Friday, April 6, 2012

The Power Meter Finds a New Home

Tech post! A little back story: a cycling power meter measures, predictably, a riders power output. These numbers are measured in watts. The pros ride with a power meter and a heart rate monitor to train at their optimum performance. You see these things in the cranks and rear hub of a bike.

Typical power meter in a hub

The rear hub is popular because you can transfer it between bikes far more easily than a crank set. Garmin and Polar have recently come out with a new kind of power meter that is mounted in the Look compatible pedals. Advantages, so claim the company, are that you can run whatever wheels you want, can get specific left and right measurements and generally calculate more accurate watts.

The Garmin Edge

The Polar pedal

Both pictures (shamefully taken from other, more up-on-current-events sites) show the pedal as well as the receiver that counts cadence. This set up is supposed to run upwards of $2000, and although announcement was last year, no word on when the official release will be.

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