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Was on the trainerroad forum and there is a thread with someone getting garmin SPD power meter pedals. Photos of it @ https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/garmin-rally-xc200-dual-sided-spd-power-meter/55929
Not sure id want a pedal based power meter for mountain biking - even for gravel riding my pedals have taken a hit or two over the years but for those that use SPDs on road bikes might be a good option.
Seems like someone let the (power) cat out of the bag a bit early!
£/$1200 for dual sided power meter seems a lot. Like you I think pedal based PMs are a bit exposed for MTB use but I'm sure that there must be Vectors that have taken hits in crashes on the road. If you don't need dual sided then a crank based PM makes more sense (IMO) on an MTB. If you have the same cranks on multiple bikes then swapping isn't that much harder than moving pedals over, at least with HT2.
Had no idea those Garmin SPD pedals were in the pipeline. Interesting!
I've recently sold some of my Stages power meters and bought some Assioma Duo's. I like them because you can swap the pedal body for SPD's very easily too. I use them like that on the gravel bike and have done a few times on the MTB. I've compared the power data between the Stages on my MTB and the Assioma pedals and there's not a lot in it so I'm going to keep the MTB Stages and have piece of mind that the odd pedal strike won't be much of an issue
vector 3's are around 700, so if they are close to that they will be an option.
I just bought a new sram force crankset for my gravel bike so I could upgrade to the spider power meter at a later date, which would still be my preferred power meter, but the option to switch between bikes would be tempting.
I hope that sram xx1\x01 will soon also have the 8 hole direct drive interface so they can be upgraded to quarq spider power meters
The original Trainer Road posts/page have been removed now, but the CyclingTips article is still up: https://cyclingtips.com/2021/03/new-garmin-rally-power-meter-pedal-family-to-include-spd-sl-and-spd-models/
https://www.iqsquare.com/products/iq2-mtb-powermeter-double
£300 for dual sided, definitely going to be delivered q1 2021 vapourware?
TBH I'm still tempted. Id be more tempted without the post brexit import duty and vat but still tempted.
I think you'd have to be mad to give IQ^2 any money. Might seem cheap, but so's this chocolate teapot. And it least that's tasty.
To be fair, the production samples were with reviewers last summer and got some favourable press.
At £300 now for an assumed delivery sometime this summer I would be tempted. If I'd paid £300 3 years ago I'd be livid.
The only remaining risk now surely is they've run out of cash with such a long and protracted development and have to pull a Sick, keeping the pre orders open to try and pay for the earlier batches.
Well I would genuinely wish you the best of luck! Producing a couple of pairs that work is a long way away from a production line. The fact that they've lied through their teeth the entire time would put me off. I honestly wouldn't even put £50 on these even as a gamble.
They have had a promised delivery date a couple of months away for at least the last 2 years. Anyone now giving them money before they ship and feedback filters through would have to be lobotomised.
Garmin have now officially released these. There is an article up on the front page: https://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/garmin-launches-rally-xc-power-meter-pedals/
Great for a gravel or road bike - but personally I wouldn't want to use them in a MTB application unless I was seriously into racing/training.the whole can swap over to the road body thing makes sense though.
DC rainmaker has his review up as well.
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/03/garmin-rally-power-meter-review-spd-spd-sl-look-keo.html
AVOID GARMIN PEDALS AT ALL COSTS!
My ex-partner used to own a set of Vector pedals and they were absolutely crap. Constant battery issues due to a crap battery cover on a £700 pair of pedals.
There are multiple threads on road bike forums slating the build quality of Garmin pedals.
Pedal power meters seem too exposed for me on an mtb....and too expensive!!!. I have a couple of Chinese sigeyi chainring PM’s. They have run all thru winter and have been excellent. £300 each.
link for cheapy powermeters?
I came across them whilst looking for chainrings.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001610258228.html
It'd be interesting to tear one apart and see what was inside. Obviously, it could be exactly the same as a Quark/SRM etc, or it could be a much cheaper implementation like E-bikes use to sense when the rider is pedaling.
I'm also curious whether those arms are actually forged and drilled out as they claim (i.e. actual copies of Rotor cranks) or if they're just solid. I'm tempted just for the chainrings.
I'd be especially interested if I already had a decent turbo trainer so could validate it (no point in an inaccurate power meter?)
The battery covers on Vectors were solved a long time ago free of charge by Garmin so I wouldn't let that put you off.
In terms of cheap power meters, the hardware is easy so it's likely the same strain guage. The firmware is hard so it's unlikely to be accurate.
Most roadies don't use the data produced for anything useful, and pedal power when mountain biking is such a small part of why the bike goes at the speed it does, my advice would be don't bother getting a power meter. It's interesting for 5 minutes, and then it's just another number on your screen. I can't for the life of me think how you'd train with power on a mtb anyway, it would likely involve sprints on a road surface anyway to achieve the short, sharp bursts of power needed for mtb
I’ve got a sram and a raceface. Tracking was excellent and delivery pretty quick. I was waiting for raceface to become available and they kept me in the loop. I can’t fault the service or the product. I’ve power matched it to my elite direto and it’s within a couple of watts.
It’s interesting for 5 minutes, and then it’s just another number on your screen. I can’t for the life of me think how you’d train with power on a mtb anyway,
I agree that it’s not as useful as on a road bike but I find that having IF displayed helps me not to go off too hard on long rides during training. I only tend to race solo 24 hour races.
