval in zones four and five, the iBike always gave me the correct power output.

 

Not only was I blown away by the iBike’s accuracy, I was stunned by how much insight it offered me. For example, I’ve been using old tires with the bead removed as a tire liner. With the iBike setup calculating both wind and rolling resistance I was able to determine that the zone two ride I complete at 230 watts could’ve been completed at 190 watts had I been running a traditional tire setup. That is just one example of a “fun” number showing energy waste I gained from the iBike.

 

However, when it comes to training a cyclist needs to know more than how they could’ve sped up their ride. On top of several ways iBike lets you improve what could be describe as a cycling advantage, it also offers many valuable training data points while you are on the bike. If you’ve ever raced with a power meter you’ve likely noticed that you are just as cooked after a crit as you are after a time trial. Despite being equally exhausted, your crit average power is considerably lower than the average power in a comparable TT effort. That is because the nature of those two races makes average power an “apples to oranges” type of comparison. By reading Intensity Factor and Normalized Power on the fly you have a valuable “apples to apples” comparison while racing and training.

 

A heavy portion of my training comes while I’m parked on the trainer. I love how the trainer mode allows me to still train with power. This coming week I’m visiting a Tri Fit Club and Studio in Santa Monica where I’ll undergo both Metabolic and Vo2 testing. Having my iBike set on trainer mode while I conduct this test will be incredibly helpful in giving me data I can stack on top of my testing results. I’ve only scraped the surface when it comes to telling you some of the things I love about the iBike, and I’ve only scraped the scratch when it comes to maximizing the tools offered by the iBike. If you are thinking of a power meter I strongly recommend this system."

 

Matt Landers

Adageo Energy Pro Cycling Team