Comments on: Look and Polar do Pedal Based Power Meters

By: JP

JP — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:02:36 +0000

Still waiting for the Metrigear (now Garmin) Vector. Why? ANT+, and presumably a better price point. I’ve seen them on the road locally for 2 years now, and wonder why it doesn’t come to market. It clearly works.

Polar was always proprietary, and a battery change used to require sending the head unit to them.

By: Jono

Jono — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 03:15:34 +0000

If its so complex building it into the pedal why not move the electronics into the shoe or a special cleat. You could really go to town with a shoe that detected the exact points where pressure was being applied. eg Nike and Ipod

By: Majk

Majk — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:03:22 +0000

Polar is the last choice on my list, when buying a cycle computer. The main reason is the lack of ANT+, second is no GPS. Plus a number of minor stuff, such as non-replacable batteries in speed/cadence sensors.

Too bad, once they were at the top of the game, now just another computer manufacturer.

By: Brian Fleming

Brian Fleming — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:09:06 +0000

Why would anyone design a product like this which uses RF to transmit data and not use the Ant+ Sport technology? Would you design a computer peripheral which did not have USB or Bluetooth connectivity? It is the lack of Ant+ Sport connectivity which has already adversely affected my buying decision. I will wait for the Garmin/Metrigear.

By: Emiliano Jordan

Emiliano Jordan — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:29:40 +0000

Ian,

There are two situations here. One, is that the rider is not pedaling and just dropping of the curb or bunny hopping. In this case there is no, or very little, movement in the pedals so although there’s pressure on the axle there is no work being done. This is why the cadence sensor in each pedal is needed. The second case is that you pedal off the curb (not really applicable to bunny hopping). Here the pedaling action is more removed from the action of dropping of the curb. Power will be calculated normally and the drop will be considered a “vibration.”

The unit needs to filter out vibrations if it’s going to measure the specific type of work and power we’ve come to expect our power meters to measure. That is to say to measure the work and power done to move the bike forward not to balance or absorb shock and vibration. To answer your question, data will be “cleaned” and unnaturally high spikes are calculated out, smoothed or disregarded.

This all touches on the reasons we really need to wait and see some third party real world testing and data before we draw any conclusions on overall accuracy.

By: Ian Carr

Ian Carr — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:55:29 +0000

Did the engineer you spoke to say anything about how they planned to deal with non-rotating forces. How would they deal with a heavy rider hopping down a curb or bunny hopping? I realize the transmitter would only send information every so often but if the timing were right I feel like this could cause a spike in the read out, skewing the riders max wattage.