Only had my vectors a week, looks like I’m going to have to sell them now…
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I could release you from that burden without any additional cost for you 
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…but…but…my power meter is the only thing that talks to me over 180 lonely kms!
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Long post alert lol
Hmm it seems like you answered your own question though…
This is the natural consequence of riding outdoors - on a trainer sustained wattage will be +/- 5 watts whereas on the road (assuming flat) can be +/- 20. But a properly paced race effort will always end up within VI 1.00 +/- .02. My point is power is always changing, even within a second there’s thousands of data points.
And hence why power is looked at to either confirm or deny RPE and allows the athlete to adjust on the fly instead of digging into a hole and falling off their goal sustainable pace at a faster rate.
My opinion (and many many others including Coach Chad):
Any athlete who has trained appropriately for their event knows relatively how much a race effort should hurt. Indoors where there’s no external effort factors other than heat dissipation one can go even deeper than a race scenario where there is relatively zero consequence for blowing up. During a race on the other hand, it’s better to leave gas in the tank instead of it being emptied before the finish line.
RPE gets misinterpreted that it has to align with set zones. RPE is personal. RPE is “if I’m experiencing this pain can it be sustained for x duration.” “If not I should back off a bit (looks at wattage and drops it x watts) ok so I can sustain x watts.”
This also works in reverse you can be going too easy, maybe the legs are super fresh. Pick up the pace - the point is watts shouldn’t dictate how you race… You should.
So in short by racing to RPE one can dial the effort down (like the WO slider in TR) instead of maintaining something out of the athletes reach that day (due to whatever reason) which will leave their tank empty before the line (whether an Ironman or TT).
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The problem with RPE outside, for me at least, is that it is influenced by a lot of psychological factors other than actual ability to perform. For example, for me putting out a particular power in a screaming headwind feels way harder to me than putting out the same power going up hill. So, a lot of times I use my power meter to check that I am not psyched out by the conditions. The same way I use power and heart rate comparisons to see If there is illness or fatigue going on when the power and hr are out of alignment.
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Wrong Sutton
opposite here, better heat dissipation is one reason (the other mental) that I can go deeper outside than inside. So I think this is somewhat personal too.
I hear that a lot around here, because most local weekend rides are in the hills, but mid week there are flat rides in strong winds. Took me many two seasons and a lot of riding into a headwind to mentally conquer this one.
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Agreed on this. I don’t know why headwinds are so demoralizing, but for some reason they just are.
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Deception. The flat road that was so easy last time is annoyingly difficult and solo I’m doing 14mph at 300W into a 25mph head/cross wind. Easy to get demoralized.
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Yup, definitely personal.
For me in sunny florida I’d rather be inside with two box fans than a tt with where yes the wind gets rid of sweat but the sun is baking you. With humidity currently it feels like 90+ and it’s not even summer when it gets to “feels like 120+“ at times.
My point regarding that aspect was in training (indoors) vs racing (outdoors) really was:
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I like the data that PM/headunit gathers during the ride. I also like seeing three numbers (HR, RPM, 3-sec PW) during…but I realized other than curiosity it doesn’t really give me any real value during a ride for the type of riding I do. Power is a nice to know given I mainly ride fixed, cadence is much more important for me but I can tell where I am generally via my legs (unless I’m working on leg speed).
So I’ve been riding with my Wahoo headunit in my jersey pocket or using the app on my phone to log rides recently. I also have been wearing an analog watch to know when my ride is done (since I ride by time). It’s been nice.
I still have the out front mount on my bars, mostly for the GoPro mount and the ability to mount my phone for indoor TR workouts… but I may be removing this for the summer soon.
Data is useful for me post ride. TR is my data vault and where I pull all analytics I need to compare and dive in. I will ALWAYS want the data but unless I’m doing a structured workout (which I do mostly indoors with the TR app) I don’t need the numbers in my face.
Ok so I’m NOT the guy at the pointy end of a race, setting the pace. Therefore I’m more motivated to go harder outside in a race versus indoors, because its either risk blowing up, or risk getting dropped and not making the break. Having zero consequence inside means I’m less willing to go harder. But that’s just me, wish I could summon the same will inside as I have outside. Kinda like mentally allowing yourself to get demoralized by strong headwinds, I’m sure I could go harder inside but haven’t mentally conquered that one yet.
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As you mentioned, it’s totally psychological. I think much of it has to do w/your speed being disproportionate to your effort on flat ground. When you’re going uphill, you expect the speed to be slow, scenery to go by slower, etc., not so much when you’re on the flat cranking out some watts.
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In both my last two 70.3 I did, I was blessed to win my AG.
The first one was raced by RPE. The later I raced by power.
In both of them my run from the bike was solid at 1:29 meaning that the legs were still able to do the job.
The point here is that the course I raced by power was extremely challenging with two big climbing sections one in the beginning and the other very close to T2.
On the first climbing section I kept my power plan and was passed by more than 40 guys 30 of them “racing by feel” for sure.
Until the T2 I think I must have passed them all again and also a few more. My VI was 1,06 which could be considered good for such a difficult course.
I started the run in 5th but all but one of the contenders exploded probably due to overbiking.
So generally I would say that in my opinion maybe 2 in 30 triathletes can race properly by RPE but only one of them would do a better job that racing by power.
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Wow!
The main idea I was getting to is that athletes might be stubborn and stick to x wattage without listening to their bodies… and blow themselves up later in the race.
I still honestly think that “good” racing (relative to one’s self) involves RPE and Power.
Following BBS pacing plan up climbs (for me at least) says at what wattage are you wasting Kjs at the current speed. Also for downhills they give suggested power output even light spinning that gave me the fastest bike leg overall for a local sprint race (didn’t mean much cuz I can’t run 
).
Agree 100%, and I think at 70.3+ distances, a power meter is a huge, huge advantage having raced both ways. Probably not a big deal at all in a sprint where you’re simply going until you have tunnel vision or even an Oly. If anything, I think a PM in those scenarios might actually make me go harder since they are threshold+ efforts, rather than maintaining proper pacing as in the longer events.