CliffordK

Hmmm.... too much skimming of the discussion.

Unless one is very careful with parameters going into Strava, it basically uses speed and slope to calculate power, so it would be difficult to use Strava calculated power to compare rides as it isn't independent.

According to the review above, the powercal heart rate monitor makes errors such as not picking up coasting, but the average power for a ride was close to the power meter, but unfortunately some variability, with at times producing high results, and other times producing low results.

It might be interesting to take, say 10 rides on the same bike that come up to within a second or two on the results, and look at the variability in power recorded by powercal to see if it is truly representative of effort. Also do the same with a physical power meter.

Personally, I've been experimenting with a couple of different bikes, and hopefully will have some comparative data this summer. In theory, the lower my bars, the less power it should take to propel the bike forward. However, the question is whether that also affects the ability to get power to the pedals. Perhaps other power metrics such as the heart rate monitor would help capture differences related to bicycle configuration.