According to Stages and Training Peaks over the last 6 months I may be applying for a junior domestique place in your over 50s team:-

20mins 4.6 W/Kg
5mins 5.2 W/Kg
1min 6 W/Kg
5sec 10 W/Kg

Starting to want to verify my Stages – some big numbers on last nights commute. Sure I felt strong but 44W stronger after 4 months. Seems a bit of a stretch even if I was 2minutes 37seconds quicker over 8.9km

TiRed, sign me up! Only done one 34 crit so far but with our power profile I really don’t see how I’d ever win a point! Maybe if it was cat 4 only and a smaller field (and not 150 riders with a load of experienced cat 3 guys) I’d have a chance, and maybe not crits either. Answer is probably race craft!

Interesting to see the power numbers.

Wattbike/Power2Max numbers, from Training Peaks

20mins 4.2 W/Kg
5mins 4.4 W/Kg
1min 6.8 W/Kg
5sec 14.2 W/Kg

Hey, maybe I should be a sprinter! But these are @66kg, so I’ve always considered myself a climber.

Interesting to see the power numbers.

Well mine are quite flat..

20 min 4.6
5 min 5.0
1 min 6.8
5 sec 12.8

@72kg. Not raced much this year so hopefully should go up a bit over the next few months. I could probably do a bit better at 5, 1 and 30s but I’ve not done proper full gas efforts for those durations in ages. The 20 min was from a test in Feb so should be a bit higher now too. We all look much the same though, at least within the range of error for typical PMs.

We’d make a brilliant team of domestiques 🙂

Still no road racing around here so I’ve been concentrating on the MTB, shop I ride for is organising one race which will be the only road race in about a 150 mile area!! Went from long solid zone 2’s into short efforts so I’ve not actually done an hour effort (let’s be honest they’re bloody awful anyway haha!!) longest ride this year has only been 3 hours!

@59kg (sometimes less 😯 ) so a good bit lighter than you guys, you’d all absolutely hammer me on the flat!!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129593813@N03/17632308761/in/dateposted-public/

Really want a PM on the MTB, these are taken from the winter bike which is a heavy beast of a thing that sometimes leaves sprinting (and thus getting out and doing short hard efforts) a bit meh!

20 min – 4.76
5 min – 5.53
1 min – 8.77
5s – 16.23

3 podiums in (regional) sport so far this year, hope I can keep it up or better, improve. Fancy a National, top 10 would be amazing if I manage to get to one!!

At 72kg I’m beginning to feel like a bit of a fatty on this thread!

Haha, I’ll trade you some weight! I know guys that can climb at the same speed as me most of the time but when it gets flat they **** kill me!!! Once the babies aren’t babies you’ll be killing it again mate!

FWIW losing 3-4kg this year seems to have cost me 200-250W from my 5 second power (not worked out 1 min but it’s down), 20min and 1 hour (estimated) is about the same which doesn’t bother me so much on the MTB but I’d really be wanting that back on the road!

Thanks for the trade offer monkeyfudger, though Mrs Blobby is already complaining I’m too skinny!

Interesting regarding the weight to power trade off. Assuming that overal it’s been a positive results wise? The weight thing does put me off doing more xc racing though, getting back under 70 would be hard.

Difficult to say, I only done one XC race last year which was a 4th in Masters, flat course (Cathkin Braes) so no real way of comparing. I really didn’t plan on being this light as I don’t think it’s that healthy…but I’ve been ill less, go figure!

I’ll be putting a conscious effort in to gain weight over the winter this year, I’d like to hit 65kg as I believe I’ll be road racing again (hopefully!), if I can hit the same W/Kg I reckon I can get some decent results.

I think it depends on how many hard efforts you can do, I’m not capable of hard effort after hard effort, I’ve really only got 2-3 in me so a big guy who can dig in again and again would beat me.

😀 you better keep the Mrs happy then!!

At 72kg I’m beginning to feel like a bit of a fatty on this thread!

im 82kg fss 😆

5s – 12.76W/kg
1m – 6.74W/kg
5m – 4.38W/kg
20m – 3.83W/kg

Dual Stages cranks (spotted via Cyclismo-Espresso):

Posted by CyclingTips on Sunday, May 17, 2015

Link for the non facebookers (Flickr hates me/iPhone’s now so I can’t grab the IMG link)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129593813@N03/17189839474/in/dateposted-public/

😛 at the first comment!

Wonder who’s testing that?

Much market for a dual sided Stages? I’d guess it’d bump the price up beyond the likes of P2M or Quark, though it would be offset a bit by actually getting a full chainset and not just one arm! After everything I’ve read and heard about Stages I think my money would be going elsewhere.

I wonder if this is just the next step in their development, they’ve probably sold enough units to have clawed back their initial R&D investment by now and as we know the actual bits to make a PM are cheap, they could just release the new dual sided PM at the same price, smashing the price war down a notch again like they did at launch.

Massively jumping the gun here as its a proto but why bother using two batteries on a product that is effectively linked, you’ll always need 2 batteries on pedals but this is missing a trick IMO. Stick a rechargeable battery in the axle and link the 2 pods. With one step you’ve removed the only complaint/problem people have with Stages and at the same time introduce a selling point.

And good luck changing that battery with the crank in place!

SKY have used dual sided Stages pretty much from the outset of their sponsorship so this isn’t too new. In their case there was a telling bright blue battery case on the DS crank arm.

If I were buying a PM today I’d still go for Stages and only Rotor InPower would make me think twice about this. The more expensive options wouldn’t give me any advantages.

