This is just a brief update on the CS600X bike computer - I've been using this for about 6 months now, on a pretty frequent basis, but the majority of use has been on the turbo trainer.

Training and Racing with a Power Meter
H. Allen and A. Coggan
Pub Velopress 2006

I have been using heart rate monitors for cycle training in an effective manner over the last decade.  For a few years prior to that, my usage of HRMs just consisted of looking at the heart rate.  What induced my HRM-based training to really take off and lead to improved time trialling was using Pete Read's Black Book (aka The Annual Manual), which delivers a programme of turbo training sessions arranged in monthly progression.  Inherent in that programme is the need to for the cyclist to know what his or her maximum heart rate is, and from this to deduce five levels (0-4).  This is actually quite hard to do - it seems to me that it does take quite a bit of experience to really appreciate how hard an effort can be sustained.  

Recently I bought a Polar CS600X bike computer with the Polar Power meter attachment.  This isn't the kind of kit I'd like to fit to a bike that will be used in the hurly burly of a time trial environment - I can't help feeling that the exposed cables would be quite vulnerable when heaving the bike in and out of car boots for example.  It's also not suitable for moving between bikes, as installation, while not particularly difficult, is quite time-consuming.  I chose to install the kit on the bike I keep mounted on the turbo trainer.  This is the set up that I do just about all of my "real" training - the kind of training sessions which I monitor carefully using the HRM.  Having now played around with the kit for a few months, I thought I'd try and get a bit more background understanding of the kinds of data analysis that power metering enables, and to take things beyond the "looking at the numbers" phase.