Ever since signing up for next year’s Haute Route Alps, I’ve been struggling with the decision to buy or not to buy a power meter once again. My best Haute Route results were in 2013 when I trained on heart rate alone, but my worst finishes have been after I gave up my power meter in 2016 or 2017. I don’t think this really says much because I’m just getting older and I know that I trained a lot more (and stayed off the sauce) in 2013 than any other year.

So where does this leave me? Part of me knows that having ‘numbers’ is a solid measurement of progress – just knowing that your FTP is increasing throughout the season can give you motivation to train harder. The other part of me, however, knows that it’s the work that matters, and great cyclists didn’t always have power meters.

But Gerry, you say, you can’t compare cyclists from the 50s, 60s, or 70s with today! Surely everyone is faster these days, thanks to modern training methods, high-tech science and methodical training programs that today’s riders have access to.

Well, maybe.

I decided to check a couple of things to see how much faster and stronger we are than our ancestors from the pre-carbon fiber days. First, something flat.

HOUR RECORD

There are a few of these, but there is an Hour Record that is ridden on a traditional, non-aero steel bike to keep things equal, and you-know-who’s record of 1972 was the reference till Boardman beat him 28 years later. Then, along came a guy named Sosenka in 2005 and bettered it again (although Sosenka was caught doping at least once, so take that for what its worth). The difference between Eddy, who rode on baked potatoes and minestrone soup, and Sosenka, who apart from EPO, probably had a power meter:

That’s a difference of less than 300 meters, or about the distance of the nearest bakery from your house if you live in France. There’s not a lot there over an hour.

CLIMBING

This is where it gets tricky because I don’t know of any climbing competitions that use traditional bikes nowadays, so some math needs to be attempted.

Alpe d’Huez: Fausto Coppi’s recorded time up ADH in 1952 was 45:22 and Marco Pantani’s fastest time in 1995 was 36:50. This is significantly faster, yes, but Pantani was most certainly juiced up on EPO, as were the rest of the Top Tens on the fastest ever ascension list – Armstrong, Ullrich, Zulle, Riis, Virenque, etc.

Mont Ventoux: Probably a better comparison is Charly Gaul’s time up Ventoux (from Bedoin) put up against a doped Iban Mayo.

Charly Gaul (1958): 62:09

Iban Mayo (2004): 55:51

There are so many variables here that don’t make these easy comparisons. The road itself probably hasn’t changed, but the surfaces have, that’s for sure. Check out what Louison Bobet was climbing Ventoux on in 1951, for example.

And what the Ventoux tarmac looks like this year.

And then there’s the all-important weight of the bike. I couldn’t find Charly Gaul’s, but I see that Jacques Anquetil’s Tour de France bike in 1962 was 10.2 kg, so it couldn’t have been lighter than that, I guess. Pretty much everyone after carbon fiber came into the picture has been at the same weight (the minimum allowed by the UCI):

Charly Gaul’s bike: 10.2 kg

Iban Mayo’s bike: 6.8 kg

This is a difference of 3.4 kg, or put another way, Gaul’s weight was 1.5 times that of Mayo’s. I don’t think that we’d expect his time to be 1.5 slower, but this handy GCN video suggests that and extra 5 kg on the bike (all other things being equal) over a 7% av 5 km hill equated to a loss of 1 min 20 seconds. Ventoux is much steeper overall than that and 4.5 times longer, bringing us to a theoretical…I’m getting beyond my capacities now – 4 minutes, if the weight difference is 3.4 kg and not 5 kg?

If that’s true, the ‘modern’ time for Charly Gaul would be 58 minutes, or 2 minutes slower than the drugged-up Iban Mayo, while riding on worse road conditions, without modern nutritional knowledge or application and….no power meter to train with.

CONCLUSION

I don’t have one yet, but thanks for reading.