No. For riders without a power meter, PowerBrain employs sophisticated physics formulas to estimate your power, in watts, for every second of your ride. It then uses that information to assess your ride load and build your future plans. PowerBrain combines measurements of cadence, speed, distance, and elevation (note that only speed is required) from your cycle computer to calculate power and we have found our estimates to be very accurate for training planning.

Measuring is always better, and so a power meter is a great tool to use when developing a plan and/or analyzing ride data. If you have a power meter, we'll make use of a it but will estimate watts if your ride file does not include watts. Note that PowerBrain highlights estimated watts on the Ride Analysis page so you know whether PowerBrain is working with actual or estimated watts.