Powertap P1 Power Meter

[Rex]

Haven't seen any LBS with them. I asked a couple and they all tried to sell me vectors

Yeah.... or Stages.
Conversation didn't go any further.

[softy]

Well they are out there, in Perth at least, one of the higher end LBS

[Rex]

First impressions of my P1 Powertap power meter.

Installed saturday, didn't bother with torque wrench. Just hand-tightened as I'll be swapping very regularly.
Sunday did a couple of short rides around the block. Worked no problem under light loads.

This morning 36km's detour'd commute and put them through their paces on some stretches.
I did get the 'cant find right pedal' or something like that when I rolled out on the driveway but I know thats a firmware issue that has since been fixed.
No power spikes and the power curve looks nice and smooth in general which is excellent.

Interestingly, my leg balance is 46/54 which is a surprise.

The only tricky part is clipping in. Coming from Speedplay that was to be expected. But the pedals were never upside-down which was my biggest gripe with my old Look Keo's a few years ago and I'm certain it'll just be a matter of perfecting the clipping in technique which is easy enough.

So good to now have numbers that mean something.

[Bluejay87]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems. Not as powerful as I thought it seems

Will have to take the pedals through their paces outdoors once the weather clears up

[dalai47]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems. Not as powerful as I thought it seems

Interesting discussion currently on the Google Wattage page about zero offset fluctuations with the P1's and comparing against other PM's on the same ride...

[Bluejay87]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems. Not as powerful as I thought it seems

Interesting discussion currently on the Google Wattage page about zero offset fluctuations with the P1's and comparing against other PM's on the same ride...

Not familiar with that site. Could you provide link please?

[dalai47]

May take a couple of days to be given the secret handshake and be let in...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/wattage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Rex]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems.

This is inline with friends Kickr results who's decent numbers on Strava don't translate to on-road performance.

[Rex]

May take a couple of days to be given the secret handshake and be let in...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/wattage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, applied for membership.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

May take a couple of days to be given the secret handshake and be let in...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/wattage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, applied for membership.

Approved. (I'm a mod of the wattage group).

[Rex]

So lastnight I torqued up my P1's to 40nm to see if this would make a difference to left/right power balance.

No real difference - 45/55 for 46km and 46/54 after 30mins of intervals

[Rex]

Approved. (I'm a mod of the wattage group).

Thanks Alex

[kb]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems.

This is inline with friends Kickr results who's decent numbers on Strava don't translate to on-road performance.

Same here with Vectors. Now you have the P1s you can run the Kickr off them in the future though, so numbers are synced.

[Bluejay87]

Tested mine this morning in comparison to Kickr. My kickr reads consistently about 15-20W higher than the P1 it seems.

This is inline with friends Kickr results who's decent numbers on Strava don't translate to on-road performance.

Same here with Vectors. Now you have the P1s you can run the Kickr off them in the future though, so numbers are synced.

I've been reading about this but yet to try. On TR its implemented as a feature called power match.

Have you tried it? I've read that it can make the Kickr slower to adjust to changes in power and while OK for longer intervals it can be annoying for shorter ones.

Also from what I read the power figures still come from the Kickr but the Kickr offsets its power based on the reading from the other power source? So technically might still be some variation in the two data streams? Just wondering I should lower my trainer road ftp by about 16-17 before trying a workout with power match.

[kb]

I did try controlling the Kickr on an early beta of it. I was trying out Sufferfest ISLAGIATT. It sort of got stuck a little too high and I ended up dying after the first hour.

[Bluejay87]

Anyone else running the P1's with Edge 810? I still get the right power sensor missing message despite running latest firmware. I believe this is a problem specific to the 810.

[nickobec]

Anyone else running the P1's with Edge 810? I still get the right power sensor missing message despite running latest firmware. I believe this is a problem specific to the 810.

Not specific to the 810, have Garmin 510 and get exactly the same error message. Learnt to ignore it.

[Rex]

Learnt to ignore it.

Pretty much this.

My P1's worked amazingly well in the Perth hills + an FTP test for 20mins.
Love them

[Bluejay87]

Learnt to ignore it.

Pretty much this.

My P1's worked amazingly well in the Perth hills + an FTP test for 20mins.
Love them

I've taken mine into hills in last week and have loved it. Pleasantly surprised to be hitting power numbers outdoors that I never thought was possible based on my training indoors with Kickr. Makes me think I've been taking it too easy on the Kickr. Or maybe just something more motivating about climbing a hill vs putting power down on a trainer.

I now want to do an outdoor ftp test too but just struggling to think of a good Sydney location

[trailgumby]

That's a fairly common experience. I find it very tough to do indoors what I can do outdoors.

[Xplora]

Bellbird Hill is perfect Bluejay. Start the test from the bridge just past the lights, should take you at least 20 minutes to go up the climb. If you are superhuman, go up Warks Hill Road as well. Just make sure you click up the gears for the 2 minor flat sections, you will drop 100w for 10 seconds and it stuffs your average up a lot.

[Bluejay87]

Bellbird Hill is perfect Bluejay. Start the test from the bridge just past the lights, should take you at least 20 minutes to go up the climb. If you are superhuman, go up Warks Hill Road as well. Just make sure you click up the gears for the 2 minor flat sections, you will drop 100w for 10 seconds and it stuffs your average up a lot.

Thanks for the suggestion. What's the gradient along there? If it's anything more than 5% I wouldn't be able to spin at my ideal cadence for max efforts

[Crawf]

.

[Xplora]

That kind of effort is impossible outside anywhere in Sydney, except a velodrome.

[Bluejay87]

What about centennial park? Never been there myself but have seen ftp tests done there