New Power Meter

Murph100

Looks like Metrigears.

http://www.polar.fi/en/about_polar/news/Polar_and_LOOK_launch_together_power_pedals

Lumen

Lack of Ant+ is annoying.

mloc123

The Polar LOOK Kéo Power system will become available in spring 2011.

Sure it will, any day now...

mloc123

Lumen wrote: »

Lack of Ant+ is annoying.

Yup, suspected that back when they announced the polar link... pity.

Murph100

Why the fcuk did Look team up with Polar of all people ??

Next Autumn I reckon more like.

tunney

Murph100 wrote: »

Looks like Metrigears.

http://www.polar.fi/en/about_polar/news/Polar_and_LOOK_launch_together_power_pedals

Mah - covered this about 6 weeks ago

ryan_sherlock

Lumen wrote: »

Lack of Ant+ is annoying.

I think the lack of Ant+ will be a major hurdle for adoption. Seriously, every other company has gone down the Ant+ route... I guess Polar are still fixated on their watches

Diarmuid

Kéo Power is a must-have novelty for the ambitious cyclists

Who wrote this press release? Not exactly how I'd try and sell it, if I was launching a power meter.

Murph100

Might sound better in Finnish

tunney

Diarmuid wrote: »

Who wrote this press release? Not exactly how I'd try and sell it, if I was launching a power meter.

The lack of accuracy information has been noted.

billy.fish

FAIL on Polars part.

Saying that 100% predictable on their half. Most anal company ever when it comes to 'our sensors, our units'

Good move to couple with Look, massive market base and consumers stay to what they like.

Hoping it'll fit their MTB pedals.

Still not going to buy one though

tunney

billy.fish wrote: »

FAIL on Polars part.

Saying that 100% predictable on their half. Most anal company ever when it comes to 'our sensors, our units'

Good move to couple with Look, massive market base and consumers stay to what they like.

Hoping it'll fit their MTB pedals.

Still not going to buy one though

whinge whinge moan moan.

billy.fish

And?

Not worth what its going to cost so no point IMHO

Chips Lovell

Purely down to the fact that it will work with a CS600X, it's gone right up to the top of my list of potential buys if I choose to take the plunge.

However, I can appreciate that's not to everyone's taste. I presume the desire for ANT+ is down to being able to have a choice of head units? Just checked the website there and Polar aren't even a member of the ANT+ Alliance.

Be interested to see the pricing and also if Polar will ditch its WIND Power Meter now its has this option.

billy.fish

Factor in the price of WKO+ is you actually want to look at the data in a reasonable manner. Protrainer 5 is muck.

Also kinda bad that when you crash racing you are going to write off the pedal.

Not if.

mloc123

RRP will be interesting, they had said months back before Polar and Look came in that the price point would be under $1000... will they stick to this now.

billy.fish

€1,500 - 1,800

Announced at Eurobike today

mloc123

pah, plus another €300-€400 for a polar head unit... ohwell

Diarmuid

billy.fish wrote: »

€1,500 - 1,800

Announced at Eurobike today

haha! What a bunch of jokers

Murph100

Talk about wasted market potential :rolleyes:

Chips Lovell

Just looked at that video again. Is that a zip tie I see holding on the transmitter that goes on the inside of the crank? If so, there goes easy switching.

niceonetom

A snips and a million zipties can be gotten for a couple of quid so, while horribly inelegant, a ziptie is not a total deal breaker. The non ANT+ communication would be though. As a long time polar fan I'm now a total garmin convert.

I am pleased there are two new heavyweights coming into the market though. The more of that we see the sooner I'll get my €100 power meter.

Chips Lovell

mloc123 wrote: »

pah, plus another €300-€400 for a polar head unit... ohwell

Are you sure the price quoted isn't that for a bundle, with head unit etc? I know the previous one was usually sold in that fashion.

Chips Lovell

niceonetom wrote: »

As a long time polar fan I'm now a total garmin convert.

What's the main advantage of the Garmin? Your one (the 500 right?) is the first Garmin I've liked the look of, but the chore of having to recharge it would put me off.

Diarmuid

Well if you download your rides to your computer that chore is automatically taken care of. TBH, like my mobile phone, the idea of recharging the unit becomes automatic after a while. I haven't been caught out with a dead battery in years now

tunney

Garmins recording and the poor heart rate reading makes it less than ideal. If there was a ANT+ sport head unit that was decent at recording then it would be ideal, and you used a Suunto HR strap. The only one I know of is the SRM PCVI and PCVII.

tunney

http://www.triathlon.de/eurobike-2010-look-polar-keo-power-das-watt-pedal-22500.html

Not metrivector - seems they are still to come.

niceonetom

el tonto wrote: »

What's the main advantage of the Garmin? Your one (the 500 right?) is the first Garmin I've liked the look of, but the chore of having to recharge it would put me off.

