right now I am using a garmin 305 but I would Like to start training with power.

My options are either get a power tap and have the 305 and the power-tap computer and have to download them separately OR buy a power-tap and a Garmin 500 and give the 305 to my girlfriend.

my question with the wireless/500 scenario is if I buy JUST the pro wheel and then buy a garmin 500 is that All I would need? would heart work through the 500 strap and would my 500 just add the power from the wheel data into my already GPS driven data?

is there a difference in the elite and pro wheel aside from the axle? or is it just the computers that differ?

what is considered the bomb proof power set up? I track my GPS training on Ascent right now so the power data would only be imported if it was inside a garmin file the ascent program says it wont read a power-tap computer

The Garmin 500 will give you all your data, including your HR, and it will add power picked up from an Ant+ compatible Powertap.

Why not just forget about the Garmin, and use Cycling Peaks WKO and the Powertap head unit?

a powertap wheel and garmin unit is the same price as a powertap with the powertap head and heart rate...and i like the garmin data

I would still factor in the cost of the Cycling Peaks software. This is a necessity for me to use the power data properly.

The pricing I've seen didn't give much of a break for not getting the head unit. But if you can get the Garmin for the price of the powertap head unit that would be a good way to go.

I've got a wired powertap, used obviously with the Saris head unit, and a Quarq with a 705. I like the Garmin better because of the flexibility in customizing the display, elevation, grade data, and occassionally the mapping function.

As jrobe points out, whatever set up you go with you really want to get Cycling peaks to analyze the power data.

Golden Cheetah gets you 95% of the functionality of training peaks wko+ and it's free. i'm a wko+ 3.0 user, but have been running golden cheetah in parallel and it's really slick and gets better every month as users add to the program.

if you're looking to save money, you won't miss out on much.

https://goldencheetah.org/

^ +1

Plus, wko+ is Windows only (I'm not going to run Windows in a VM on my Mac just to get wko+).

I'd go the Garmin route for a head unit, the powertap head sucks compared to being able to customize the garmin screens, plus you gett GPS and elevation data