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Power Tap Vs. Power Tap Pro?
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Okay,

Even though "Motley Fools" would advise me to deposit my tax return into a nice ROTH IRA or something sexy like that I'm already planning on spending it. I know I shouldn't but you know what, I'm gunna. I'm at peace with my spendthrift ways and I think it's what G. W. Bush would want me to do.

So anyone have anything helpful to say about the Power Tap vice the Power Tap Pro? Do the extra bells and whistles make it any more effective of a training aide?

TIA,

John


"A man must love a thing very much if he not only
practices it without any hope of fame and money,
but even practices it without any hope of doing it well."

(G. K. Chesterton)

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Re: Power Tap Vs. Power Tap Pro? [canneberra] [ In reply to ]
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I vote for the regular, and spend the extra cash on a second wiring kit (if you have two bikes) and cyclingpeaks software.

The pro gives you more precise cadence data. Who cares? The regular unit gets it right already. The pro gives a little more interval data storage. Who cares? I don't do bunches of intervals. My bike intervals have two repeats. Besides, with cyclingpeaks, you can easily spot your intervals and analyze them separately if you need to.
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Re: Power Tap Vs. Power Tap Pro? [canneberra] [ In reply to ]
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I only have the Powertap, so I don't know much about the functionality of the Powertap pro unit. I can say I get absolutely everything I need out of my powertap. You can store 9 intervals I believe- I can't imagine why you'd need more than that. Like the previous poster said, the best investment is in a 2nd wiring harness (if you have more than one bike). I spend way too much time re-wiring my harness from road bike to tri-bike last season, and I'm gonna buy a 2nd harness for this season since it's well worth the money.

depending on your wallet, the Pro does have some upgrades worth considering. I heard it includes a cadence senser, instead of the power surge cadence method that the power tap uses. My cadence is often jumping all over the place since it measuers cadence based on each power acceleration with each pedal stroke. The more fluent your pedal stroke, the less accurate this seems to be. There's probably some other upgrades also.
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Re: Power Tap Vs. Power Tap Pro? [canneberra] [ In reply to ]
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What he said. I have the regular, and the money I saved I put into having the hub built into an aero wheel (HED Alps). Now I can race and train on one.

It's true that the regular has some cadence issues. I can regularly see it wandering a bit, especially if you run at a low cadence and concentrate hard on smooth circles. I'm assuming it has trouble catching the individual pedal pulses in that situation. The good news is it all becomes a wash during analysis. The peaks and troughs average out.

As far as data storage, if you want to record a ride with 2 sec samples longer than 7 hours (the max capacity as I recall), you're nuts. You just plain don't need much for intervals either. They're easy to highlight and analyze after the ride.

All that said, I don't own a pro, so there may be some other advantages. I can say that I'm more than happy with the powertap, and it has completely changed the way I ride. If you're not training with power, you're training in the dark.

Oh yeah, the cyclingpeaks software is unbelievably sweet too. Try the free 14 day trial and see what you're missing.


----
Aerosexual.
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