Power meters

[HarryTheDog]

Hi @stumpy66 , recovery time was a subject I was particularly interested in as I believe I do not rest enough, that's the trouble with being a commuter who also races. After just reading Training and Racing with a Power Meter, 2nd Ed. Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, PhD
I believe I will be able to work it out from each days power results. I also believe I have turned myself into a very quick short distance sprinter by mistake over 10yrs of commuting, ie brilliant strava results ie top or at least top 3 of my age group ( 44-54 and I'm 54) on fairly short sprints , crap race results ie bottom half in over 50's. There are tests in the book I can do to confirm or not confirm that.
Also after reading it I am really going to have to make a decision on what is more important, commuting every day or race results and upping my ability to hold a threshold effort for longer ie longer less often rides with proper structured training. I have tried on my commutes , even though its 23 miles,15 minutes warm up takes a chunk out of it, the longest effort I can do is 4 minutes before something holds me up. ( traffic., junctions, lights etc) . Hopefully I can do something constructive with this LIMIT powermeter, even if its confirm I'll never make a decent racer ever!

 

[stumpy66]

You could use the commute as either easier paced recovery or endurance type runs and on other days focus more on threshold/tempo type sessions. The power meter is invaluable when it comes to working at the correct intensity, I rarely look at my heart rate now and just try to stick to the req'd power for that session

 

[MistaDee]

Limits power meter is notoriously iffy and optimistic at best in terms of data. The ones im aware off are no better than Strava power guestimates. DC rainmaker has done a lot of reporting on the product and company, the comments itself says a lot.

www.dcrainmaker.com/limits-power-accuracy

I would never use limits as the data I've seen is not even consistent.

 

[Bollo]

Just as an-aside, my Zone DPMX meters fell through, the feckin company went bust 3 days ago .
However what might be of interest to other people is that I was half regretting ordering them already as they were speedplay specific and would not go on my other bikes so I started searching in desperation for a power meter that would do all 3 of my bikes , ( Road MTB and CX all different pedals different cranks and even a different BB for good measure) and I found the LIMIT power meter which screws into the crank arm where your pedals normally screw in and then you screw the pedal into them. Left hand only, spacer for the right. This of course pushes the pedals out farther but is not supposed to be a problem. I was put off because they were only on Indiegogo, a crowd funding site and I had just lost all my my money on kickstarter. however these guys have actually delivered to people. I managed to get one on e-bay this morning .
They are cheep on Idiegogo at 289USD ( I got it even cheaper) when they go into full production 384USD.
Ok under test they might not be the best and only one side and have already proved to need a new firmware download to sort a problem but can go on ANY bike with standard pedal threads. So if anyone is contemplating might be worth a look. Note there are a couple more on ebay as well.

Save your money. All the indications are that limits are garbage and I doubt they'll be around in a years time. Read the indiegogo page comments and the associated Facebook page to get a feel for some of the issues. Not even remotely accurate or reproducible readings, dropouts, battery life measured in hours, questionable build quality, fiddly install and battery caps made of cheese are just some of the complaints about the meters, never mind the invisible support. Also remember that you're not buying anything, you're giving them a gift. There are still many backers from April 2015 waiting for their 'perk'.

If you REALLY want one, quite a few investors are sticking theirs on eBay to try and recoup a few quid.

 

[HarryTheDog]

@Bollo I've been away and just got back, I have the LIMITS powermeter which I bought off Ebay, as I said in my post I know the tests indicated it wasn't the best, I had seen the DC rainmaker test but for 199 quid, I thought it worth a bash. I found the install easy ( I have a torque wrench) . I have only used it twice on a short commute so no Idea how consistent it will be. The new pedal position took me 15 minutes to get used to . As long as it gives me consistent readings thats the key. Still got to make sense of the training book though, haven't had time to sort a training programme yet. Going to throw it on my CX for a race this weekend just to see how the power compares to what I can put down on the road. I can't see any other meter that will do my CX,XC or road bike and be transferable in less than 30 mins in one device unless anyone knows of one.

 

[Bollo]

Good luck HtD, I hope it works out. At least you didn't get stiffed for the full price. I'm in the market for a cost effective power meter for a new TT bike and the current favourite is a 4iiii fitted to the existing crank. $325+p&p is only a little more than the gift required by limits and the technology is more established.

 

[Cuchilo]

Good luck HtD, I hope it works out. At least you didn't get stiffed for the full price. I'm in the market for a cost effective power meter for a new TT bike and the current favourite is a 4iiii fitted to the existing crank. $325+p&p is only a little more than the gift required by limits and the technology is more established.

