FEEL THE POWER

Way back in January, before the cycling world was taken over by Zwift, social distancing and spectator-free races, there was a shock announcement from the management of Italian team Vini Zabù-KTM. The team banned its riders from using power meters or heart-rate monitors during races.

According to the team’s manager Luca Scinto, some of his riders had become obsessed with the numbers and it was holding them back. He wanted his team to race on feeling and judgment, rather than becoming – as team leader Giovanni Visconti called them – “robots” on autopilot.

But is it true? Are power meters really holding us back by making us over-reliant on an external measure of effort? Don’t they simply allow us to be accurate, objective and, therefore, controlled in our riding?

A power meter isn’t a magic wand, it is just a tool. But it is a helpful tool, giving instant knowledge of how many watts we are producing at any given moment – and watts are, of course, the ultimate metric for cyclists. Once you know your wattage