u/YourSeksiBayBe

A bit about me:

Training and racing at the indian domestic calendar for the last 5 years. Close to ~80,000 kms of all time cycling distance, over 40+ races

Best results:

- P5/60 in Khelo India Road Race '22

- P8/85+, P9/90+ at National Championship '21 & '25

- Youngest GC in Top 15 at Pune Baramati Road Race '24

- Multiple Top 15s in other National Championship, KIYG, HCLs between, and podium finishes (and Top 5s/10s) at open races pan India.

- 8x State Champion (5x road, 3x MTB)

- First (and the only) athlete till date to rank in top 5 and top 10 from my state at the national level in road cycling :)

Gear:

- Giant TCR 2, 2022 (Road) - 7.8 kgs on the scale (2nd last image)

- Racing wheelset: Parcours Passista 56 mm | GP5000 STR

- Favero Assioma Duo Power Meter | Wahoo Bolt V2

Happy to answer anything about training, racing, equipment, nutrition, or the Indian racing scene

Most cyclists spend anywhere from ₹60,000 to ₹1,50,000+ on carbon wheels hoping to get faster.

But what if I told you that a

25,000/- power meter could make you significantly faster than a ₹1 lakh wheelset ever could?

The question isn't whether carbon wheels work. They definitely do.

The question is whether they should be your first upgrade, if performance is what you're after.

I've shared my opinions on the same in the article below.

Do give it a read and let me know your thoughts :)

Now, before I go on to tell you why, let me make it clear: I'm NOT anti-carbon wheels. I use them too for all my racing, and I don't even remember the last race I did without them. But that still doesn't change my opinion on them (without denying their benefits).

Let's first talk about how/why carbon wheels make you go faster. This comes down mainly to 2 things:

1. Weight and stiffness: Since they're lighter than the usual aluminium pair, usually around 200-800 grams, they reduce the overall mass of the bike. While the benefits of this are negligible on flats, minute on climbs (unless you're racing at the highest levels and at double-digit gradients), the biggest benefit of lighter carbon wheels comes from acceleration.

This is particularly useful in road racing. Every attack, surge, sprint, or acceleration requires energy, and reducing rotational mass definitely has its benefits.

2. Depth: Carbon wheels are engineered to cut through wind. Companies invest massively in R&D to ensure optimal aero profiling, saving every ounce of watt possible. This translates to roughly 5-15 watts depending upon riding speed, wind speed, wind angle, and a whole host of things, keeping in mind the faster you go, the better carbon wheels perform (they wouldn't help much at 20-25 kmph)

So the benefits are objectively real.

But what if I told you, instead of saving these watts, you could gain them? What if you could effectively map out your power and track and improve it over time?

That's exactly what a power meter does.

A power meter is a device that measures the work you're doing on the bike in terms of watts.

When you ride, two things matter:

1. The force you put down to spin the pedals

2. How fast you spin the pedals (cadence)

A power meter measures exactly those: the force that you put down through your legs and how fast you put it down (cadence), resulting in watts (power).

How you use it is an entirely different and in-depth topic of discussion (which I'll definitely cover later), but let me give you an overview of the benefits and why these matter more than aero wheels.

1. Power Meters Remove Guesswork: Watts Don't Lie

Most endurance athletes are very familiar with using pace and/or HR for training, and for good reason. They help define training zones, track improvements, and assist with pacing.

A power meter does all of those things too, but refines them a notch further.

Unlike metrics such as speed and HR, power (watts) is not heavily influenced by external variables.

Think about it. Your average speed can fluctuate depending on the route, wind conditions, aerodynamics, traffic, and so much more.

Heart rate is slightly better in this regard, but it can still be influenced by weather, sleep, caffeine, stress, fatigue, and other factors.

A power meter tackles exactly this problem.

Two hundred watts is two hundred watts irrespective of route, wind, or weather. If the power you're able to sustain for a given duration is increasing over time, you're objectively improving.

2. Power Meters Improve Pacing

A power meter helps you define your zones more accurately and, if you've used that data correctly in training, allows you to pace your efforts far more effectively.

This holds true for cyclists in individual time trials, road races, and distance events such as BRMs. It is especially useful in triathlon, where pacing on the bike can have a massive impact on the run that follows.

Knowing your limits allows you to ride right on the edge without crossing it.

Heart rate can also be misleading during races and events because excitement, nerves, and adrenaline often push it higher than normal.

Power gives you a much clearer picture of the work you're actually doing.

3. Power Meters Refine Fuelling

This is one of the less talked about benefits of power meters.

Unlike HR, which is relatively ineffective for estimating caloric expenditure, a power meter is very accurate at measuring your work rate and, therefore, the energy you're expending.