I looked at that but hmmmmmm . Just ordered a stages Ultegra from Germany £520 delivered .

 

[Bollo]

I looked at that but hmmmmmm . Just ordered a stages Ultegra from Germany £520 delivered .

I bought a Dura Ace Stages for just under £600 from the Netherlands at the start of the year. I'm very pleased with it and if I didn't have watch the pennies a little I'd get the Ultegra version for the TT bike. I'm slightly lairy about sending the crank to Canada, but DC Rainmaker rated the 4iiii highly in his last PM review, which tipped the balance for me.

 

[HLaB]

@Bollo I've been away and just got back, I have the LIMITS powermeter which I bought off Ebay, as I said in my post I know the tests indicated it wasn't the best, I had seen the DC rainmaker test but for 199 quid, I thought it worth a bash. I found the install easy ( I have a torque wrench) . I have only used it twice on a short commute so no Idea how consistent it will be. The new pedal position took me 15 minutes to get used to . As long as it gives me consistent readings thats the key. Still got to make sense of the training book though, haven't had time to sort a training programme yet. Going to throw it on my CX for a race this weekend just to see how the power compares to what I can put down on the road. I can't see any other meter that will do my CX,XC or road bike and be transferable in less than 30 mins in one device unless anyone knows of one.

If the batteries are old Limits gives pretty wild readings and my first few sets of SR44 batteries were pretty poor (I made the mistake of buying cheap duracell batteries, 'there duracell, they must be OK' only to find when the arrived they exp 2017, so were near the end of their life). With good batteries touch wood its been giving what I/ my coach expect. There are others on the market that are transferable (pedal based) but they cost more and restrict you to Look Keos (Beone Pro, Garmin Vector and Powertap). You can take apart the vectors and 6800 pedals and put them together to have shimano. I wouldn't believe everything you read though, although limits aren't the best in correspondence (not immediate), they replied to me the few times I have contacted them in a couple of days.

 

[HarryTheDog]

You could use the commute as either easier paced recovery or endurance type runs and on other days focus more on threshold/tempo type sessions. The power meter is invaluable when it comes to working at the correct intensity, I rarely look at my heart rate now and just try to stick to the req'd power for that session

After gathering data from commutes/races and a FTP test I realise my commutes are terrible training and have turned me into a one trick pony ( 5 second sprinter)
I seem to have been a lazy git on my commute ( 60% in recovery,zone 1 but 16%in neuromuscular zone 7, rest done in other zones) so I am following your advice,cut my commute days and when I do commute they are now done in active recovery mode with the other days hard training on the turbo. Also I am so bitten by the power meter bug so I have bought a powertap C1 chainring meter ( I got 50% discount) . The LIMITS meter I am finding needs re-calibrating every 15 minutes and is effected by temperature by a silly amount. Leaving it on the CX and XC bike for races.

 

[stumpy66]

Glad to have been some help. I too have the PowerTap c1, well done on the discount- can I ask where?

I use TrainerRoad which I have found to really focus my cycling and saw a steady increase in my ftp by following a structured plan

 

[HarryTheDog]

@stumpy66 I got the discount because I backed the zone dpmx powermeters on kickstarter and the company went bust. The guys from Powertap heard about it and were really nice and offered all the poor mugs like myself who lost money a discount.I sold my track bike on ebay this week so I ordered them yesterday, arrived today, result!. I will compare it to the LIMITS if I ever get my garmin 1000 fixed as I could run both together. ( got a working 800, my 1000 is off to Garmin tomorrow for a exchange unit, bloody thing filled with water)
Still digesting the training with power book to come up with a plan,( re-writing it myself compacting the info I want ) I have nicked one of the cyclocross plans for the moment.

 

[Racing roadkill]

A couple of people I occasionally ride with have Stages Power meters. They tell me that the readings are actually based on live performance factors, and although they find having a set of numbers, that are recorded over the whole ride, and can be used to generate a plot of Power fluctuation over the course of the ride, they find that the actual data can be a bit of a random number generation excersise. They tell me that the P 1 type of power meters add the ability to measure how you distribute the power you are generating between your left and right legs, so that adds a useful function. One of the guys has had problems with the Stages power meter chewing through battery charge, and is in the process of getting it sorted by the manufacturer at present, as this shouldn't happen.

 

[S-Express]

They tell me that the P 1 type of power meters add the ability to measure how you distribute the power you are generating between your left and right legs, so that adds a useful function

Not actually as useful as it sounds..