Training with power has become exponentially more popular
over the last 10 years for a few reasons.
- It has become more well demonstrated that training
with power has real, measurable benefits. I'm not going
to go into a discussion of all the benefits of power
training, but a quick google will give you a good
idea
- Other people are doing it (snowball effect). If you
see 3 of your friends with powermeters, you're more
likely to get one
- More interesting to this discussion: the powermeters
themselves have gotten much, much better.
I've been lucky enough to afford (at a discount), a
Powertap
2.4 SL. Quickly:
- Wheel is great - gives a pretty consistent power
reading
- Computer sucks. Screen is terrible, etc. I really
wish the Garmin
Edge 705 supported the 2.4 SL (and now it does!)
- Needed to use the same wheel/tire in races that you
do in training really sucks. I'll be swiching to a
CinQo as
soon as they come out, I think. I like that you can use
the same power meter between different bikes with the PT,
but it means you have to either use the same expensive
tire in training as racing, or the same cruddy tire in
races that you beat up on your training rides.
Unfortunately, the
DT Swiss 1.1 rims that the powertap was built into are
terrible. Maybe if you weigh 150 lbs or less, but at 170,
these need re-truing a fair amount, and have a noticable
amount of flex. This really brings out the one big weakness
of the powertap system - if you want race data, you have to
race on training wheels, and more importantly, training
tires (unless you race very seldom or really, really like
changing tires).