Your Best Bike Split plan tells you exactly what to hold on every section of the course, whether that's watts, speed, or now, RPE. Most riders lean on the power numbers because they're precise. But precision only helps if you can actually execute it on race day, and that's where Rate of Perceived Exertion earns its place next to your power file.
What is RPE?
RPE is your own read on how hard you're working, scored on a scale. We use a 10-point scale because it's simple enough to check in with mid-effort, no math required.
| Level | Zone | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Recovery | Barely working. You could hold it indefinitely. | |
| 3–4 | Endurance | Easy, conversational, this is where flat and rolling terrain usually sits. | |
| 5–6 | Tempo | You know you're working, but nothing hurts. Sustainable for hours. | |
| 7–8 | Threshold | Uncomfortable. Short sentences only. This is climbing-effort territory, and you can only hold it so long. | |
| 9 | Very Hard | Ragged breathing, legs burning, counting down until it's over. | |
| 10 | Max | Everything you have, for seconds to a couple minutes at most. |
Why RPE Matters Even When You Have A Power Target
A Best Bike Split plan is built from your FTP, weight, position, and the specific course and weather conditions for your event. It's a physics-based model, and a precise one, but it doesn't know how you feel on the start line. It can't account for a rough night of sleep, a stomach that's off, or heat that's running hotter than forecast. The target number stays the same regardless. RPE is the variable that tells you whether that number is realistic today. This is also why we built the RPE Cheat Sheet.
The RPE Cheat Sheet
Every Best Bike Split race plan already generates a Power Based cheat sheet and a Speed Based cheat sheet, breaking your course into segment types like flat and rolling terrain by wind direction, minor and major climbs, and descents, with a target for each. The RPE Cheat Sheet does the same thing, but in effort terms instead of numbers.
Instead of a wattage target for a major climb, you get an RPE range, something like 7-8. Instead of a number for a headwind section, you get a 3-4. It's built from the same plan and the same course data, just translated into how the effort should feel rather than what your meter should read.
That matters for a few reasons. Riders without a power meter still get a real, course-specific pacing strategy instead of guessing. Riders who do race with power get a built-in gut check: if your legs are telling you an 8 on a section your sheet says should feel like a 5, something's off, whether that's pacing, fueling, or the day just not being your day. And if your device dies or your data drops mid-race, you've still got a plan you can execute by feel.
Like the other cheat sheets, it's built to print, cut out, and tape to your top tube. Three versions of the same plan, in whatever language your body understands best that day.
How To Use All Three Together
Don't treat these as three separate plans. They're the same plan told three ways. Your power number is the goal. Your speed number is a rough sanity check when you glance down. Your RPE is the read that catches everything the other two can't, the stuff that changes ride to ride and even mile to mile: how you slept, how the heat's hitting you, how much you've got left in the tank.
Train with all three before race day so you know what your numbers should feel like. If your cheat sheet says a medium hill should sit at RPE 5-6 and you're consistently reading it as an 8 in training, that's worth digging into before it becomes a race-day surprise.
Pull up your race plan, print your cheat sheet, and get it taped to your top tube before the gun goes off.
Dave Schell / Kaizen Endurance
Dave Schell is the Founder and Head Coach of Kaizen Endurance coaching based out of Boulder, Colorado, where he works with off-road cyclists of all abilities. Dave is the former director of coach education at TrainingPeaks where he traveled the world teaching coaches how to better use training software with their athletes.
Read more about Dave Schell at Kaizen Endurance.
