Stages power meter

Anyone got one / have a mate with one? have they been reliable?,

seem to be out of stock everywhere…

Friend has had one a few months with no issues. My only concern with them is that they only read from one side and I know personally i’m a bit lop sided in my power delivery.
Power2Max cranks would still be my choice for not much more money

Merlin seem to have stock.

My only concern with them is that they only read from one side and I know personally i’m a bit lop sided in my power delivery.

I wonder how much this matters as I’d guess one leg would remain a similar percentage to the other. If this is your only power meter and you’re not comparing power values with anyone other than yourself then it probably doesn’t matter. May be wrong though.

Yes Merlin do have some stock! Though I’m after a sram one for the roadie which isn,t. Re left / right leg I’m not so bothered I’ve been on a watt bike and seen there is a very slight difference but as said above i want it to compare training efforts and gauge improvement so as long as it is consistent I’m not too fussed if it is a few % under.

I wonder how much this matters as I’d guess one leg would remain a similar percentage to the other.

Not necessarily – a lot of people have a discrepancy that will even out when they’re pushing harder. Not the end of the world, but definitely a downside of the Stages. The UK pricing is too close to the Power2Max for my liking.

Merlin/Evans have stock of most, lots of other smaller shops have them as well, none with the distributor iirc as my LBS couldnt get me one until July?

i have an X9 which i got from Mountain Trax next day, mated to a XX1 drive side, only had 2 rides on it but its done what it should, no real reason for buying it but wanted to see some data, to see if there are areas i can improve,

reliability wise, i know there are some issues, i think another forum member has had several units, the newer ones have a different battery cover seal?

Hmmm that power2max looks pretty good, haven’t come across the uk pricing yet though? And can it fit to any crank? Sram force?

That is what I was wondering, though I thought it would go the other way and the discrepancy would increase when tired or pushing hard. Must have a go on something that measures both independently sometime.

i looked at power2max a couple of years ago before i bought a powertap, looked again recently and there certainly seems to have been a price increase

-Everyone I know who has bought one has had to warranty it at least once.
-The Power2max costs only a little more and measures power from both legs.

I’ll let you decide.

I’ve had a stages for only a week and knew about the battery issues but they have now been resolved. Hopefully..

Re one leg reading, the only true left and right reading on the bike would be the Garmin Vector pedals and they are a lot more cash. The others seem to be estimators. I am only using power for me and not to compare with others so as long as it is consistent doesn’t matter how accurate the overall level is for training purposes. However my peak power does compare with a watt bike that I had a play on.

Really impressed with the ease of fitting, just a crank. The only issue is now making proper use of the figures 😀

Also didn’t mind what colour of crank or that it was ultegra so got one of the few left, otherwise would be June/July.

Peter

From the googling I’ve done it seems the power2max would be a fair chunk more and I would be needing a new chainset. Though they do come in some nice colours

Love my stages xt, swap it between all of my bikes as it suits. I used to have a powertap but this thing is next generation in comparison and the power measures just as consistently and just as accurately as the powertap did. There is an issue with waterproofing (water ingress through the battery cover causes battery drain, works fine again when dried out)and I don’t believe the oring battery cover upgrade will be sufficient for our climate. I have just duct taped mine and had zero issues. Lots of people will obviously poo poo this as not fit for purpose but I don’t mind as the advantages of the system far outweigh this design flaw. This really is a great product if you want to measure power on a mtb, I just need to figure out what to do with the masses of information. FWIW

I’ve got a P2M, if I was choosing again for a mountain bike it’d be a toss up between a P2M and a Powertap. I think the rear hub position is a lot safer for off road stuff, I clatter my cranks/chain rings much more than I’d like to and having a power meter in that position could have me wincing! P2M mountain bike stuff is a bit pricier than the road stuff as you can only buy ’em with chainrings and cranks.

I just need to figure out what to do with the masses of information. FWIW

can we send the thread in that direction?

so, what do we do with the masses of info?

using golden cheetah to get 5 sec, 30 second, etc data which i can then use to pace,

I plug mine into the wko+ software and am referencing Hunter Allens book, although it’s heavily roadie biased and finding a mtb application for a lot of the data is tricky.

I use TrainingPeaks for my data.

Using golden cheetah too and reading Friel training with power, main thing seems to be is to get FTP ie best ave for an hour and work with that.
There is also a page showing pedal force v pedal rotation speed, which shows how consistent your actual force is. Shows that I don’t change gear enough, just put more or less force through pedals. Years of singlespeeding through winters methinks.
Strava looks like will be good as well as wind etc doesn’t make a difference on segments, can see the ave power and compare own efforts.
Also for me riding to an average power is helping as speed becomes irrelevant.

Hmmm that power2max looks pretty good, haven’t come across the uk pricing yet though? And can it fit to any crank? Sram force

Buy from Germany. Sell existing chainset to offset cost. Rotor 3D always looked best value IMO.

On my third. And I think they are excellent. Customer service is even better. And for that reason I will recommend them. Definitely next generation power for the majority.

For cheap power, I use powercal. This gives a scarily similar normalized power. And suggested that my new bike does save about 20watts at 25mph. Still crashed though!

Price depending the new Xpedo pedal ones look good, details tbc though.

Customer service is even better.

Why is this as a good thing? If a product is good, the consumer won’t know how good the customer service and warranty replacement is! You should only need good warranty service if you sell a product that isn’t up to the job.

There’s a good chance you’ll have issues with a stages pm, if it’s for a road bike, it’s about £100-150 more for a Power2max road crank – it’s a ‘no brainer’. I’d be tempted to risk it for a stages on an mtb, the price gap is bigger. Would probably still get a P2M though…

Like I said, they’re more reliable and it measures power from both legs.

Not great if you run elliptical rings though, as bolt is behind the crank arm.

WKO+ no good for me, no Mac support

Plenty of program’s for mac that will allow you to run windows program’s though

What’s WKO+ got that’s not part of TrainingPeaks? Thought they’d integrated most of it now.