Morning all, I'm looking to buy a power meter. Any recommendations please? Thanks Ian

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Thanks Paul

The standard recommendation for all triathlon purchases is to check https://www.dcrainmaker.com/

He has a pretty extensive power meter section.

Thanks Edward
I've had a wheel built around a powertap G3 hub for the past four years or so.

The meter is quite reliable and as I've got a Campag based road bike and a sram based TT bike it is quite useful that it is easy enough to swap the hub so it will accept a Campag or shimano cassette.

They are around £500 and I did think about buying second hand but the problem is someone selling a second hand one may well have a reason and there is no effective royalty as when they go wrong they can be expensive to fix.

Having said that mine's had a fair deal of use and abuse and it still seems to give reliable read outs. I've found it most useful training over the winter as it does reproach you if you set off for a few hours just pootling along - pretty soon you realise the difference between a ride when you are doing very little real work and one where you spend more of your time near what you are capable of.

The other really useful thing about having a powermeter is when you have a very long/difficult bike leg in a triathlon or a more challenging sportive to do. With a powermeter it doesn't take long to realise that if you set off at 350 watts for the first half hour, it's going to be a long journey back (unless your name is Chris Froome) - basically a powermeter allows you to more accurately pace yourself than for example just looking at speed when you are fresh.

I would recommend the G3 as it has been pretty bombproof for me but if you do buy one I'd also recommend you get Pete at Rat Race cycles to build the wheel around it - the wheels supplied by Powertap are errrr functional is a word that almost springs to mind.
A review in Cycling Weekly (I'm not paid by powertap by the way)

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/reviews/power-meters-bike-components/p...

Have a think about which style you might want. Popular units are Powertap hubs or pedals, Power2max, quarq and stages. SRM used to be the gold standard but are crazy expensive.

Dc rainmaker likes the powertap (p1) pedals and if you've got multiple bikes it's an easy swap. They also come in single sided or double sided with single at half the cost. 

Powertap hubs as mentioned by Tony, good if you train and race on the same wheels, these guys normally the cheapest, measure total power output so no left crank only measurement issues. 

Left crank only like stages, these are also cheaper but will only measure the left-hand side so some people have issues with that. Team Sky use them, not sure if that's just thanks to sponsorship or because Sky feels they are the best. 

Then you have s
pider crank based which have come down in price but cost more than the previous. They are popular because they measure total power like the hub style, but you can change wheels. The downside is you cannot move it to another bike easily thanks to different bottom bracket standards. Power2max, SRM, quarq.

But totally agree with Edward, Dc Rainmaker is the best source to find all the info you need. I've got quarq dzero which I'm happy with.

And a review of the Verve Infocranks Paul mentioned

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/reviews/power-meters-bike-components/v...
Thanks for all the really useful information guys - I really appreciate it. Looks like
I'm going to be either going for the powertap hub or p1 (both sides). I now need to get this past my wife....any tips on that! Haha
Another advantage of the powertap hub system Ian.

By swapping the powertap wheel over to the wife's bike, you can then also monitor the effort she is putting in to training more closely.

A key metric is power-to-weight ratio - so buy a set of digital scales and insist you both hop on them daily (while introducing a severe calorie counting diet). This should go some way to intensifying your relationship.



Ian Barrett said:
Thanks for all the really useful information guys - I really appreciate it. Looks like
I'm going to be either going for the powertap hub or p1 (both sides). I now need to get this past my wife....any tips on that! Haha
hahahaha....I think I'll choose a different tact!
And this link will help you work out her brake horsepower per ton when you buy the new powermeter and scales

http://westfield-world.com/power-to-weight.html

She will then probably be totally fascinated by this and start planning what to surprise you with at Christmas

We've got a powertap which as everyone says, is great for being able to swap between bikes (that it fits) (only problem being we both want to use it!) and so have just got a stages (left crank based) one as well, so far they seem fairly consistent. One issue I had with the stages, which i never noticed with the powertap was that when my hands are on the tri bars, my watch based garmin kept dropping out (i.e. it was too far away from the power meter to pick it up) which 'sadly' meant  investing in a garmin edge to fit on the bars. But if you're riding to power on a race then you probably want it that visible anyway (i can never really see my watch when riding). there's a lot of new models coming out at the moment so might be worth waiting a bit to see if prices drop. Either way DC rainmaker is the oracle on all these things. 

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