..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

watts the problem

many of us as kids were guilty of pegging playing cards, or something very similar to the front forks of our bikes so that the front wheel spokes would create a noise nothing like that of a motor bike, but a sound we were convinced turned our bikes into a harley davidson. if you rode your bike too often (and what self-respecting kid didn't?), the cards had to be regularly replaced. more often if it was wet. but those selfsame kids must also remember the three or four digit counters strapped to the fork and on which a small, toothed sprocket was turned by a pin attached to one of the spokes. after a few days you could proudly announce to your chums that you had ridden 465.8, a number that was as vacuous as the point of doing so in the first place.

the history of the modern bicycle, at least from the 1960s, has been rife with devices clamped to the front fork or cranks, often connected to an oddly-shaped plastic display affixed to the handlebars, offering dubious numbers that were thinly related to some obscure definition of velocity. i recall acquiring just such a device from cycling weekly, that seemed only to calculate speed in 5mph amounts; i was either riding at 10mph or 15mph, but nothing equitable in between. not sure whether it was designed that way, or whether there was a fault somewhere, but it did once display that i'd ridden at a top speed of well over 350mph. the biggest problem i recall with the early cycle computers which operated via a magnet on one front wheel spoke and a sensor mounted on the fork leg, was raising the handlebars and inadvertently knackering the attached cable. i'm ashamed to admit i did that more than just once.

of course, everything is wireless nowadays, gaining the majority of information via a gps satellite, meaning no longer is it necessary to look up your wheel diameter and tyre width in a little booklet, prior to typing the appropriate code into the computer via a series of buttons and paper clips inserted into small holes on the side. assuming you have the correct mounting bracket on the handlebars, the gps unit can be easily swapped between bicycles, no matter the wheel size. but how much attention do we actually pay to the information provided by these incredibly complex devices, and even if we do, what good does it do us?

obviously enough, i can only speak for myself, but i harbour a sneaking suspicion that i'm not too different from those in the wider peloton. this is not to do a disservice to those who live by the data generated on their handlebars, but realistically, for those of us who are essentially leisure cyclists pretending to have just stepped out of the professional peloton or a rapha clubhouse, it might be information surplus to requirements. personally, since i don't wear a watch when cycling, i have a garmin attached to the bicycle du jour so that i know when i'm going to be late. average speed, actual speed, total distance, burned calories and gradient are of no real interest, but since the screen is capable of providing eight different parameters, i figured i might as well use all of them. of those that i haven't mentioned, the battery level and ambient temperature are of notional interest, but if the unit died tomorrow, i doubt i'd shed any tears.

i know of many who religiously upload the data from each ride to a web based service (yes strava, i'm talking about you), but more by way of passively stating "i'm still here"; facebook for cyclists.

yet those liquid crystal displays provide a wealth of information that could conceivably help us improve our performances, if only we knew what to do with the numbers. it is, in effect, a parallel to the partial obsession with the bicycles ridden by the pros. we have discussed at length the promise that, if it's good enough for wout, mathieu or pogi, it would be hard to dispute that, in fact, it has no place in any of our bike sheds. however, in the main, the same accusation could be levelled at the now ubiquitous gps devices. while professional riders have, almost by law, a bona fide team or personal coach to help them make sense of the numbers, i think the majority of us labour under a misguided attempt to do it ourselves. as a spurious example, if my saturday bike ride relieves me of 2,000 calories, what does that actually tell me? should i be burning more or less? and if, for example, i burn less, is that better or worse? and how much is influenced by the conditions in which i'm riding? if i'm riding into a stinker of a headwind, my speed will be proportionally less than a tailwind, yet, i can guarantee i'll be working a darned sight harder.

but the simplicity of the internal calculations probably won't reflect that.

with so many groupsets now available with crank or spider mounted power meters, is that resulting in more superfluous data for the great unwashed? the results might well provide coffee stop bragging rights, but unless you can drill down into that data to learn where differences might be found, however incremental, ultimately, what's the point? if i were to delete the battery level section on my garmin and replace it with one displaying my paltry wattage, is there any way i can digest all the additional information to help teach me where my deficiencies lie? for were that to be possible right now, i can assure you, all i'd be doing is frequently attempting to ride as fast and as far as i can, and hope that i improved; if that is not what transpired, like many, i'd have no earthly idea what to do about it.

granted, there are any number of smartphone coaching apps, subscribing to which might solve much of the above at a price. but unless you or i actually plan to use that to some sort of personal advantage, i think we're in danger of spoiling the ride. in the days of the spoke-mounted magnets, i would set myself an annual distance target, and if by year's end, i was short by only a few kilometres, i'd find myself riding needlessly up and down nearby roads to nowhere, attempting to reach the magic figure. i even considered turning the bike upside down and spinning the front wheel. and there's possibly a danger in playing the numbers game with output in watts, despite no real need to do so.

obviously this is somewhat of a generalisation; there will be many who will benefit from learning of their power output generated by an integrated device that came with their choice of groupset, but i'm inclined to believe there will be many more for whom it is wholly irrelevant. as bill bruford said of rudimental drumming technique, it's only of any real value if you have some idea of what to do with it.

saturday 18 april 2026