Originally Posted by Mtracer

I have several sets of Favero Duos and a set of Favero Pro MX pedals. I've done the SPD hack on the duos so I can use SPD cleats and MTB shoes. This was before the Pro MX SPD versions were released. They all work well. Zero issues.

Originally Posted by lennyparis

Is pedal based or crank based better for power meter?
Probably building up an S-Works SL8 so not sure will get the 4iiii crank arm power meter that comes with the full bike
Is the 4iiii power meter better than the Shimano crank power meter?

Originally Posted by Mtracer

Several people have commented on the ability to move pedal based meters between bikes, yet many don't do that. That is certainly true in my case. Though I did move them some when I had my first and only set. But I have also changed cranks on all of my bikes. If I had crank-based meters, that would have been a big deal. With the pedal based, it's a non-issue.

I'm not arguing that one is better than the other, just pointing out something I did (changing cranks) where the pedal based were an advantage for me.

Originally Posted by merlinextraligh

When power meters cost $2000, I would move my Quark crank between my road bike and my TT bike between stages on a 2 stage day of a stage race. If both bikes use the same bb, it’s a 5 minute job.

Originally Posted by PromptCritical

Well, I had 4 power pedals before the first one failed @ 7 months and second @ 8 months (the two on the tandem are still alive, but we don't ride it as much as the singles) and two Varias (at least Garmin has a replacement program to deal with their charging port design flaw). I gave up on their cycling computers years ago.

Originally Posted by McNamara

I fall into the category of people who will probably benefit from dual sided PMs, as I shattered my tibia a little over a year ago and am still rebuilding the strength in that leg (one quad is still visibly larger than the other). I'm curious to see what my L/R balance will be when I get a power meter, and even more curious to see if I can even it out over time. I'm leaning towards Favero Assioma PRO MX based on the reviews I've read.

Originally Posted by PromptCritical

Maybe I'm just lucky, but every Garmin bicycle product (at least 10) I've owned has been junk from a reliability perspective.

Originally Posted by McNamara

I fall into the category of people who will probably benefit from dual sided PMs, as I shattered my tibia a little over a year ago and am still rebuilding the strength in that leg (one quad is still visibly larger than the other). I'm curious to see what my L/R balance will be when I get a power meter, and even more curious to see if I can even it out over time. I'm leaning towards Favero Assioma PRO MX based on the reviews I've read.

Originally Posted by RChung

A decade or so ago I had a bad episode of sciatica that resulted in numbness and loss of control in my right foot: my foot flopped when I walked, I had to climb stairs with my left leg and then drag my right leg up to clear the step. I didn't have pedal power meters, I had a hub-based PM that measures total combined power. The drop in power was stark, and I didn't need a separate sided power meter to tell me that. Over the course of the next six or seven months, I slowly regained control of my foot and, as I did, total combined power edged back up. I'm not sure how having separable right/left data would have changed my rehab: it would have told me how much imbalance there was, but I already knew how much (combined) loss there was. I don't think the actual L/R balance would have been actionable.

Originally Posted by surak

Did you work with a physical therapist? Mine (actually I've had multiple in my 3 months so far) have (all) told me that it's important to not pick up bad habits like limping or favoring a leg because they will be difficult to unlearn even after my strength comes back. They would rather I take things easier than lean on overcompensating my activity with one leg.

To the extent that my injured leg is far weaker now than my other, when I used to be consistently between 48-52% and often averaged an even split over multi-hour intense rides, I suspect that there's a degree of favoring the uninjured leg that will need to be unlearned. I already feel more back tension on one side due to unbalanced pedaling.

Originally Posted by RChung

I did talk with a physical therapist, but I seem to recall she was more concerned about my back than about my leg/foot; she gave me lots of exercises to strengthen and stretch my core and back (that I still do to this day) but I don't recall anything specific about my leg. I don't know that my bilateral asymmetry (everyone is a little asymmetric) is different now than before but functionally I haven't had any problems so I mostly don't care.

Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

Originally Posted by Iride01

That is one factor that might be or at least seem reasonable for getting a dual sided PM. However, I feel that building muscle is best done doing resistance and other exercise while off the bike. In a gym or well equipped home.

Bicycles move in surges of every power stroke of the pedal. And a bicycle is so efficient at converting crank motion into forward motion that the differences in the two aren't really important for the total output of energy into forward motion. And bicycles have always been a poor way to get resistance exercise for muscles, as they don't work that muscle through it's full range.

So relying on your dual sided PM might just have you improving the weaker leg but holding back on the better leg. Which will result in no gain in bicycle performance for a time.