The formula is as simple as:

3.6 × Average Power × Time (in hours)

So a cyclist riding at 150w for 2 hours burns:

3.6 × 150 × 2 = 1080 calories

This can help refine your on-the-bike fuelling considerably.

You probably don't need to mimic the pros consuming over 100g of carbs per hour if you're not producing anywhere near the same power output.

It can also help you estimate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) much more accurately, which is particularly useful for athletes with weight loss or weight gain goals.

4. Watts tell us what's going inside

A power meter, when paired with the right testing and interpretation, can tell us a lot about you as a rider, the kind of information we simply can't extract from HR alone.

We can gain insights into your muscle fibre dominance, AWC (W' Prime), VO₂ max (to a decent extent), fractional utilization, and much more.

These data points help us identify strengths, weaknesses, and the physiological demands of your goal event, allowing training to be tailored accordingly.

For example, a triathlete with very high AWC but low fractional utilization would likely require a different training approach than an athlete with low MAP but high fractional utilization.

Training with watts shifts the conversation from following a generic plan to building training around the athlete's physiology.

Best Power Meter Options in India (2026)

1. Favero Assioma Duo | MRP ₹59,999 to ₹84,999

Arguably the gold standard of power meter pedals. Simple, accurate, and just works well! The recent discounts have also made them a lot more affordable. The PRO RS 2 (Shimano cleats) variant is also an option but costlier than the standard LOOK one.

2. Magene P715 Pedal-Based Power Meter | ₹51,900

Just like the Favero Assioma, Magene's P715 pedal-based power meter can be easily swapped between different bikes. Though relatively new in the Indian market, the reviews so far, both from India and globally, have been highly positive. Even with a modest LBS discount, these are your most VFM power meters within the ₹45-50K range.

3. Magene PES-P515 Spider-Based Power Meter | MRP ₹33,900

These are the most affordable dual-sided power meters currently in the Indian market. With a claimed accuracy of ±1%, these should definitely be on your bucket list. The only slight downside is that if you've multiple bikes, you can't swap the power meter as easily as the pedals.

4. 4iiii Precision 105 Single-Sided Crank Arm | MRP ₹29,500

This is a single-sided power meter by 4iiii that goes on the non-drive side of the crank. It is definitely good enough for training (my first power meter was a single-sided crank arm). With the Magene PES-P515 available at a similar price point, this is a difficult choice, given the potential caveats of only one-leg power measurement and compatibility issues with non-Shimano cranks.

Despite everything, this is the most affordable power meter and definitely good enough for training.

Final Thoughts

Carbon wheels make your bike faster. Power meters make you faster.

One improves the equipment. The other improves the engine.

And unless you're already training with power, understanding your physiology, pacing correctly, and fuelling appropriately, there's a good chance a power meter will provide greater performance gains than a deep-section wheelset ever will.

Buy the wheels eventually. Just don't buy them first.

Jotting down my thoughts on recovery and training load, hope it's helpful for those looking to improve performance. I'd like to discuss/share more on training, equipment and nutrition on the bike down the line!

(Slightly long read ahead)

​

Endurance athletes are a different breed, especially cyclists, who often find it harder to rest up than to crank out a hard set of intervals.

As tough as this may seem, it can hide behind a deeper issue of not taking recovery seriously, leading to poorer adaptations and slower/lower speed and power gains overall.

Far too many people I know train way too much, way too often, and potentially fail to extract the full benefits from their hard and diligent training.

​

It's not uncommon to see riders riding 6, sometimes even 7 days a week!

While I appreciate the work ethic, I firmly believe this makes you slower in the long run.

​

How?

To answer this, let's talk about how training and adaptation works. In extreme layman's terms: training doesn't make you faster or stronger. Rather, it induces stress. The body with time adapts to this stress.

What might have felt very hard at some point, for example, sustaining 30 kmph average for an hour or two, with time, as you do it more often and recover from it, the body adapts, making it easier.

​

These adaptations happen in numerous ways: improved oxygen delivery, better fractional utilization, better lactate clearance, improved capillarization and so on.

But the point is, these happen when you:

1. Induce a stress signal from training

2. Let the body adapt to that by recovering

​

Most people nail the first part, more often than not, overdo it (that's a topic for another day), but forget about the latter.

How do you determine if you're not recovering well from your training? What are the possible signs?

​

Your rest day from training = "Strength Session"

This is a very common and counter productive practice. Most cyclists take a "rest day" and crank out squats, lunges, and whatnot on that day!

My argument is simple, if strength training is the rest day for you, you're not strength training right. It should challenge you, push you, make you work hard for any meaningful gains. And if it is challenging or hard, then it's not a rest day! You're just piling up fatigue on already tired legs.

