Capt.Slow, sorry nothing to add about PMs (Stages here since July, been fine for me) but just a quick question – I don’t know to what extent you’re involved with junior road racing in the UK. Over here in San Sebastian we’re looking for interested UK/Eire clubs to do an exchange – where kids would do some Junior/Cadete series races over here in summer and vice versa. Hoping to kick it off this season, we’ve got a little interest from the UK but always looking for more.

If that piques your interest in any way (or you know a club which might be up for it) my email’s in profile. Cheers!

May have already said this but I’ve got a Vector S, along with a power tap and a power2max. Had the vector a couple of months now and it’s been used lots in winter conditions. I like it. Simple to pair and use, simple to calibrate (from a Garmin 810), and the data is about the same as the PT and P2M.

I don’t swap it between bikes but the installation and removal is simple. You just need a torque wrench and a crow foot adapter to torque it up properly. Is nice to know that I can also pop them easily on any bike regardless of crankset, bb, etc if I needed to.

Bob, sounds intriguing and will email you in next day or two as want to discuss with one of my colleagues, but for background I am one of two Team Managers for a junior only team with just ten riders.

TiRed, interesting idea, but had planned to get the two sided vectors and move both pedals from bike to bike, just nervous about whether this will cause problems.

The only thing I’d be a bit worried about with frequent swapping of the vectors is the crank pedal thread. I think they are pretty easy to strip on some cranks as I don’t think cranks are built with frequent pedal changes in mind.

It’ll take longer than swapping chainsets, as you’ll need to torque them up each time, which also introduces the risk of inconsistent readings. Obviously swapping chainsets isn’t ideal if you’ve got different ring sizes, BB types, bike types etc

as you’ll need to torque them up each time, which also introduces the risk of inconsistent readings

It’s not really that much faff to do, just one quick tighten with a torque wrench. No longer than swapping a chaninset. As for inconsistent readings, from what I’ve read it’s under tightening that’s the problem, so it doesn’t need to be spot on, just tight enough.

I bought one of the first sets of vectors in the uk and have now had them nearly 18 months.
Great bit of kit, however there are lots of concerns floating around from people who don’t have them…

I’ve used a torque wrench for most installs and regularly move them around 3 bikes. You don’t need to use the torque wrench and I now only use it as a check once installed to make sure they are over the recommended.
Aligning the pods and speeding up install comes with practice but I now have it nailed. As long as you do them up tight you’ll be fine. You can’t really over tighten them and cause an issue with power, under tightening is where the numbers go weird.
Never had an issue with balance, it’s off but I’m pretty sure I know why I am not 50/50 now.
The new metrics are fab, even better if you have an edge 1000.
The only issues I have had are with premature bearing wear… I’m 83kg with a decent ftp of mid 300’s so put some good load on them and others have seen no issues at all. The pedals get a slight knock on the axle where the bush moves and wears a bit, Garmin have exchanged them within a week each time.

I’d buy them again tomorrow over the other options, certainly if you have multiple bikes!

Thanks charlierevell, really helpful and I have a torque wrench so would just need a crows foot spanner thingy.

Son is a flyweight second year junior racer (scalatore!), does around 5,000 miles a year. Most changes will probably be in winter/spring when he is using his “old” bike for training and new bike for occasional races. In the summer I expect him to pretty much stick to the new bike. On reflection I don’t think he would put them on his track bike very often if at all.

Capt Slow, thanks for the email, I’ve sent a reply.

I’ll be interested to know how your lad gets on with a PM. I have mooted the idea a few times with our guys but getting the parents to stump up for one after they’ve bought the bike and paid the coaching fees is another thing altogether.

Stripping threads in alloy cranks shouldn’t be a problem, but I always hold my breath when fitting pedals to carbon cranks with inserts (looking at you, FSA…)

I’m a Quarq user and other than battery swaps it’s been 100% trouble free for 2 years. wish PM’s were available as easily when I was full time on the road, it really does cut down on wasted time, we had a lot of trial and error (mainly error) training sessions.

My 2p on Vectors is, and a big problem for me, does your son get on with Look pedals, as I believe they use them? we were sponsored for a couple of years by Look and had Keo’s, they killed my knees as couldn’t get the adjustment I needed from them, 3 other team mates also ditched them after 3 months.

I keep considering a PM but don’t really know if I can justify one. If it was clear cut as to which would be best for my situation I’d probably have got one. In recent weeks I’ve “decided” on: the Vector pedals; then Stages crank; then Powertap wheel. Let’s just say I haven’t splashed the cash yet 🙄 Of course the inner geek wants DATA!!

As far as road cycling is concerned I currently just have the one bike so it gets used for both road and turbo.

I’d have thought being on Look cleats a bit of a given for the Vectors. I’d not swap cleats for a PM, I’d have got something else if I wasn’t already on Keo’s on all my road bikes.

Vectors now include a crowd foot in the box…
I moved from shimano, to speed play, to vector (keo) with no problems.

What I find frustrating with the Look pedals is that they aren’t particularly long living. I’ve just bought a new pair today (Keo Max) as my current/previous pair were knackered after just 18 months or so. What happens is that the latch mechanism wears away so it becomes harder to unclip, I had to unclip by twisting my legs inwards. I hadn’t even worn out the third set of cleats. I’ve gone up through the models: Easy, Classic and now Max.

If you can fit any Look Keo pedal body to the spindle/axle mechanism (which is the PM part) then it’s not too bad.

Whitestone, I had assumed that the Garmin Vectors were Garmin pedals built to accept a Look style cleat rather than Look pedals per se

Am I missing something?

Nope, you’re right. I believe they’re Exustar pedals, which are Keo compatible.

They are indeed Exustar pedals bodies. Work fine with Look Keo cleats.

This did concern me a little as the last pair of Exustar pedals I brought ended up with a stripped thread and the pedal popping out of the axle mid ride, was a little inconvenient. It was a super cheap model from Planet X though.

One telling thing, the vast majority of pro teams who are sponsored to run Vectors or Rotor have had their riders on SRM or P2M.

I have 2 old Powertaps and a gen1 P2M. Never had any issues with any of them.

One telling thing, the vast majority of pro teams who are sponsored to run Vectors or Rotor have had their riders on SRM or P2M.

It’s partly telling.

Rotor, claim is that they are still testing and using the P2M to validate. Teams are usually running both.

Vector. Some of the Garmin team use them, some don’t. I suspect you can rule a lot of the dont’s out by looking at cleat choice. I’d not use them if I wasn’t already using Keo cleats.

I’ve not had any issues with my old PT, my P2M or my Vectors. I have however had issue with a newer PowerTap, just couldn’t get a reliable ANT+ signal out of it and it went back. Older PT’s are getting rather expensive to fix now too.

Rotor, claim is that they are still testing and using the P2M to validate.

I’m sure they are. But given the product is 2 and a half years old. I ain’t buyin that. If they were doing that on prototypes before the retail launch, that’s another matter.

I keep almost pulling the trigger and getting the vector s then changing my mind and thinking the power2Max Type S is better value. Then i have second thoughts and think surely Shimano will be releasing one soon. I wait a while for that, no new rumours or news, no pro’s testing it so think it is just some vaporware and start to consider the vector again and so it repeats!