ADVICE-fitting Vector pedals

Smalltom

Hi Folks. A friend of mine is after buying Garmin Vector power meter pedals and while waiting for them is wondering about fitting them, they have been bought on the www and will arrive in a couple of weeks. I was looking at DCRainmakers reveiw and don't think I'll fit them for her as it sounds kinda complicated. Any advice in this regard or will I tell her to get LBS to fit them? Cheers.

Beasty

You only need a pedal wrench to fit them. The issue though is getting the torque right, and I suspect the local LBS will not have a torque wrench that will fit the pedals (as the standard claws foot attachments are too wide). I made up my own pedal wrench that I could attach a standard torque wrench to get it right

Of course it's not absolutely necessary to use a torque wrench, but a lot of posters have experienced drops in the recorded power that is corrected with tightening the pedals

Craig06

Surely there's an allen key slot on the back of them that a torque wrench would fit?

Beasty

No - you can only fit with a pedal wrench - where you normally would get the allen key slot you plug in an electronic connector. See here:

Smalltom

Thanks folks. Beastly, would you recommend doing it yourself? The guy in the video makes it look easy. Would it be fair to say that once you completed the job once, it's easier from there on out swapping them between bikes etc. I have a torque wrench etc. I think I bread that you're not over impressed with them what with drift in numbers etc? Is this a problem caused by the 'finicky ness' of fitting them?

Beasty

It's easy enough to set up yourself, but my "testing" of their performance didn't impress. Fortunately it was on an indoor track, which meant it was easy to compare speed, power output and cadence

Power dropped off over time when it should have remained at a similar level, and the cadence was not picking up at all for short periods (and bear in mind you cannot freewheel on a track bike). Analysis of the L/R split showed that sometimes it was only picking up one side (and again, it wasn't as if I was back-pedalling - I was applying force throughout - in some cases it was a mock race situation). I ended up with variations of up to 58/42 either way as rides progressed when it started out at 50/50 or so (in line with my experience on both road bike and Wattbike)

So basically there is something amiss with mine. Things improve with a slight tightening of the pedals, but I don't feel I can rely on the set I have. When I see other reports on here of problems I'm basically coming to the conclusion they are simply not reliable enough - if these problems arise on initial set-up what will they be like after a year or two of riding?

I am therefore currently in discussion over a return of the pedals from whence they came