Originally Posted by
carleton
I think the bigger issue is that we (trackies) get hand-me-down tech from the road world and try to adapt it for our needs. For example, the first few seconds of a 45 minute crit or 4 hour road ride are not important at all. But, the first few seconds of a Kilo or 4K can explain the outcome of the event.
I really don't think that the power meter manufacturers (including SRM) take that into account.
Left-Right leg differences sound great from a marketing perspective ("This is why our power meter is better than theirs. Ours can do this, theirs cannot." But at the end of the day, no coach/rider looked at that data and made a training or tactical decision based on it. So, what that in mind, it's a useless metric. They may as well measure what color socks the rider has on
Barometric pressure would be
much more useful to measure (seriously).
Track starts is about the only area where I could actually see L/R info being useful. I'm not sure whether the P1 offers it, but Pioneer notes power output at various phases of the pedal stroke. This could be helpful for determining the perfect position for your pedal at your start.
Of course, a stop watch and lots of practice could probably help figure all that out too.