Heart Rate Zones

After 20 years of being a couch potato, with a sedentary job, realsied I needed to do something to get fit so bought a bike.
The bug has bitten and I love it.
Problem I have is that most coaching/ training articles refer to heart rate zones as %MHR, (there are exceptions Joe Friel goes on % LT, Ric Stern on Power).
Most of these articles will say something like 'recovery ride 50-60% MHR'.
I can't do this.
To make the point consider 2 athletes (Ok 1 athlete - a well known cyclist, and me)
Well known cyclist has MHR 201, RHR 28, VO2 80+.
I have MHR 178 (approx), RHR 63 (dont laugh it was 78 in October), VO2 (approx - its a polar walk index) 31 (again dont laugh it was 23 in October).
A book by the well known cyclist says for recovery he sets his HRM alarm to 120bpm or 60%MHR.
I can just ride at 120bpm on my warm up, after that forget it, and 120bpm is 67% MHR.
But to do this, the well known cyclist has raised his heart rate by 93bpm or 46% of his MHR, I have raised my heart rate by 57 bpm or 32% of my MHR.
Which one of us is working harder?
It seems to me that Karvonen zones make more sense, as they are working on an increase in heart activity, but if you want to use Karvonen zones, shoud you use the same percentage values as advocated as %MHR, or should you drop them by say 5%, (in other words recovery zone would be 45-55% Karvonen)?
Ant advice gratefully received.