It's useful, like anything giving feedback is useful. There is some truth in what you say, that there are highs you can't avoid, and that between you go like 100. Sometimes you look down and see 58. It's also very useful that sometimes you look down and see 58 while your HR is 162. It's also confusing at times. The correlations are strange. It's obvious when you power over something and burn a match your HR spikes and your power lags. But there are some non-obvious correlations that don't always make sense.
I think it will help in the first 15 minutes. My guess is that everyone burns half their match book in the first 15 minutes. At a place like Stewart, or like 5 of the H2H courses, it's probably useful in pacing. At a place like Jungle I doubt it helps much.
Also, 1 thing I didn't realize is how often you go into L5/6. It's a lot, like A LOT. There's no wonder than MTB racers step into the crit scene and do very well. The demands are very similar, actually more so. And I don't even have any race data yet. It will be interesting to see the race data between MTB, road, and cx this year. They're very different disciplines but they all demand...well, they demand you to have a solid high end.
Do intervals son!
