thehammerdog

Saw a article on pedals with power meters vs cranks for couple hundred bucks anyone using and is the cost worth it for the average fat guy with fantasy of getting better

guachi

I think having a power meter somewhere is worth it. I have mine on my Wahoo Kickr trainer. I don't have one yet on my bike.

It's invaluable for measuring my progress and for pacing myself. When I ride on the road, I don't generally push myself as hard as I do on my trainer but I've ridden enough on my trainer or stationary bike to get an idea of how much power I'm putting out.

I absolutely think a power meter is worth it if you are serious about getting better on the bicycle.

MyTi

Average fat guy, I'd say it's not worth it. I think the best meter for you right now would be a bathroom scale or a belt(waist size indicator). Set a goal, once you reach a certain weight, reward yourself with a power meter.

WhyFi

I like having one on my primary bike to the point that I'm somewhat disappointed when I ride without one on my secondary bike. It can be a useful tool. It may also be relegated to 'toy' status - that's up to you.

One of the nice things about power meters is that the calorie counting is a lot more accurate. If one is looking to lose weight, and cycling is a part of that effort, I'd say it's definitely worth it. All too often, people put in miles but don't see the weight come off like they'd hoped/expected. The more accurately that you can track input and measure output, the better off you'll be. In addition to more accurate numbers, they can provide great motivation - knowing that your Wed morning ride will burn 2,000 calories is great incentive to get out of the door rather than take the day off.

Zaskar

There's no better gauge of what you're doing or what you just did.
- Average speed? Nope - wind, hills, red (vs green) lights, group size, time up front, weather/temps...
- HR? Nope - sleep, overtrained, tired...

But, the leap from seeing what you're doing to actually using a power meter as a training device is pretty big. There are lots of books, sites, etc. to guide you. But, it takes commitment - to learn how to use it and to create and follow a plan.

I didn't make that leap - and I've been using a power meter for 6 or 7 years. I decided I wasn't going give up the club ride as my main (4 days/week) training to ride on my own. But I still love using the power meter and find it useful - mostly for during the ride. The post-ride "data analysis" is more of a novelty.

DC Rainmaker is probably the best source for reviews - accuracy, price, etc. The good news is power meters are getting cheaper and more accurate. My SRM is a single-leg/side and cost over $3,000. Today, that level of tech and accuracy is around $800.

jadocs

This...understanding what that data means to you is where you will benefit with respect to establishing a structured training plan (zone training), or simply using the real time data to pace yourself efficiently on group rides, etc... Once you get a power meter you need to take a FTP test to establish what your threshold power is. Once your threshold power is established, you will be able to identify your power zones and use those zones as part of your training plan or to be more efficient on your rides.

Anyone who who says they can accurately go by “feel” in terms of power output is wrong.

RChung

I didn't know that SRM made a single-leg model. Which one is that?

WhyFi

I have a couple of screen set-ups on my Bolt that don't include power. When I'm riding blind on one of those screens, it's pretty clear afterwards that my 'feel' is pretty damn dumb - rollercoaster city.

Zaskar

Sorry - I wasn't clear... It is a spider-based power meter, e.g. the whole crankset. But it only measures/reports as one number - not Left and Right. So, it's taking one stroke and doubling. Actually, pretty *#&$ing lame given the $$$.

TMonk

powertap hub. find a used wheel on ebay or craigslist

gregf83 

You're misunderstanding how a spider based powermeter works. It doesn't separate the power into left and right but it correctly measures the power from each leg. There is no 'doubling' going on. Hang a weight on either pedal and you'll get a torque reading unlike a single sided powermeter like Stages.

WhyFi

If it's spider-based, it should be taking total power but reporting it as L or R only on your computer; it's not actually taking one side only and doubling like a Stages or 4iiii would.

RChung

For average fat guys with the fantasy of getting better but unsure if the cost is worth it, I usually advise buying a used PM. If you're not in a hurry, you could probably find a good quality used PM for half (or even less) of the price of new.

DrIsotope

Even if you never go into any sort of training plan, or get obsessed with training metrics, a power meter is guaranteed to do one thing: prove to you that RPE is worthless. As a guy who is overweight, will never enter a race, and is not really concerned with adding 1mph to my top speed, a power meter is one of the best cycling investments I've ever made.

Power2Max makes an excellent PM, and the NGeco are affordable. Also, don't immediately discount single-sided. I started with left side only, moved to dual sided, and learned, in those 2 years, that I have a 52/48 L/R split about 90% of the time. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing I can do with this information. I personally could not do pedals, because I'm very particular about pedals, and I want to use the same shoes across all of my bikes. Road pedals are a non-starter.

That said, any power meter is better than no power meter. I definitely ride smarter with one-- recovery rides are actually recovery, because as I said before, RPE doesn't work. A visual confirmation of effort is invaluable.

Zaskar

Okay, let's be clear on something... I don't know how the SRM is measuring the power. ;-)

I am sure it "should" be doing more than it does. Even if it can't detect which is Left and which is Right, the option to see the two numbers should be there. If I saw that I'm consistently making power at 50:50 or 51:49, I'd know I don't need L/R data. But, if I saw 56:44, well... I might be compelled to buy a new power meter.

