power meters in the shops

seanin4711 · 14-10-2017 3:41pm #1

who has got tehm for support when somethign goes wrong?
best place to go for one bricks and mortar?
thanks
John

Inquitus · 14-10-2017 5:50pm

Base2Race sell them if you are in Dublin.

https://shop.base2race.ie/collections/power-meters

Quigs Snr · 14-10-2017 10:02pm

... and break they probably will. My history with power meters on my bike collection is as follows:

Powertap Pro+ - Never had an issue with it. 2 years.
Powertap Elite (1) - Broke 13 months... Paligap UK completely useless / repair cost almost same as new unit if you are out of warranty.
Powertap Elite (2) - Replacement for above, also broke after 6 months. Similar experience as above for the guy I sold it to.

Power2Max Classic - Broke - Water Ingress.. apology and upgrade to type S from power2max.
Power2Max Type S Rotor 3D24 (1) - Still going.. 3 years.
Power2Max Type S Rotor 3D24 (2) - Still going ... 2 years
Power2Max Type S Rotor 3D30 - Still going ... 2 years.

Quarq DFour - 6 months old, going well.
Quarq Elsa RS - 23 months old, broken strain gauges, currently with Quarq.. will know soon if their support is any good. Just inside warranty. All support has to be handled via original bike shop and the SRAM european distributor... probably take longer than power2max to resolve. Will likely go power2max again for the next one now that the newer NG Eco can take dura ace 4 bolt rings on some crank models.

Overall.. all 3 of the brands I have tried have had an issue and they would be among the more reliable brands.

So going local is good for piece of mind although Power2max despite being a direct sales model were absolutely excellent for me. When someone overtightened the battery hatch on one of my current units (not me).. they sent out a replacement battery hatch.. no charge and they upgraded me to what was a brand new higher end unit when my original classic model broke. When I dialled them about a special offer that wasn't available in their summer sale on their site, they looked at my account, saw i was a repeat customer and gave me a cracking price on a unit that wasn't on sale etc..

Raymzor · 14-10-2017 10:53pm

seanin4711 wrote: »

who has got tehm for support when somethign goes wrong?
best place to go for one bricks and mortar?
thanks
John

I found Fitzcycles very good to deal with. I bought an Ultegra Stages.

Kaisr Sose · 15-10-2017 10:29am

@quigs. Thanks for the brief Boardsie DC Raimakeresque Powermeter quality review!

You must have an impressive amount of bikes! How come you have no pedal versions?

Quigs Snr · 15-10-2017 8:49pm

I have a much smaller collection than I used to. Apart from a few classics, i trimmed it down mostly to the higher end/top end stuff. (Cervelo S1, S5, P5, Pinarello F8, Focus izalco Max, Sworks Roubaix SL4, Planet X Track, TVT 92 Team Z, 83 Colnago Master, Vitus 797) And i like to have powermeters on the ones I ride the most often.

Pedals sadly seem to mostly deserve their bad rap (cue a stampede of happy users). A teammate went through two sets of powertap p1 pedals in two months. And they were well looked after. Babied in fact. Likewise I have seen issues with the garmin vectors.. weird readings, dropouts, broken pods and warranty issues. Generally if there is any sort of issue that a particular unit is prone to, I assume I will get it, because that is normally how my luck runs.

That being said, I wouldn't mind trying the new vector 3 but I will give it a while to see if the sentiment on the web of actual users is any good. DC Rainmaker is great and all... but I have seen him give glowing reviews to badly flawed and horribly unreliable units too (a consequence i imagine of constantly swapping them around and keeping few of them for very long).

It's hard to look past the power2max really. It just works. Good support and nothing near as cheap for the same quality. I don't know why anyone serious about power goes single sided etc.. I tried the Quarq because in my vanity I thought the power2max was reading max sprint efforts lower (compared to my previous readings from the powertap)... but the Quarq agreed with the power2max exactly. And as it turns out a club-mate who also had several powertaps also reported that max sprint effort peak power efforts were reading considerably lower (10% ish) on all other brands, which was very consistent with my experience.

Apparently the pedals read a little higher due to their immediate proximity to the source of power i.e. your feet. But we will see... The vector is surprisingly supposed to be the biggest seller in the market, with stages in second place. But I would need to see their new model working flawlessly in Irish conditions over a prolonged period of time before I took the plunge (I rotate my bikes so much that if there were a longevity issue, i would likely be outside warranty when it occurred).

And that new Shimano one... crank based, dual sided, looks great, light, says Dura Ace on it... normally thats enough for me... but I have a bad feeling about that one... the general vibes coming through the channels are that maybe its a bit pricey, a bit behind the times in some features and also a bit flaky from a durability perspective. Time will tell. If its a runaway success I will buy 5 of them next year !

TheDocMan · 15-10-2017 10:38pm

Fitzcycles couldn't be faulted for their support with Stages anyway. Plenty of issues with 2 different first generation cranks but all sorted by them. Have 2 second generation ones now and no issues. Prices very close to Internet prices too.

Miklos · 16-10-2017 10:28am

Another endorsement of FitzCycles here. Got a Stages Ultegra earlier this year and found them great to deal with.

power meters in the shops

Comments