Why Cyclists Obsess Over Watts

If you’ve been around cyclists long enough, you’ve heard the word watts thrown around like it’s some kind of secret code. “I held 300 watts for twenty minutes.” “That climb was 280 average.” “My FTP went up 10 watts.”

So what’s the big deal? Why are riders—from weekend warriors to Tour de France pros—so obsessed with this invisible metric?

Speed Lies

Let’s start with the obvious: speed is unreliable. A 30 km/h pace on a smooth, windless road is not the same as 30 km/h into a brutal headwind or on rough chipseal. Too many external factors skew it. Train by speed alone and you’ll drive yourself mad wondering why you’re “slower” one day and “faster” the next.

Heart Rate Lags

Heart rate feels more personal, right? It measures your body’s effort, not just what’s happening outside. But it also lags. It takes a few minutes to climb up to match your intensity, and it’s heavily influenced by fatigue, heat, hydration, and even stress. A hard interval on fresh legs might give you 170 bpm. Do the same on tired legs, and your heart might only touch 160—despite the exact same power output.

Watts Don’t Lie

That’s where watts come in. A watt is a watt. Push 250 watts on a climb, it’s 250 watts. Push 250 on the flats into a headwind, still 250. It’s a direct measurement of the work your legs are producing, independent of everything else.

This is why power meters changed cycling forever. Suddenly, training could be precise. Coaches could prescribe exact efforts, races could be analyzed in hard numbers, and riders could finally see what was really happening beneath the noise.

But Here’s the Truth: You Don’t Need a Power Meter

Power meters are great, but they’re not mandatory to ride or train well. Cyclists trained for decades without them—and still got very, very fast. The trick is to learn what different efforts feel like:

• Endurance / Zone 2 – Comfortable pace, you could hold a conversation.
• Tempo – Talking gets harder, but still possible in short bursts.
• Threshold – That fine line where you can just barely sustain it without blowing up.
• VO2 Max – Breathing hard, legs on fire, you know you can’t hold it long.

Dialing into those sensations makes you a better rider, with or without numbers. If you do have power data, use it as a reference, not a crutch.

Where the Magic Happens

The sweet spot is combining instinct with numbers. Use the power meter to check your ego (were you really holding tempo, or was it closer to endurance?), but also train your body to recognize the feeling of each zone. That way, if the battery dies mid-ride—or you’re on a bike without a meter—you’re still in tune with yourself.

At the end of the day, watts are just a tool. The real art of cycling lies in marrying hard data with human intuition.