Originally Posted by DrWJODonnell
Lastly, as a side note, a teammate of mine has been running the IBike power meter along side of his Power tap for about 2000 miles now and he says it is spot on with the power tap. In addition, the I bike is $500 and thus the cheapest (assuming you don't have the polar watch). Also, you can get virtual frontal area measurements (important for TTing). The disadvantage seems to be no use on the trainer and for a TT bike your hands obscure the wind. Also of note, the Ibike will be upgrading to a wireless cadence as well as polar coded compatability which is important in the peloton.
**EDIT** The I bike is supposed to be very easy to switch between bikes. The polar is not.***
Hope this helps.
The hardest part about moving the iBike is pulling the handlebar mount off and installing it on the next bike. Currently, the speed and cadence sensors are wired, so you'll need to cut some tie-wraps and have extra tie-wraps for remounting. If you don't want to fool around with any of this, you can buy another mount for $89US.
The iBike is still going through development--but, actually all of the powermeters are for one reason or another. Currently, there is an "opportunity for improvement" regarding it's operation in cold weather. The CR2032 lithium coin battery doesn't like the cold and "gives up the ghost" in 15-30 minutes in mid-20s F weather.
I agree on the point about the "Athlete" version ($99US) of the CyclingPeaks software. Great stuff, but it's by no means in a mature state. The Performance Manager is a great addition and used correctly, can assist you in reaching a "peak" for an important event.
IMHO, I would not get a PM that I couldn't use in races. That is the most important data that you can place in the CyclingPeaks software. Races bring out performances that would never be duplicated in training.
EDIT: Also, the iBike -can- and is being used on trainers and rollers. It's a matter of modifying the reach of the speed sensor so that it can be mounted by the rear wheel (for a trainer). For rollers, no change is needed. Both situations require messing around with calibration parameters to get a representative wattage number from the iBike.