Jolanda Neff Raced on 'Legs & Heart' Without a Bike Computer or Power Meter at the Tokyo Olympics

[weeksy]

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/jolanda-n ... mpics.html

Awesome... something i massively approve of... as well as in the Olympics for example not having team radios allowed either...

I'm very much an advocate of the non-power meter racing school, i think power meters and watching people just sit in a pack saying "nah, this is my power, this is how i ride" kinda spoils things for me

Jolanda Neff raced without a bike computer, power meter or heart rate monitor on her way to winning the 2021 Tokyo Olympics last week unlike many of her competitors. Neff told us she relied on her "legs and...heart" rather than data to power herself to victory by more than a minute over compatriots Sina Frei and Linda Indergand.

Bike computers are almost universal in endurance bike racing from the Tour de France through to World Cup cross country racing and they can provide riders with data such as their power output, speed, heart rate or lap times. In theory, the information allows riders to use data to measure their effort and theoretically pace themselves better throughout the race. Neff instead raced on intuition and relied on her body telling her how much effort to use as she completed 5 laps of the Izu Peninsula track.

In fact, this isn't unusual for Jolanda, who said she has almost never used a bike computer or power meter in competition and only started using it in training this year. She said: "I have never done any race in my life with a power meter or a heart rate belt or even a bike computer until 2021, with one exception, which was the Tokyo test event in 2019 where I did the race with all 3 and recorded every detail of the parcours. All the years before that, which is 21 years of racing to be fair, I always race on my intuition and my feeling... To me, skills and fun on the bike are the number one priority."

This is a philosophy that Neff wishes to pass onto younger riders who may rely too heavily on numbers over enjoying riding their bikes. She continues, "I would love to give this message to any bike rider in the world, and especially young riders. Please enjoy riding your bike to the fullest, have fun with your mates, admire nature and the animals you get to see and forget about the numbers. You will get fast by riding your bike not by producing some certain numbers. Yes, you need to train and you need to overcome challenges and setbacks but please do it with your heart. Ride your bike for one reason, because it is fun."

[Crosshair]

The thing is, you can’t win with lower power numbers
She will know by feel *exactly* how much power she can hold and for what duration. Whether she measures it and calls it power during training or if it’s live on the display in the race is neither here nor there.
The only time it makes sense is if you’re looking down and thinking ‘I can’t follow that move because I’m already going harder than I can sustain’ in which case that’s a mental attitude problem and not a numbers problem per say.

Track racing is one discipline of course where they don’t ride with power but they will still know all of their numbers. In such a controlled environment, speed and power are so closely linked as to be interchangeable.

Interestingly, Sofia Gomez Villafane (XC rider) was talking about her training in a Trainerroad podcast and her coach created a workout based on another riders power file called ‘Olympics!’ and Sofia kept failing it and it really annoyed her in the end and was counterproductive. So it does need to be kept in perspective.

In bunch racing of any sort, power isn’t that useful in the moment anyhow. If a winning move goes- you either follow it or you can’t. Or you follow it and blow up five minutes later.
And there’s also the mental chess game. You may attack *knowing* it’s not sustainable, but also knowing that it will demoralise your opponent to the point they stop chasing.
What it is good for is reflecting on that race. A power file can help you see exactly how you won or exactly how you lost. And then that can be trained very specifically.

Power is far more useful *in the moment* for solo efforts where pacing yourself is king- breakaways, endurance rides and TT’s. Because ultimately, using up your glycogen stores the second before you cross the finish line is the aim and a PM can definitely help you do that.

I’m sure I could replicate 99% of my training progression without one but a power meter is really the only objective way of quantifying a ride. I may go and smash a loop and be slower than last week because of a headwind but the power meter may show I have still progressed as I’ve done 10w more.

[weeksy]

In bunch racing of any sort, power isn’t that useful in the moment anyhow. If a winning move goes- you either follow it or you can’t. Or you follow it and blow up five minutes later.

Certainly not the case in the mountains, just watch any of the previous half dozen grand tours, watching Quintana, Valverde, Nibali etc attack and the INEOS or now the Jumbo/UAE leaders just go "nah, we're sticking at *** watts, you go, we'll see you in 10 mins" then as expected, in 10 mins, your Quintana type riders die 1000 deaths and the INEOS train (or Jumbo/UAE) reel them back in without ever exceeding their set power figures for the day. You see it ride after ride, with the riders heads buried in their stem watching nothing but their power meter and riding exactly to it.

Obviously in TTs the power meter plays much more of a factor too.

In flat stages, it's clearly a lot less used, but i think still used massively.

I get that's how it is, but it does spoil the excitement for me.

[Crosshair]

Yes but that’s more of a tactical decision of TT at a set power v emotional chess. Their power meter is enabling greater precision but it hasn’t changed their underlying physiology. Tortoise v hare is as old as time

[Hairybiker84]

At high outputs your body is telling you to stop, it's much easier to judge (and you're less likely to get it wrong) if you've got a gauge to watch. If you're not 100% you'll still blow up with a power meter but it's a lot easier to convince yourself that you can do it when you got the numbers to egg you on.
I'm with Weeksy, make the riders do it by feel and no talking to the team cars!

[Crosshair]

I agree with radios but someone who trains 20 hours a week with power knows how many watts they’re putting out without one by feel.

Obviously power meters give them more confidence to push the limits of the tactic but you could work it out from the course profile before you started and tape it on your top tube.

(Ie pushing a 39-15 gear ratio up a certain slope at a certain cadence will equate to a certain wattage. )

It’s far more about taking a more analytical and disciplined approach to racing than it is about the power meter itself.