More power to you if you can generate enough wattage to light up the world like this. I doubt that I\’ll ever be able to do it!

I do hope that I\’m improving my power on two wheels. That was the point of beginning \”force\” exercises last November, well in advance of Tour de Cure.

My earliest such efforts were limited to 10 seconds of tying to pedal 70 rpm in a very hard gear. Initially, it took most of those 10 seconds for me to get my cadence up to 70! Over the months, I\’ve very gradually increased the length of those intervals. It took until about August for me to really see some effects of those hard efforts.

The faster a cyclist can pedal in the harder a gear, the more wattage he or she generates. The longer the cyclist can keep this up, the more distance covered in X amount of time. Thus I\’ve been working at riding for longer and longer on the big ring, and smaller cogs.

On days when I\’m working against a headwind, I catch myself longing for a power meter. (I\’d rather have a crank-mounted type, if I could find one; I still don\’t feel ready for roadie shoes and pedals). As I\’ve seen stated in so many sources, speed isn\’t necessarily the best way to measure your progress. Factors such as terrain and wind can skew your speed quite a bit.

But power? If you\’re generating X amount of watts, it\’s X amount of watts, whether you\’re laboring up an hors cate´gorie mountainside, flying along on a flat road, or battling a 20 mph headwind. If you can generate megawatts against such a wind, more power to you. Or should I say, more power from you?