Worth mentioning though, light stretching, mobility, maybe even some core or upper body work is acceptable on a rest day, but I'd still keep it mostly completely off because of the mental load aspect of training, meaning, I would not do hard and/or time intense core/upper body sessions on my rest days.

The Fix: REST UP. Sleep an extra hour or two, that's your training for the day! Plan and periodize your S&C sessions better throughout the week/season.

You can also try double sessions (combining endurance training with strength work) on certain days or even replace 1 day of riding with just S&C, depending upon where you are in the season and training experience.

​

You're taking just 1 off day a week.

Yes, this sounds a bit extreme, and it probably is.

But, in my experience, most people don't fare well with just 1 day off, provided they're doing a decent volume of training (this doesn't apply to those training sub 4-6 hours a week).

Because as mentioned, recovery is what drives adaptations, adaptations are what drives performance.

Athletes training/racing full time and for years might be fine with it but the average joe with professional, personal and other obligations should not try to mimic it.

More than physically, it also frees you up mentally to be able to give it your all in the other sessions. Worth mentioning though, just 1 day off a week is fine for short/overload phases but they need to be carefully managed and shouldn't be the staple for the average cyclist, all year round.

​

The fix: Try 2 days of rest/recovery. Maybe even 3, if you're starting out. Some of my best and my athletes' best power outputs have come from plans that prioritized 2-3 days of rest. See what works for you.

​

Your ego gets the better of you

I think at some point, all of us have been guilty of this.

- You realize recovery is important.

- You schedule and plan it nicely.

- You decide, instead of a complete rest day, you'll do a recovery ride/run (which is fine).

But then?

You ride fast, or at a certain power that makes you feel "good" about your recovery ride, or at a running pace that'll make people look up to you because that's your (apparent) recovery pace!

This is extremely counter productive. Going back to the S&C argument, your training should be either hard (to induce stress) or allow you to recover (to adapt from the stress). These "ego" recovery sessions do neither. Instead, they turn your recovery rides/runs into junk miles!

​

The Fix: Embrace that recovery rides/run are going to feel extremely easy, almost embarrassingly slow. You can push more, definitely, but that's not the point of these sessions. If I were to give a number for recovery rides, I'd say keep it below 40-50% FTP for sure, with LTHR below 60-65% (emphasis on below).

If you have a hard time going as slow/easy and you let the ego get the better of you, just take a complete rest day.

​

Your performance has stagnated. Resting HR, HRV and Performance Metrics are in the red.

If you've been stuck on the same FTP, the same power for certain intervals, the same average speed or whatever, it could indicate that you're chronically fatigued.

The solution in these cases is rarely more training, but better load management and recovery.

Similarly, if metrics such as Resting HR, HRV have deteriorated over time, it could hint the body needs some time off. For these, one must look at the weekly trend, rather than just a single day's reading.

Other metrics such as Form/Readiness from Performance Management Chart (Fitness, Fatigue, Form) could also provide us meaningful insights. These metrics, however, must be considered as a suggestive guide and not be treated as the primary factor for determining training load.

​

The Fix: Incorporate regular deload phases. Plan and structure your training better to keep an eye on metrics that help you quantify fatigue but also see how the body feels.

​

All your weeks look more or less the same

If you've been keeping it on the gas pedal for a long long time, doing the same volume, the same intensity, without any meaningful progression, it could suggest that you're not managing your recovery optimally (and/or the training is not hard enough).

Every good training plan has a deload phase, taken once every 2 to 6-8 weeks (Yes, it's a huge range).

If you're not taking a recovery week once in a while and/or don't feel the need to, it could suggest that you're either not training hard enough or not respecting the recovery, both of which hamper performance.

​

The Fix: Incorporate a deload phase/recovery week once every 2-6 weeks. You'd want to reduce on the frequency, volume and intensity for this week. Generally, 40-50% of usual training volume is a good ballpark. Soak in the adaptations and prepare for the next block of training.

​

You don't feel like training

Yes, this is another nuanced hint. It especially applies to those athletes who are (mostly) highly motivated. If you're one of those who don't mind the work, and you've been feeling a bit under the weather, thinking you've gone lazy, think again!

Constant stress from training and/or lack of recovery not only takes a toll on you physiologically, it also breaks you mentally.

I've been guilty of this, where I thought I was not "as disciplined or as tough as before" but 8/10 times, it was rarely laziness, but rather a constant state of stress.

​

The fix: Listen to your body. Don't confuse fatigue with laziness.

I always say this, the mind lies, very often, but the body seldom does.

​

Conclusion

Recovery isn't the absence of training. Recovery is part of training.

The goal isn't to accumulate the most fatigue but to accumulate the most adaptation.

​

If you're constantly tired, sore, and forcing sessions, consider that the answer may not be more training. It may be more recovery.

As the old saying goes, "Train Hard. Recover Harder."