Although Dirk concedes that power is the most meaningful data for cyclists, he affirms that simply collecting data of any kind, whether it’s power, heart rate, or speed, can help athletes better understand and plan their training. “Power for a cyclist is kind of like the gold standard, you know. You can really read a lot once you see power, it’s a lot more valuable than just seeing heart rate alone, but there’s great value in having heart rate and power together. No matter what level of athlete you are, though, collecting your daily stats, how you felt, there’s a lot of value in that over time, if you collect enough data.”

Monitoring training is important because it allows athletes to train as efficiently as possible, accomplishing their goals even with limited training time. “Most people that are being coached are 9-5 type athletes: if you’re a 45-year-old with work, job, and family, you have 8-10 hours to train a week, so you should make the most of your 8-10 hours. So, how can we most efficiently and effectively train for a particular event? Take as much of the guesswork out of it as possible.”

No matter what your overalls goals are, the most important thing is to keep track of them and not get lost in the daily details. “Through your career you might change different aspects of your training, in order to accomplish certain goals, so it’s your overall goal for the season that really matters. Plotting data over time, I see that often people get lost, they can’t see the forest for the trees, they’re too focused on today’s ride data, so I try to get them away from that: it’s not all about today’s data, it’s how does today fit into the overall picture, and is that leading us towards our goal?”

Finally, Dirk admits that it’s really about having fun more than anything else, so it’s okay to take some time off from all the technology if you want to. “No matter what, it needs to be fun, first of all. Any time of the year, you gotta have some fun, so if you can just upstrap yourself from all the technology, if that helps, go for it. It’s more about getting out there and having some general fitness, especially this time of year.”

If you are craving technology, however, have fun experimenting with the new version of the software, TrainingPeaks 3.0. “We’re launching a new TrainingPeaks version 3.0, it’s in Beta right now, which is accessible to the public. It’s, may I say, sexy. It’s really cool. We’ve got some great drag-and-drop features, among many others.”