Quintana wants power meter ban. Señor, ain’t gonna happen.

//Quintana wants power meter ban. Señor, ain’t gonna happen.

Quintana wants power meter ban. Señor, ain’t gonna happen.

Down with power meters!

On the Tuesday rest day of the Helta Skelta Vuelta, race leader Nairo Quintana suggested that they throw power meters out of the race. Nairo, awesome idea, 100% behind you, never going to happen.

The mini-size Colombian climber put it this way: “They take away a lot of spectacle and make you race more cautiously, I’d be the first in line to say they should be banned.”

Hey, fantastic idea, seriously. Aren’t we all tired of looking at Chris Froome looking at his power meter up every mountain? Tedious, dull, a life measured watt by careful watt, the opposite of spontaneous, the death of panache. In stead of attacking, we have analysis; instead of daring we have data processing.

We all feel that emotion is missing in racing, the ability to read a race, the instinctual move based on experience and improv and passion and competitive juice. That’s why we love riders like Contador and Nibali for their attack-at-any-moment style.

“I think they’re really useful for training, but they take out a lot of drama from the sport,” said Quintana’s right hand compadre Alejandro Valverde. “In competition you should be racing on feelings.”

Yup, got that. Sadly these two gentleman have failed to understand the push of technology, the lure of sponsorship money and the general modern obsession with analytics. Power meters aren’t going anywhere and sure as hell aren’t leaving the handlebars.

He might has well have made a plea for wool jerseys, toe clips and steel frame bikes. Hell, one of the WorldTour teams is sponsored by Dimension Data. We’re already getting loads of new rider race data displayed on our TV screens and mobile devices. The trend is more, not less. Sky isn’t pulling off their Stages power meters because Nairo Quintana has a sense of poetry and romance for the days of racing past.

Señor Quintana, you’re tilting at windmills. Power meters are way too powerful to every bother with your request. Analytics onward!

 

By |2019-02-03T15:45:06-08:00August 30th, 2016|Uncategorized|0 Comments

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