canam73

I believe the Stages only works with metal crank arms. You could try a Rival arm I guess.

Dudelsack 

****

mvnsnd

subscribed...

akeelor

Interesting...but what is low cost about it? $899 crank arm.

robbyville

Well compared to other crank or pedal Power meters this price point is pretty good

gadabout007

It's a tad bit more than just an "$899 crank arm". if you compare what's available in the powermeter market, it's actually quite reasonably priced. You can also get the 105 crank arm for $699 if $899 is too steep.

The cheapest ready to roll option from powertap direct is $899 for 1800g rear wheel with a G3 hub.

Quarq $1,500 - $2,000

SRM $2,500 - $5,000

Garmin Vector $1,800

power2max is $900 - $1,600 without chainrings.

SteveM

I think the word is "cojones".

jonny wong

I am on their 3rd crank arms. The first one was sent me DOA, reading was over the roof. Then the 2nd one lasted for about a month, the cheap plastic housing cracked. Again, they sent me the 3rd one, now i am wondering how long will this one last? For almost $1000 bucks, and all the hassle of going back and forth to the shop to get them installed, taken out, replaced like an idiot, I should have saved my $ and go for the better alternatives.

darb85

let me know when the pod falls off of the crank so I can call them and ask for another replacement arm. 100% of the ones weve sold have come back with the pods hanging off. sold 10 of them. Hope its better now

VA_Esquire

pedaling out of a corner. I have the opposite pedal down to take the corner, but when coming out of the corner I tend to start pedaling a little too early, but that is simply retraining myself to start pedaling a little later or pull up a little sooner (different clearance coming from speedplay).

Ricanfred

Wut?! I was really considering this for my intro to power...

darb85

yup they at least had if not still have an issue with the epoxy they use, it releases off of the arm and the pod falls off, sometimes completly other times just hanging on by two millimeter wires.

gadabout007

100% failure rate? I guess there's no polite way of saying I don't believe you for a second. If any product suffered a failure rate higher than 15 - 20% they would almost certainly go bankrupt servicing RMA requests... let alone 100% I did see a couple posts on slowtwitch and other places discussing the issue, but most are cross posts by the same people. The shop I purchased from has been selling stages meters since April and have moved a lot more than 10 units. So far they've had two DOA and no returns after being successfully setup. Now that's not to say that a customer hasn't had problems and dealt with Stages directly.

It's not bonded with epoxy. It's bonded with Fusor 116 plastic to metal adhesive.

From the manufacturers description: For cross-bonding bare metal to plastic, such as: Ground effects; hood scoops; door skins - composite or metal; Corvette body panel installations; Kemlite roofs - semi trailers; trailer walls; compact freight vehicles or RVs; factory truck hoods - aluminum brackets to composite, headlight buckets, etc

Vlaam4ever

Thanks for confirming this. I've heard of no install "falling apart" issues. Most of the complaints I've read seem data and software related.

Sounds like the OP has data and calibrations issues as well any word on if these have been resolved by the OP? Wouldn't the LBS typically do this work or did you buy direct from the OEM?

thirdgenbird

Two pairs of my keos have marks from pedal strike. I would be surprised if it would cause more than cosmetic damage on vectors, but pedal strike can and does happen.

Jakedatc

Yea.. you can still hit the pedal but i dont think you can hit the Pod part.. It is even with the bottom of the crank arm.. so even if you lean it way over with your outside foot down the crank arm is going to hit first.

I don't own one but just don't think the risk of hitting it on the ground is the top reason you shouldn't get one..

thirdgenbird

I think we are on the same page. I thought you were saying it is unlikely you would hit the pedal. I wouldn't be conserned about hitting the pod at all. I would be more worried about shock loading the strain gauge itself with a pedal strike. Again, I doubt it would cause anything more than cosmetic damage.

gadabout007

I've put three rides on it and the pod hasn't fallen off I have to say I like it so far.

First ride was with the stages meter by itself. I wanted to do a workout using this meter and see if felt too easy or too hard based on my numbers using the powertap and computrainer. The workout sucked equally as much as it did using the powertap.

Today I was using both meters with 500, and 510 computer. Below is the output form poweragent... Both meters were zeroed beforehand and the stages was consistently 4 - 6 watts higher than the powertap. The numbers seemed to jive with each other when power was less than 150

Powertap

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]Total Elapsed Time[/TD]
[TD]1:05:13
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Ride Time (Time Moving)[/TD]
[TD]1:03:09
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Distance, mi[/TD]
[TD]21.08
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Work, kJ[/TD]
[TD]628
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Temperature, °F[/TD]
[TD]67.0
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Power, Watts[/TD]
[TD]217
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Cadence[/TD]
[TD] 96
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Speed, mph[/TD]
[TD]21.65
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Heart Rate[/TD]
[TD]164
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Weight, lbs[/TD]
[TD]175
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]VAM[/TD]
[TD]543
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Device[/TD]
[TD]Edge 500 v3.000
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Stages

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]Total Elapsed Time[/TD]
[TD]1:05:15
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Ride Time (Time Moving)[/TD]
[TD]1:03:14
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Distance, mi[/TD]
[TD]21.11
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Work, kJ[/TD]
[TD]639
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Temperature, °F[/TD]
[TD]66.3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Power, Watts[/TD]
[TD]221
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Cadence[/TD]
[TD] 93[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Speed, mph[/TD]
[TD]21.61
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Average Heart Rate[/TD]
[TD]161
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Weight, lbs[/TD]
[TD]175
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]VAM[/TD]
[TD]546
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Device[/TD]
[TD]Unknown[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Bob Dopolina 

The 4-6 watt difference would seem like loss through the drivetrain, non? Which would mean the stages is in step with your PT.

The real test would be a sprint interval workout - lots of jumps and peaks to compare.

Beaker

Subscribing to this too. Definitely would like to see more detail though. I'm using a powercal to track my commutes through pothole strewn streets as opposed to using my PT wheel. For average watts and TSS it's not unreasonable. The devil is in the details though - definitely interested to see if the Stages unit can track short efforts/intervals.