Seattle Forrest

I think when he said "get better" he meant on the bike. Your weight is important to your health, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.

Also, my Garmin thinks I burned 4,100 calories earlier this week on a steep 11 mile hike. Based on the alignment of the planets or something. When you ride, it's even worse, at least hiking involves a mass over distance calculation but a freewheel nullifies that on a bike. It really has no idea. When you ride with a PM, it measures physical work done, and there isn't have variation in how people ride (like there is with running economy). End result is with a good PM you'll never be more than 2.5% off in either direction in terms of calories. Compare that to a Fitbit that doesn't even claim any accuracy at all.

colnago62

How can can two numbers be generated if torque is measured at the spider?

jfranci3

If you have a Shimano crank, Stages or 4iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Otherwise, buy a Shimano crank and get a Stages or 4iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Otherwise, get a single pedal solution.
Otherwise, get a P2M.

Used is good too, but if you're not 100% into the details you can buy the wrong item.

MyTi

I understand what your saying. I believe a power meter can be useful. But he's saying he is a average fat guy...so I personally would just advise he set distance goals for now and get on the bike. There are plenty of ways he can get a ballpark number of how many calories he expended on a ride. Using a power meter this early on could be self defeating. I say don't focus on the numbers, just focus on distance at first. Legendary tour winners survived without power meters, I'm sure an average fat guy can survive without one too. Telling a noobie to invest $800 in a power meter is like telling him he needs a 5k carbon bike to win.

Any way as far as pedals with power meters I do like the fact it can easily be switched from bike to bike pretty easily.

RChung

Two numbers can be generated because there are (almost always) two torque peaks per pedal stroke even if you measure at the spider, so you can (if you're intent on trying to generate two numbers) look at the power generated over each of those two half-pedal strokes. It's not terribly accurate because there are typically differences in the way your legs will unweight on the recovery side of the stroke, so the manufacturers that do this kind of calculation are really estimating "net" balance. This is what Quarq and P2M do.

Two things:

1. It's not clear that information on L/R pedal balance is very actionable even with pedal PMs.
2. PowerTap hubs do something similar to estimate cadence -- they can see two torque peaks so they estimate the cadence by that. Their cadence estimates are noisy but generally pretty good. If they wanted, they could go one step further and calculate balance as 52/48 or similar -- but they don't actually know which peak goes with which leg so they don't know if your left is 52 and right is 48 or the other way around. However, see #1 above for why it's not very important.

firebird854

A power meter makes biking more interesting and can give you more insight and a generally better feeling when looking at the data afterwards. It also makes getting out and riding into a headwind, hills, or gravel feel far more rewarding because you no longer care about things like average speed. I personally also find it super fun to compare with a HRM to see HR for a given power go down over time (showing increased fitness)

What I'm trying to get it is, yes it's the best tool to train for bleeding edge performance, but it also adds some more fun to biking and can get you on your bike more. The more more you're on your bike the more you can work towards that weightloss goal!

I did a ton of research and have gone through a couple of power meters, the most recent one I've been using is a FSA Powerbox Alloy at $648 it's one of the cheapest dual sided power meter and comes with new chainrings, cranks, etc. it's battery lasts hundreds and hundreds of hours (1000miles on mine so far without having to change it out). The only caveat is it's weight, at 900grams, it's definitely one of the heavier options on the market.

At this time, I'd be careful about Powertap (I love their G3 hub though, I have that on one of my bikes) because they were just purchased by Quarq, who is still trying to rebrand and add them to their lineup.

dmanthree

For me, no power meter is worth it. I endure enough humiliation when Zwifting, so I have no desire to extend that into the road season.

;-)

PS: yes, I need to capture power settings in Zwift so it can calculate speed and distance. Dammit.

WhyFi

You seem to be telling him not to focus on concrete numbers (kJ), but rather to focus on more ambiguous numbers (miles). You also seem to be suggesting that he needs to 'earn' a power meter by hitting a certain weight or some such. Neither of these things makes much sense to me.

Seattle Forrest

You make some good points. So do I. If it was clear cut and there was only one answer, everyone would have one or not have one. There's a lot of value in hashing this stuff out, because it really takes a while to figure out. Taking about the pros and cons, if I was new at this it'd be easy to see if the "PM is useful" folks were describing the kind of riding I do or not.

One reason I use a pedal based PM is I had to buy pedals anyway. $800 is a lot to spend on pedals, but I could have easily blown $200 on a different set, so it's a $600 premium for the power measurement (and extra weight). Also the one you mentioned, there are so many BB standards, and I want them to work on my next bike if I ever part ways with this one.

surak

If you have multiple bikes, haven't heavily invested in a specific non-PM pedal and cleat type, and are willing to spend a few minutes swapping pedals, then it's hard to beat the price of a single set of dual-sided pedals.

I went dual-sided and find L/R balance info to be quite illuminating. Changing my saddle height alters my balance, as does spinning vs. grinding. I've also noticed that imbalance is often due to not unweighting on the upstroke efficiently, rather than having a weaker downstroke.