Power meters
 

Hi, I'm looking for any general input on power meters...

I have a Cannondale CAAD10 Ultegra with a FSA SL-K light carbon bb30 crankset that I use for triathlons. Been looking at power meters, specifically Stages. You buy the left arm matching your crankset and it measures the force of that leg and splits it. (not 100% accurate but good enough for me.) It's $600+ dollars so If I go that way this is the crankset I would be sticking with.

So I'm wondering if I should get a better crankset to match a power meter with??? Or maybe go with a different type of PM, however I think I want to stick with direct force meters...

Also I was thinking of pairing this with Garmin edge 520...

Thoughts???

Read up what DCRainmaker.com has to say. Likely the best resource on PMs.

^ beat me to it. DCRainmakers reviews are great.

Ray's reviews are good but what's interesting is that two people can read the same review and think he said two different things.

Stages is fine, and popular for a reason. Pioneer is also worth a look.

The BePro is very well made. The one I bought tend to not read precisely in lower <200W power but higher is does well. It uses the Keo cleats. I'd buy over Stages.

What's your budget? If you're already looking to replace the crankset + stages, you might as well just buy a Power2Max and get more accurate power readings from both legs instead of an estimation.

Take a look at Power2Max or InfoCrank.

Both are extremely reliable and well made. And I'm pretty sure you can now get a new P2M for not much more than the Stages.

Pioneer is only worth a look if you have/want an Ultegra or Dura-Ace crankset though.

That's circular. The reason is because people think it's fine.

Like others have said, at least take a look at Power2Max. Their prices are pretty reasonable now.

The reason is that it does a good job of what it is designed to do. It's an affordable way to reliably measure power. It's not as accurate as a two sided power meter but it is approximately 100% more accurate than no power meter.

It's certainly reliable and accurate enough for the vast majority of riders who want a power meter for fitness or racing. For those whose needs require the accuracy of a two sided PM, the extra $$$ is more easily justified.

You mean if you use one of two of the most popular cranksets on the market? LOL.

Sure but the OP is asking for a power meter to match his FSA BB30 crankset.

Sorry, I thought we'd moved on to a general discussion. My bad.

No you're probably right. I just had the OP in mind when I posted that. I own a 6800 crankset so am seriously considering the Pioneer right now.

Hmmm. What does "100% more accurate than no power meter" mean? Here's a plot of 10 rides I did up a little hill I have to go up pretty often, showing avg speed on one axis and avg power (from my calibrated power meter) on the other. As you can see, if I only had a wristwatch and no power meter, either speed or elapsed time would have been a pretty good predictor of power. The correlation was 0.97, and that includes one ride on a very windy day. So can you explain what "100% more accurate than no power meter" means? Cuz my current thinking is that it's as circular and meaningless as your original post.

http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/watt...peed-power.png

I don't know what the "vast majority" of riders want or need, and I work with a lot of racers (and a few people who are just into "fitness"). I do know that there are differences in the data quality produced by different power meters, and that some riders can use high quality data and others don't. You appear to be among those who don't need high quality data, and there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is that you think everyone is exactly like you. The reason why Ray Maker's reviews are so long is that he thinks there's a use case for every product and he's not the arbiter for everyone else what their use case is. So he lays out the strengths and weaknesses and hopes that his readers will know their own use case well enough that they can navigate to the right choice among the many products he reviews.

But making pronouncements like you do is certainly faster and easier, so there's that.

Or for those who want a power meter that actually reliably works.

I had two Stages power meters for over a year. Nothing but trouble. Worked extensively with Stages to get my problems resolved to no avail, they even refurbished both of the units, one of them twice. 80% failure rate on long endurance rides over 80 miles, including four of five major event rides that I trained for for over 6 months, big timed climbing rides over 100 miles. My coach gets the data files and literally there's almost nothing he can say about them because of the extent of the losses.

The best thing that I can say for Stages is that it's inexpensive and they have good customer service, they did eventually give me my money back for both units.

I have a pretty decent understanding now of what the issues are with the Stages PMs and it's certainly not just a lack of two sided data. I moved to SRM power meters and guess what? No data issues at all. Night & day experience.

[QUOTE=RChung;18550433]Hmmm. What does "100% more accurate than no power meter" mean? [/QUOTiE]

An analogy: I weigh each morning at the same time. This gives me a good measure of my weight and day to day variability. If I weighed every other day, I would still have a good measure of my weight and a good idea of day to day variability. The measure would have a slightly higher error rate, but would still be useful for weight maintenance and evaluation.
On the other hand, if I never get on a scale, and just estimate my weight based on waist size or shirt size, I really don't know how much I weigh, what my day to Tay variance might be, or what the error rate might be.

I snipped the rest of your post, but I believe that you are personally able to estimate your power on a hill you train on regularly. I don't know what that has to do with the issue at hand or anything I posted, but congratulations on your training and perceptiveness.

I'm also thinking you have confused me with someone else, based on some of your other comments. But it's obvious that either I've rubbed you the wrong way, or that you have a burr in your saddle for anyone who uses or endorses a one sided power meter. Got it. Noted.

Have a great day.

Just got a Stages last weekend so I don't have a whole lot of time accumulated with it as of yet....but I haven't had a single power drop out on either Zwift or my Garmin Edge 500 yet. So far over fourteen hours of riding and not a single dropout. I believe the battery door cover issues have been fixed with the newest version of their power meters.

Hmmm. Perhaps so. Perhaps I've confused you with someone else who also repeats trite nonsensical platitudes. If so, sorry.

Stages is ok.. battled with the battery door and bad battery contact, but once those were resolved it's been solid. I also use Vectors on another bike and the data is comparable and at one point I was using a power tap wheel as well.. and again comparable to both stages and vectors and even my kickr powermeter lines up well.

You are a prince among men. Thank you for gracing us with your superiority.

I have a stages meter and it really does seem great. I recently experienced the meter dropping out while riding the trainer, which was obvious during the ride and afterwards on the power graph, but the LBS where I got it from gave me a new battery door that has apparently been a common fix and it appears good as new now. I'm not a huge data freak and just a recreational rider, but the ability to use power as a tool during the ride and afterwards has helped me get a handle on my performance and any gains I am making.

I guess i just just don't see what else a more expensive meter will give me. Maybe the two sides Vector pedals would allow that Cycling Dynamics program of Garmins with extra data to analyze, but I just don't see that helping me.

I agree. I've benefited a great deal from the information Robert's shared and always enjoy the way he presents it.