colombo357

I've got a Stages power meter at the moment and will likely replace it with Powertap P1s for the portability.

For those who are right-leg-dominant like me and went from a left side only PM to a dual side PM, did you notice a difference in your sprinting power readings?

WhyFi

Oof - you missed the Clever Training 20% VIP Sale by a handful of hours. That's a shame. Oh well, you can still get 10% off, which is better than a poke in the eye.

Anyway, as far as your question, it's doubtful that the results from others will be very helpful to you as an individual. Just do it.™

Brandonyatessr

I would say this. They will vary... But that has nothing to do with your actual training. You will never get an absolute starting point after changing gear... So just go from here with your new gear. your training from those numbers, set yourself another baseline and go from there. If I'm wrong someone tell me please. It makes sense to me as a machinist.

RChung

There are actually two issues: first, even if your legs are completely symmetrical (and no one's are) with a left-side only power meter your sprint power will vary with the leg you begin your sprint with. A dual-sided power meter tends to have less variance from sprint to sprint because of this.

Second, if sprint training is important to you, you should know that power meters that depend on accelerometers to determine cadence (as the pedal power meters and the P2M and some models of the Quarq do) are slower to record standing starts compared to power meters that use old-fashioned reed switches. That said, even excluding true standing starts, the Stages appears to be less responsive to sudden changes in crank acceleration compared to some of the other accelerometer-based power meters. So, if sprinting is important to you the Stages was probably not a good choice and almost any power meter will likely be an improvement -- though there may be others that are even better than P1's.

[edited to add] Every power meter has idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies make some power meters better in "edge" cases than others. Almost all reviews on power meters focus only on the average case (like, "my average wattage on power meter X is within a few watts of my average on power meter Y"). For certain uses, whether two power meters are close on average is far less important than knowing when they'll be different.

Dean V

My left leg is stronger and on a typical ride I get around a 54/46 split L/R.
However with harder efforts like VO2 max and up to sprinting I am 50/50.
I am sure this is different for everyone though.

musicmaster

One thing to remember is that the actual number doesn't matter as much as the consistency does. If you're constantly 5w off, you can still base your training vs if you're up and down 10-20w with a unreliable meter .

1500SLR

A dual sided power meter either cranks, pedals or hubs will be more accurate. Single sided power meters came from a time where power meters were more expensive and most people could only afford one. Even if your legs are symmetrically balanced which they're not (they're actually asymmetric).... you will get a far more accurate reading from a dual sided power meter. How much the difference is? depending on the training you've done it could be 60/40 for all I know... So the difference of 20% could be how much a single sided power meter could be out buy. Buy a dual sided power meter if at all possible even if its a cheaper one.