Most roadies don’t use the data produced for anything useful, and pedal power when mountain biking is such a small part of why the bike goes at the speed it does, my advice would be don’t bother getting a power meter. It’s interesting for 5 minutes, and then it’s just another number on your screen. I can’t for the life of me think how you’d train with power on a mtb anyway, it would likely involve sprints on a road surface anyway to achieve the short, sharp bursts of power needed for mtb
My rationale was kinda the opposite.
I didn't get a power meter on my road bike as I didn't see the point without having one on my gravel and MTB's. It might be most directly useful for training. But for datalogging and working out what needs improvement I suspect I'd get a lot more useful data from the MTB.
Can you think of an example of something it would flag for improvement that you could train against? On the mtb speed is generally balance, pumping, and raw power in short bursts. All of these you'd already want to train for and power numbers wouldn't help. I can kind of see teamslug's scenario of a 24h where you'd want to manage your output over long periods, but I've got to assume there's not much gnar in those kinds of races (literally no experience there!). Power is useful on the road as you can consistently apply a given power output during a race without blowing up, and in training on a road you can easily do power based interval training. MTB training for power would also make use of power interval training sessions, but by necessity these would also need to be on smooth surfaces like roads, and you wouldn't want suspension messing with your mojo so probably best done on a road bike.
I may well be missing something, but I've been training with power for years and can't quite see how it would fit with mtb, and probably not gravel either other than that it's interesting to see the numbers over time. For the record I also said early on that running dynamics and cycling dynamics served no real purpose and we're still waiting to see someone explain how they're useful. Not all data leads to knowledge!
@lustyd - probably post race analysis as much as anything, something along the lines of: "I was doing X Watts for Y seconds on that climb and got dropped so I need to work on my power at that duration." Actually it might not be as simple as that - you may also have been over threshold for the previous 20 minutes so it's really that that needs looking at so that you have some freshness when the attacks come.
From some of Trainerroad's podcasts, the high level MTB racers do their power based training on their race bike so that the numbers translate.
Personally I go by RPE if I'm doing MTB based training, it's not too far off, Strava's power estimate puts me in close proximity to the target power (they'll just be using combined weight of me and bike taking X seconds to travel Y metres with Z metres elevation gain but no allowance for off-road surfaces). All the power zones meld into one another rather than being hard boundaries so if your FTP was 300W then anywhere from 270-330W is going to give you threshold benefits even though technically you are just to the side.
Yes I guess that makes sense for the pro's. I can't see your average singletrack forum member doing much of that though 😀
Road and mtb have very different postures, so if you were serious then training with power on a mtb on road or smooth offroad makes absolute sense.
I use power on my cx as I find power is good for shorter intervals because HR is too unreliable.
THe garmin pedals are two to three times the cost of most single sided crank PMs so I'd rather just have a couple of crank based options!
On the mtb speed is generally balance, pumping, and raw power in short bursts. All of these you’d already want to train for and power numbers wouldn’t help.
That's equally a good example of there being more than one way to cook an egg.
Whilst it won't be as consistent as on the road, even off-road I'm definitely more consistent than what you describe. With a power meter, you'd be able to put numbers to which is faster, sprinting between the corners on singletrack, or staying off the brakes, keeping the speed consistent and saving that energy for the climbs.
It's a moot point at the moment anyway, post lockdown I think I'm probably the least fit I've been in a long time!
I think I’m probably the least fit I’ve been in a long time!
You and me both - the lack of the cycle commute had knocked 6+ hrs a week excersize off and I'm finding less time for recreational cycling too!
I can kind of see teamslug’s scenario of a 24h where you’d want to manage your output over long periods, but I’ve got to assume there’s not much gnar in those kinds of races (literally no experience there!).
I think you'd be surprised about the level of Gnar on 24hr events, think the WC XC descent at Fort William as being at the tougher end of the scale, but there's definitely a lot more than just pedalling round a blue route in a good 24hr course. They could be useful for that kind of thing, but I find monitoring HR pretty effective - old school I know, but it works (worked) for me.
To be fair it is crazy money for a set of pedals, but if you're that way inclined.
I didn't have a big commute anyway (2miles), but even that adds up to almost 1000miles over a year!
I'm missing lunchtime rides, which was probably 3-4 group rides a week, 80-90minutes each. Tried to replicate it working from home for a while and it kinda worked. But then around June time I just ran out of motivation to keep riding on my own.
Think I'm going to have to target the official end of lockdown in June as if it were a race in terms of training! I don't race much, I just have a strong preference for longer/non-stop/less faffy group rides, which tends to mean joining the fast groups.
FWIW here's a forum discussion on those cheap power meters:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/sigeyi-power-meter/26370/70
Including some input from GPLama who's got one to test, his quote "Very early indoor Sigeyi data is in from the Lama Lab… it looks good. Very good". Although it did seem to have some teething issues last year around the auto zero offset and sprints but his lat comment seemed to imply they were fixed around firmware 3.24. Then someone s talking about 3.7 later so it seems like there's an actual company behind it trying to make a decent product, not just some fly by night with a copy of another system.
For £255 (plus Vat and duty) for the entire chainset I'm seriously tempted. At that price I could do my road, gravel (both would need new chainsets) and MTB (which already has direct mount) for about the same cost as a new ultegra chainset and stages LH PM!