Well, it charges quite quickly while transferring data. You'd get three or four proper spins out of the 500 before the battery goes, but that's never happened to me because it charges so fast and I like to look at the data after a long day. I don't think I've ever gotten the battery below 50% tbh. I'm coming from the polar cs200 which transferred data by means of pips and clicks if you held the unit up to a microphone (ffs Finns, dial up??? really?) and even then all you got were max and avg values. No graphs, no way of know where you hit that max or where you dropped the avg.

While the 500 has no mapping as such, you can put a route in and it'll give you your progress along it, a breadcrumb trail to follow, a graph of the profile etc. That's useful on a long event, especially one with climbs you don't know.

I'm sure it's a lot better with the CS600 etc. but you still can't just upload your data to their site (and a load of others like ridewithgps) and see on the map where you've been, and where you screwed up.

It's really configurable, which I like. If i had a powermeter I'd have even more things to check and tweak. I'm only scratching the surface of the feedback it can provide but if you using power info its compatibility with opensource software (unlike polar) would be a big bonus. It's has only frozen up on me once, and it recovered quickly and I didn't even lose the data from that ride. I'm very satisfied with it.

Chips Lovell

niceonetom wrote: »

I'm sure it's a lot better with the CS600 etc. but you still can't just upload your data to their site (and a load of others like ridewithgps) and see on the map where you've been, and where you screwed up.

Thanks for that.

I never bothered with the pips and squeeks on my older Polar. CS600 uploads via IR. You get have a USB IR dongle that plugs into your PC and then just have to put it alongside and away you go.

I think if you wanted GPS, then the 500 would probably win out. You can get a GPS unit for the CS600, but it's an additional cost and eats up more memory.

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

Garmins recording and the poor heart rate reading makes it less than ideal. If there was a ANT+ sport head unit that was decent at recording then it would be ideal, and you used a Suunto HR strap. The only one I know of is the SRM PCVI and PCVII.

Data recording and HR readings are fine with my 705. I used to get power spikes with my Powertap, but either the switch to Quarq or a firmware upgrade has stopped those.

HR problems are with the newer straps, right?

There are still major issues with power measurement and ride stoppages, but that only affects retrospective analysis of endurance rides rather than targetted training like threshold intervals.

mloc123

Lumen wrote: »

HR problems are with the newer straps, right?

Mainly, yes. I have a cheap Sigma HR that is much better at doing HR than my Garmin. With the Garmin I feel like they tagged on HR at the end.

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

Data recording and HR readings are fine with my 705. I used to get power spikes with my Powertap, but either the switch to Quarq or a firmware upgrade has stopped those.

HR problems are with the newer straps, right?

There are still major issues with power measurement and ride stoppages, but that only affects retrospective analysis of endurance rides rather than targetted training like threshold intervals.

Premimum straps are worse than standard but not accurate still.

"Only affects retrospective analysis of endurance rides"............ ONLY? ONLY?
Garmins are useless for any real inspection of data - at its pretty important.

tunney

mloc123 wrote: »

Mainly, yes. I have a cheap Sigma HR that is much better at doing HR than my Garmin. With the Garmin I feel like they tagged on HR at the end.

And have now bolted power on.

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

"Only affects retrospective analysis of endurance rides"............ ONLY? ONLY? Garmins are useless for any real inspection of data - at its pretty important.

What I mean is: for targetted power training and racing, e.g. threshold intervals and TTs, the Garmin display is perfectly accurate.

The Garmin per-second recording is also fine - I've looked through data files in detail.

The problem comes from retrospective analysis of non-continuous rides. The source data is OK, but all the software I've used has problems with stops and starts in the data, whether automatic or manual.

Any attempt I've made to to track training load (TSS etc) from data gathered on non-continuous rides fails badly, with spikes all over the place. I think this is a problem with the analysis software rather than the Garmin, but I can't be bothered to study the problem further so I've just given up on that approach.

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

What I mean is: for targetted power training and racing, e.g. threshold intervals and TTs, the Garmin display is perfectly accurate.

The Garmin per-second recording is also fine - I've looked through data files in detail.

The problem comes from retrospective analysis of non-continuous rides. The source data is OK, but all the software I've used has problems with stops and starts in the data, whether automatic or manual.

Any attempt I've made to to track training load (TSS etc) from data gathered on non-continuous rides fails badly, with spikes all over the place. I think this is a problem with the analysis software rather than the Garmin, but I can't be bothered to study the problem further so I've just given up on that approach.

I have looked at the problem in detail and it is garmins fault. the data they spit out is junk.

If you run as well as cycle stopping at lights and what not screws the data.

Now the analysis software could be better and WKO have dropped the ball recently on quality but the root cause is junk data.

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

I have looked at the problem in detail and it is garmins fault. the data they spit out is junk.

Even with per-second recording?

Maybe the Joule is a way forward. Is the SRM head unit is compatible with Ant+ source?

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

Even with per-second recording?

Maybe the Joule is a way forward. Is the SRM head unit is compatible with Ant+ source?

The SRM head unit is ANT+ but is ridiculously expensive.

Not familiar with the Joule to be honest.

