From a cycling power standpoint, the truest output of your body’s wattage-focused energy is directly at your foot. Why does location matter? Because losses.Īnytime you transfer energy you have losses of that energy. Non-direct Force Power Meters: PowerPod, iBike, Arofly, PowerCal Pedals: Garmin Vector, PowerTap P1/P2, SRM EXAKT pedals, Polar/Look combo, Favero Assioma, Favero bePRO, Look, Xpedo
The gauges are placed in a variety of locations on different power meters, but here’s the rough rundown:īottom Bracket: ROTOR INpower, Team Zwatt Zpindle, Race Face/EastonĬrank Spider: Quarq/SRAM, Power2Max, SRM, PowerTap C1, Team Zwatt Zpider, FSA (Power2Max OEM)Ĭrank Arms: Rotor, Stages, Pioneer, 4iiii, WatTeam, ROTOR 2INPower, Team Zwatt Zimanox, Shimano, XCadey, Magene, Cateye (4iiii OEM), Avio, Verve Infocrank While years ago magnet based cadence (where something would physically pass by a magnet) was considered superior, that tends not to be an issue with today’s established brands. In today’s power meter world, the vast majority of units use accelerometer-driven cadence. At the most simplistic level these gauges measure the force as torque, and then combined with cadence can determine your power (wattage). Generally speaking for power meters, there are strain gauges involved. However, there are some important aspects to look at when troubleshooting. Ultimately, either it’s accurate or inaccurate. I’m not going to get into how power meters or trainers determine power at a strain gauge level, quite frankly – that doesn’t much matter here.
Unless of course, nobody is buying that unit. If every unit of a given type was broken, then frankly you’d see hysteria.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t having real issues, but one should often remember just how many units are being shipped every week (often in the range of hundreds to thousands of units), and how many comments one sees online. Typically speaking people that are working just fine don’t post about it, and those with issues post the loudest and most frequently (even under different usernames as I’ve discovered). Instead, most of the time people have accuracy issues it’s due to either manufacturing error or consumer error (or, unfortunately, a misunderstanding of one’s existing power capabilities).įinally, while it’s easy to assume (and post on the internet) that ‘everyone is having this problem’, in 99.999% of the cases, they aren’t. There are some well known ones however, even this year, by well known companies. Generally speaking, it’s actually super rare these days to find systematically inaccurate power meters or trainers. Either systematically (all units by that company), or simply as a one-off (your specific unit). And sometimes, the answer is simply that the unit in question is inaccurate. It’s more about process of elimination and step by step troubleshooting than some magical wizardry. I also cover how I go about validating accuracy and the tools I use.Īll in all, there honestly isn’t a ton of complexity in any of this. Most of this post is aimed at helping you figure out if there’s an issue in the first place, and if so – whether or not you’re able to fix it. But perhaps down the road I’ll expand it to other categories. In today’s post, I’ll be focusing on power meter and trainer accuracy issues. No matter the product, eventually, for every product review I post, sooner or later someone has a power related accuracy issue with their unit.
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