It is very interesting though, to see if true left/ right PM’s can hit the market at a reasonable price point. I can’t think off the top of my head but isn’t a dual Vector setup the only “true” left/ right PM available at the moment? The spider based PM’s measure right down + left up/ left down + right up to measure net work done on each side but don’t completely isolate left/ right power as far as I am aware (???!)

Quite a few dual sided. Polar, Garmin and now PowerTap with pedals. Info Crank and Rotor with crank based. 4iiii and soon PowerBeat with crank based. I think Pioneer is crank based too.

Assuming MTB I think I’d actually go Quark if buying today. Seem a popular choice and don’t hear much in the way of complaints.

Sorry, I meant for MTB 😳 Pedal options aren’t ideal for MTB, Info, Pioneer and Rotor don’t do MTB versions of their dual sided…. are 4iiii making a solid product now after their problems? I realise MTB PM’s are a niche market but I think a PM would have to be true dual sided to tempt my away from Stages or try the INpower.

There were a lot of issues with Quarq data going nuts then stopping transmitting completely, spikes in cold weather, power drift, water ingress and not being great at turning around warranty replacements quickly. Maybe this is fixed now and the XX1 unit is different to some of the road models but there was enough to make me think twice when buying (mainly the slow warranty work). That said, all PM’s seem to have their issues from time to time

4iiii are shipping LH pods, but they have to install them, $50 more than when they launched, which I think was always the plan. They’re saying carbon cranks and RH pods will follow.

Shame they’ve had the problems they have, I still like the theory.

4iii have my crank at the moment, but took so long in the first place that I bought a stages. Then I bought a kickr. So soon I’ll have three power readings for comparison. The kickr and stages currently read within a few watts of each other. If the 4iii reports a higher value, then clearly the existing two are wrong 🙂

Obviously you’re kidding, but that is the trouble, you don’t actually know! That in itself isn’t an issue until you try and compare across systems, and do a session at 300 Kickr-watts, which is actually 350 Stages-watts!

Yup, I agree entirely.
That said, prior to calibration and new firmware the Kickr was recording about 40w higher at typical levels, but since then they’ve tracked fairly closely. I guess a better test would be put the kickr in erg mode in some form of pyramid power over an hour and compare that to the stages output. Of course even if they still matched relatively closely it’s still just an arbitrary number.
The kickr gets mostly used on zwift, so hopefully it’s an inflated arbitrary number. 🙂

Interesting comment on the kickr accuracy. Heard quite a lot about them drifting to the extent that people were running them off external PMs. Has put me off a bit.

I guess with regards multiple PMs it’s consistency that’s important and you can usually set a slope or scaling factor to compensate on most. Need to do so on the Vectors to bring them in line with P2M and PowerTap.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/05/pioneer-system-review.html

I’ll take two of anyone’s feeling genorous 😉

Mmm, interesting. Not keen on the US/Euro pricing, but does look a great option.

It’d be amazing if we could get ’em for $999, although I assume (maybe wrong) that doesn’t include cranks. Not actually properly looked as they don’t appear to be available in the UK.

Shame the head unit doesn’t seem like a viable Garmin alternative.

Is there actually any benefit for training on an MTB using power?
I would’ve thought that the nature of MTB riding would mean that any power figures would be difficult to maintain unless on a longish climb or a fire road section.

seems you can now pickup the 105 5700 stages power meter with 20% off at a few places, that brings it down to £480.

I’m assuming its because the new units at on 105 5800, I’m assuming the actual strain gauge is going to be the same….anyone know if thats the case?

Same with the 7900 dura-ace, saw a post on WW saying it was being cleared out at $450 or thereabouts

Tech wise they will be the same

very very close to getting a stages. slight worry they there is about to be a massive reduction in the price of the things but you could always say that and never get one. just need to prepare myself for some disappointingly low numbers

be nice if stages made the 7900 arm a reduction in europe 🙄

4iiii are shipping LH pods, but they have to install them, $50 more than when they launched, which I think was always the plan. They’re saying carbon cranks and RH pods will follow.

I’m not holding my breath. My masters dissertation was on ‘power meters’ for carbon ice hockey sticks. It’s pretty difficult for a few reasons.

1) carbon bends in weird ways.
2) carbon gets softer over time as the laminate starts to break down.
3) gluing stuff to carbon in such a way that the glue isn’t so flexible that it absorbs all the bend rather than transmit to the power meter is difficult (and we were trying to glue the strain gauges right into the laminate, not just epoxy a plastic box onto the surface which would be even trickier).

I’d like a cheap power meter, and I have carbon cranks, but I won’t be buying a 4iiii in a hurry.

slight reduction of the 7900 in the Stages EU shop

http://www.stagescycling.eu/shop/TRIATHLON/Shimano/Stages-Power-Meter-Dura-Ace-7900.html

Cheaper than 105 now.

Someone was telling me that 7900 arms aren’t cross compatible with 9000 chain sets, I was cynical. Anyone know? Strikes me they’re close enough aesthetically, not like you ever see both together. I’d not pay much of a premium for a 9000 arm!

Curious. I’ve certainly mixed old and new 105 and Ultegra LH and RH crank parts with no issues. Would seem a bit odd for them to change the 9000 arm.

says they are compatible on the US stages site, you need a proxy to view it though

not the first place id think of looking for a cheap Stages

http://www.shopto.net/cycling/top-brands/stage/store

Limits have been beaten to it! Kind of…. 😀

Stages 6700 Ultegra £399 at Merlin for anyone interested.. not sure whether this is a price drop, but assume it is…

It’s because it’s old ultegra not current 6800 series, functionally the sane just cosmetically different

Good option

Those BePro pedals look good for €749. Cheapest proper dual sided power meter?