Beasty

I run both, and would comment as follows:

705
pros - easy to use, can readily flick between displays which are completely uner-definable
GPS functions and recognised by all the software applications I use (WKO+, Poweragent, Training Centre, Golden Cheetah)

cons - HR and cadence readings prone to spikes.
Speed and distance soimetimes goes haywire on mine - last week both were doubling up, this week I was hitting 120 kph! (switched off and on again and it was back to normal). For a GPS based system I find this odd - indeed, until I recently reset my unit my regular commute had apparently shortened by over 200m from the same time last year!
I have recently had problems with the speed data in Poweragent, with a straight line low speed showing

Joule
pros - more real time power data, including normalised, TSS, IF available real-time. No data spikes.

cons - can only download via Poweragent - I think you can then export to other software, but it seems a lot of hassle.
Switching between data readings on the bike is more difficult
No off switch - it goes off automatically after a certain period of inactivity, and you have to remember to switch it back on when you set off again.
Elevation data does not always work correctly

Power data is very consistent between the 2 units

Overall I'm more familiar with the 705, and probably get more out of it as a result, just using the joule for additional power-based information. However I do think the Joule is a much more reliable piece of kit - I do not recall a single issue with the data (except elevation data, as noted above)

penexpers

niceonetom wrote: »

I'm coming from the polar cs200 which transferred data by means of pips and clicks if you held the unit up to a microphone (ffs Finns, dial up??? really?) and even then all you got were max and avg values. No graphs, no way of know where you hit that max or where you dropped the avg.

I recently got a CS200 and I use laps as a hacky way of seeing where I hit the max etc.. Bad thing is it can only store 50 laps so you need to change the lap distance/time depending on how long your ride is going to be.

billy.fish

Lumen wrote: »

Data recording and HR readings are fine with my 705. I used to get power spikes with my Powertap, but either the switch to Quarq or a firmware upgrade has stopped those.

Nothing to do with the fact that the 705 records at a pretty down sampled rate...nope not that at all.

I trust my own Garmins HR readings and energy guestimate not so much. ITs a great guide, but not as accurate as Polar, or a high sampled power file.

There will always be spikes in power data, its the nature of it, its not always going to be as smooth as a turbo ride.


*just noticed tunneys post

billy.fish

Beasty wrote: »

....

Joule
pros - more real time power data, including normalised, TSS, IF available real-time. No data spikes.

cons - can only download via Poweragent - I think you can then export to other software, but it seems a lot of hassle.

You can now use it in WKO+, new build just released that is going to address it properly.

Its still in beta but to be out soon.

Think GC takes the data too no?

Beasty

billy.fish wrote: »

Think GC takes the data too no?

Doesn't seem to recognise it directly, but I can export from PowerAgent into an appropriate format and then load it into GC

Having said that, I've not checked for any software updates in GC recently, so maybe there is a simpler way of doing it.

billy.fish

Beasty wrote: »

Doesn't seem to recognise it directly, but I can export from PowerAgent into an appropriate format and then load it into GC

Having said that, I've not checked for any software updates in GC recently, so maybe there is a simpler way of doing it.

*says with hushed tones*

I'm actually becoming a big fan of GC now over WKO+......

Lumen

billy.fish wrote: »

*says with hushed tones*

I'm actually becoming a big fan of GC now over WKO+......

Me too. I stopped using WKO+ and TrainingPeaks after spunking a load of money on buying them but discovering that there were features in one not in the other, for no reason whatsoever. The whole thing was just too half-arsed.

GC is nicely stable for me now, with the exception of rides which span several days because the Garmin failed to segregate the activity into separate rides. Stupid Garmin. Anyway, the CP curve is lovely.

mloc123

So after waiting for a few months to see how the 'new wave of pms' worked out, I finally ordered a powertap today.

pgibbo

mloc123 wrote: »

So after waiting for a few months to see how the 'new wave of pms' worked out, I finally ordered a powertap today.

Why did you chose powertap? Was it down to cost? Cheers

mloc123

pgibbo wrote: »

Was it down to cost?

In a word, yes. Main consideration tbh, I liked the idea of crank based but could not justify a minimum of €1700 to get one. Powertap hub works out around €450...

Diarmuid

Beasty wrote: »

Doesn't seem to recognise it directly, but I can export from PowerAgent into an appropriate format and then load it into GC

Having said that, I've not checked for any software updates in GC recently, so maybe there is a simpler way of doing it.

You can just drag and drop the activity from the Garmin unit (the usb disk bit) onto GC list.

GC is great. Can't imagine there's a whole lot of other analysis that you would need that's not there at the moment. The PerfManager is my main screen

Beasty

Diarmuid wrote: »

You can just drag and drop the activity from the Garmin unit (the usb disk bit) onto GC list.

GC is great. Can't imagine there's a whole lot of other analysis that you would need that's not there at the moment. The PerfManager is my main screen

Downloading from the Garmin to GC is fine - it was the Joule I was referring to - GC does not recognise the .bin files it creates

Diarmuid

Beasty wrote: »

Downloading from the Garmin to GC is fine - it was the Joule I was referring to - GC does not recognise the .bin files it creates

ah ok. Does ths commit not help?

billy.fish

Oohh GC group

*off to nerd*