The better part of dual PM use will be analyzing the parts of the pedal stroke during which power is applied and where it peaks on the stroke. Not so much that there is a balance of power on both sides. IMO.

Still, I don't have a need for that level of information. For the casual training I do, one side is good enough.

Originally Posted by RChung

People often say that one advantage of pedals is that they're easily swapped between bikes but users often end up buying several units for different bikes anyway. I used to swap my PT wheel between bikes (and that took just seconds) but then I ended up buying another PT.

Originally Posted by bbbean

Lots of folks make the argument that pedal based are easier to swap from bike to bike, but given the relatively low cost of power meters, I simply have a crank arm PM on each of my bikes. A small investment on a bike I'll ride for 5-10 (maybe more) years saves a lot of swapping pedals from bike to bike. I really don't want to swap pedals when I swap bikes. I want to hop on and go.

Originally Posted by Mtracer

Several people have commented on the ability to move pedal based meters between bikes, yet many don't do that. That is certainly true in my case. Though I did move them some when I had my first and only set. But I have also changed cranks on all of my bikes. If I had crank-based meters, that would have been a big deal. With the pedal based, it's a non-issue.

Originally Posted by Jughed

Pedals move from bike to bike.

You can put them on a dumb trainer, use them if you travel and rent a bike…

I have dual sided Shimano road pedals and a single sided FaveroAssioma SPD (MTB) pedals.

For me, the extra cost of the dual sided pedals just isn’t worth it. And going forward I’m going to standardize on SPD/MTB style pedals vs road style.

Originally Posted by Iride01

Your burn more Calories than actually get put into the pedals.

Originally Posted by zacster

I put my Assioma pedals on my commuter bike a few times just to get an idea of real calories burned on the ride. It wasn't nearly as much as being reported based on HR alone. Less than half IIRC. I didn't like being clicked in though for commuting in NYC as there are too many sudden stops.

Originally Posted by RChung

TL;DR summary: for most people, single-sided is *probably* fine.

I usually try to stay out of these arguments, and my opinion and attitude about the single-sided vs. both-sided debate have changed over time. I've been using a power meter since the last millenium (this year marks a quarter century that I've been using power data). I did what I think was the first close analysis of a single-sided power meter (the late and not lamented at all Ergomo BB), and I also did what I think was the very first analysis of the Stages single-sided crank, for Ray Maker (DC Rainmaker). Importantly, one of the remits that Ray had set when he asked me to help him was that the single- vs. both-sided issue was off the table. Because of Ray's influence (and my analysis), although Stages had already announced a release date, they held their product back for another six weeks and revised firmware to address (not quite fix) some of the problems I'd identified. I consider that a good outcome: the public got a better device when it was finally released than they otherwise would have had.

But the reality is that Stages changed the market not by producing a superior product but by undercutting the price. They sold power meters that were roughly 60% the price of existing products, and sold people on the idea that accuracy didn't matter, only consistency does.

I thought then, and think now, that this is myopic. But over the years, it's become clear to me that I'm in a minority (as I am on so many things), and they won that war. Although there are many things you can do with power data, people have been convinced that these still-expensive devices are the best tool for training, and so they use it for training and nothing else. In fact, training (especially training FTP) is arguably the least demanding use of power data: that's why people trained successfully for about a century before the first power meters hit the market, and then trained with stop watches, speedometers, and heart rate monitors when each became affordable and available. There are things you can do with a power meter that you can't do with a stop watch, speedometer, or heart rate monitor, but the hard fact is that people don't do them. Recently, people have been eschewing on-bike power meters in favor of smart home trainers, which is pretty clear evidence of their uses and preferences.

So, I've had to change to mind about single-sided PMs. I think that as long as you only do training for FTP and you're not obviously physically impaired, single-sided is probably fine. You see people buying an additional power meter either for another bike, or as a replacement, or inside a smart home trainer, that gives different data -- but they think it's perfectly acceptable that they've been training for years with inaccurate data. That's because training is the least demanding use for power data. To me, that should trigger the thought that maybe they didn't really need a power meter at all, but that's just me.

Bottom line: if all you ever expect to do is train FTP, single-sided is probably fine; a heart rate monitor or a speedometer and a stopwatch is also probably fine. You may very well have challenges down the road when you buy a second (or third) power meter, but that's in the future and hardly anyone thinks that far. There are a handful of people who have obvious physical impairments (I have a friend whose left leg had to be amputated -- single-sided wouldn't work for him at all), and another handful who do things that require higher data fidelity, and a few who think ahead to a time when they need to replace or buy an additional power meter, but if you're not in those groups, single-sided is probably fine.