POWER

[VamP]

you see this a lot in golf - which driver, irons, putters are in play the most - you still have to hit the ball with it, the same as you still have to ride the bike

it all comes down to the person - not what their using

Well for sure. The reason it's interesting is not to do with performance. It's more of a market overview and trends in the development of power meters. You can see the established key players, and the new comers, across a sizeable, serious user base.

Look at 2009 for example - Where is Quarq now, and where are ergomo and polar. Same in 2013 - where will Stages or Vector be in three years time? Will they emulate Quarq, or will they emulate ergomo? I sure as hell don't know. It beats me why anyone would want to spend £1000+ on a product that may or may not be around in three years time.

I also like the way SRM base has not changed at all

 

[Blue]

you see this a lot in golf - which driver, irons, putters are in play the most - you still have to hit the ball with it, the same as you still have to ride the bike

it all comes down to the person - not what their using

Tell that to Rory McIlroy

 

[jowwy]

Tell that to Rory McIlroy

i think wozniaki is the problem with Mcllroy

 

[VamP]

Oi - get your own golf thread

 

[jowwy]

Oi - get your own golf thread

Sorry VamP

 

[Howard]

I think DC Rainmaker's comments as valid as ever. It's just too close in price to REAL power meters, to spend it on a glorified toy instead. If it was maybe half-price then it could make sense. In a few year's time.

I thought his revising of Stages was pretty positive. To the point where I tried to pick a couple of arms up - Rival and XT - in Canada (save about £100 each). Sadly they can't meet demand at the moment, even with two months notice it seems.

Stages has its plus points. It's the only real PM that can be swapped easily between bikes regardless of application, including track. A Rival arm for me would have been swapped between my Track, Cross, Folder, beater fixed, Crit, Sunday Best and both of the wife's bikes.

 

[VamP]

Yeah, he's positive, except regarding the price. It could be a low cost alternative to a proper PM, especially for the reason you list. As they may not be around in a couple of years, I wouldn't consider it myself at £600+, when you can get PT for same or less.

This thread is also quite sceptical.

 

[Howard]

PT is trapped in a wheel though isn't it? I can't use the same PT for CX and for racing crits. The closest I can get is a P2M 3D+ but even then I'd need two spiders.

The negativity of some of the posts on that thread is interesting. It seems mostly driven by the 'its not accurate' argument. To a degree, you can level that against all PMs. Ultimately for the weekend warrior something that will tell you how you are riding and then tell you in which direction the numbers are going is good enough IMHO.

If you want the most accurate data by all means get an SRM. But to me collecting data across all your interactions with the bike is better than than collecting possibly more accurate data on a bike you only use some of the time.

 

[Rob3rt]

The limitation of the stages is obvious. It assumes 50:50 power balance. Which is very unlikely to occur. Thus any error introduced by this crude assumption will manifest itself in an error TWICE the magnitude of the degree of the power balance discrepancy.

Further (moving away from accuracy and toward repeatability which is most important to most users) it will not even be consistent to itself as power balance will vary with intensity and fatigue (i.e. the degree to which the assumptions made introduce error will vary with intensity and duration). So, for example if you do a hard 3 minute effort at the end of a 2 hour tempo ride, or you go and do one right at the start, even if in reality the total power output is the same, if your power balance has changed due to fatigue, the stages will read both intervals as different power outputs!

It is what it is, but I wouldn't buy one!

 

[Howard]

I don't think anyone is overlooking the limitation.

The question is - in the big picture of training and racing for the enthusiast - what's the worst that can happen?

 

[Rob3rt]

I don't think anyone is overlooking the limitation.

The question is - in the big picture of training and racing for the enthusiast - what's the worst that can happen?

Well you aren't going to come to any harm, but you could be pissing away £500 on a device which is not accurate nor precise! You would not be able to detect small changes (well you might be able to, but you would be so unsure of the cause, you probably wouldn't be able to put the data to good use, e.g. aero testing would be out).

Now it is up to people to do what they want with their money, like I said, I wouldn't buy one, others are free to do what they wish.

 

[Howard]

Or you could spend £500 on some wheels that won't make you quicker.

Quip aside.

OK let me spell this out. We know that, to a point, all PMs are imprecise. Is Stages so imprecise that it cannot do what it says on the tin, i.e. providing usable real time and recorded data to help the enthusiast train and race effectively with power.

I haven't seen any data that says No. I've seen data that says there are issues. I don't see how they extrapolate into negative race and training impacts. I suspect the effect of the issues will get lost in the general noise of amateur training / racing and PM usage.

I agree in certain circumstances you might be better off with an SRM or similar, say for example if you focus on a single discipline, have a substantial R/L imbalance, own a wind tunnel etc.

 

[Rob3rt]

Or you could spend £500 on some wheels that won't make you quicker.

Quip aside.

OK let me spell this out. We know that, to a point, all PMs are imprecise. Is Stages so imprecise that it cannot do what it says on the tin, i.e. providing usable real time and recorded data to help the enthusiast train and race effectively with power.

I haven't seen any data that says No. I've seen data that says there are issues. I don't see how they extrapolate into negative race and training impacts. I suspect the effect of the issues will get lost in the general noise of amateur training / racing and PM usage.

I agree in certain circumstances you might be better off with an SRM or similar, say for example if you focus on a single discipline, have a substantial R/L imbalance, own a wind tunnel etc.

I suspect that it will take some time to find the answers to your questions because many of the people attracted to the Stages won't have a clue what they are doing with it anyway, so knowing what is down to the power meter and what is down to clueless-ness will be extremely hard to decouple

Same goes for the positives, it will be hard to decouple what is down to training with power from what is down to simply training with a touch of structure for the 1st time for many users.

It is a new product, time will tell!

 

[VamP]

I have two concerns with Stages. One is that any left-right imbalances will be amplified in a non-linear way. TBH I am less concerned with this than my second worry. Which is that Stages as a company will not around to sort out my issues in 12 months time.

Given the number of reliable and established options in the same price range (PT, Quark or P2M) I couldn't justify looking at this. PT is limited to the wheel granted, but that wheel covers ALL my training needs, and enough of my racing needs* for that not to be a limitation. A lot less of a limitation than having constant doubts about my numbers.

* I have raced road, TT and CX with the PT wheel.

 

[amaferanga]

Stages cost about the same as a proper power meter (more if you want a high end crank arm). My Power2max cost about £800 including a carbon SRAM S900 crankset. It reliably measures power from both my legs. It doesn't make a difference if I get tired and my L/R balance changes. It doesn't matter if my L/R balance depends on cadence, power output, inertia, etc. It just works. With Stages there are too many uncertainties - the data will always be suspect. If it was a couple of hundred quid then it'd be worth a punt, but when it costs almost as much as a proper power meter then why the hell not just buy a proper power meter? Reviews make no difference really because it has a fundamental limitation.

If you like the idea of Stages but want something that (potentially) provides good data then this might be worth waiting for:

http://m.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/verve-cycling-teases-2014-power-meter-first-look-39319/