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Best Power Meter Options - Gravel
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So, I am debating on installing a power meter on my trek checkpoint SL6. Really enjoy the bike and use it as an all around rig. Gravel, roads etc... I have two wheel sets for it and change out as needed based on terrain.

I currently have a Quarq on my tri bike and really like it. The challenge I am seeing is I have mechanical Ultegra 2X. 50/34 front with an 11-34 cassette on the back. Quarq does not have a great crankset option for a power meter up front to match up with the range of gearing I currently have. I like having the 50 up front for when I am out on the paved roads cruising with my road tires. I also need the 34-34 for getting my fat ass up the hills and through the gravel morass too.

Thoughts on what might be my best options to investigate moving forward?
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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Rotor Aldhu crankset with INspider power meter.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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Power2Max has lots of options - many of which can bolt onto existing cranksets. I'm toying of doing this with my gravel bike, which has a Rival crankset.

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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Assioma Xpedo Hack.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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What kind of pedals do you run?

Gravel here is all on my road shoes, so I swap my Assiomas between road, gravel and TT bike!
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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I just got the garmin rally pedal power meter and working great so far. Figured I needed pedals anyways so may as well kill two birds. Plus pretty inexpensive compared to others if you factor in the cost of pedals anyway

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not sure why you don't think Quarq will do the gearing you currently have, seems you're only thinking of the SRAM options which have smaller big chainrings and a smaller tooth jump. The Quarq DFour uses the Shimano bolt circle so you can use 50/34 Shimano chainrings, that's what I have on my tri bike and was my choice as I have a Shimano drivetrain and I think they make the best chainrings.

Warning: Long post ahead!

I have a slightly different quandary. I have a second, older Quarq with 50/34 rings and was going to put it on my gravel rig, which I purchased last year. I have a 46/30 GRX 600 crank on my gravel bike and while I thought the top gear wouldn't be high enough, in practice I've found that with the larger tires it's actually adequate even though I've ended up also using my gravel bike as my main road bike with a second set of wheels. And given my age, the very hilly gravel terrain I ride, and that I've also been using the bike on easier MTB trails, I've come to really like the 30t inner ring. It's going to be very challenging to get the same low since my old Quarq can't run smaller than a 34t inner ring. If I run an 11-40 tooth cassette then I run into problems with chain wrap and big gaps in the gears. Plus the existing chainrings on the older Quarq need to be replaced, ideally I'd go with a smaller front chainring to help the wrap issue, but nobody makes paired sets that match a 34 inner with a smaller than 50t outer anymore. And I've test fitted the older Quarq on my gravel rig and wasn't crazy about how tight the clearance was with the 50t large.

I can't run a single sided meter due to a leg discrepancy. And while I know that weight doesn't really matter that much, it has entered into my thinking, it would be nice not to have a significant weight penalty over my old road bike when in road mode and it's nice to not have a heavy bike when you're hefting it over technical sections on the trails.

So here's my own personal take on what's available based on my needs, but might be of some use to others.

Power2Max NG Eco gravel version - Plusses: Reliable, accurate, good reputation. Available with a wide variety of crankarms of varying prices and weights some of which are significantly lighter than my current 600 series crank. Retains my existing gearing, and supposedly uses the same GRX chain line.
Minuses: Uses proprietary chainrings only available from them. I haven't had a single chain drop on my GRX and reluctant to go with non-Shimano rings. Lighter options are pricey.

Favero Assioma with Xpedo SPD hack - Plusses: Reliable, accurate, good reputation. Adds simplicity since no more pedal swaps for road use.
Minuses: The pods seem very vulnerable to rock strikes on the trails and I have some scratches on the ends of my crankarms. Adds significant weight in road setup over the Speedplays I've been swapping for road use; also, I prefer the feel of the Speedplays for the road.

Garmin Rally XC200 - Plusses: No pods like the Assiomas. SPD pedal out of the box without the hack necessary on the Assiomas.
Minuses: Really pricey for a pedal that gets rough treatment. Past Garmin pedals have had bad reliability reputation. Kinda heavy.

Two sided 4iiii installation on GRX 810 crank with 48/31 rings - Plusses: Preserves nice Shimano chainrings. Saves some weight over my 600 cranks. The 48t outer chainring gives better road gearing than I have now.
Minuses: Questionable accuracy of PM installs on Shimano cranks; accuracy is very important to me, if it isn't accurate, I'd rather just train with PE. Takes a few weeks for installation process. Lose 1 tooth of low gearing, which is not too big a deal.

Well this is probably more than any of you wanted to know.

I think if it weren't for the pod issue I'd go with the Assioma SPD hack. I'm leaning towards Power2Max but concerned I won't have as good shifting with non-Shimano rings. Still pondering.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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Since I don't have a gravel bike I don't know if this is the issue but:

With a non-gravel crankset, the crank arms may hit the chainstays because they are wider than chainstays on a road bike. Because of that, a gravel-specific crankset is needed?
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [jaretj] [ In reply to ]
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jaretj wrote:
Since I don't have a gravel bike I don't know if this is the issue but:

With a non-gravel crankset, the crank arms may hit the chainstays because they are wider than chainstays on a road bike. Because of that, a gravel-specific crankset is needed?

I think generally it's unlikely that the crank arms will hit the chainstays and a lot of gravel bikes use road cranks. The gravel cranks allow the front derailleur to not go as close to the tire for better clearance, and also give more heel clearance at the wider stays.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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I have tried many options, but here's where I'm at :)

I tend to error back to my Garmin pedals unless I KNOW there will be hike-a-bike. Then I'll go to a MTB pedal with a spider PM or this year I just bought a Stages single arm for events like Rift Iceland that will almost certainly require hike a bike. I'd do MTB pedals for Unbound. I do road pedals for DAMn (240 miles across MN).

In a cross country MTB race on a dry course I'll use road pedals. Most folks agree if possible road pedals provide more long term comfort. I've gone both ways for very long events and do feel there's a slight comfort advantage to road pedals, but did a 14 hour MTB ride on Maah Daah Hey 150 last fall with MTB pedals no issue.

The perfect PM solution could be the new Garmin setup with swapable pedals. Unfortunately we don't yet know the durability or longevity. I am on about my 8th set of Garmin pedals. I keep using them because for me with many bikes they are the best solution. Now that they got the battery door right I've had a couple bomproof sets even riding 50,000 miles the past couple years.

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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i've been running a regular power2max road ngeco on my checkpoint alr for years without a problem
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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You know, an inexpensive, easy and reliable option that keeps most gearing options open and that doesn't have danger of impact damage like pedals is a wheel with a PowerTap hub...

oh, wait...dammit :-(

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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Kind of what others have already said.
I run a FSA powerbox (basically a p2Max) on my gravel bike, it has been great so far.

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [trener1] [ In reply to ]
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Well, went ahead and ordered a gravel Power2Max crankset from their North America site and after not hearing any update on the order for a few days inquired and it turns out that they have no chainrings in stock. He couldn't give me an ETA on the chainrings but said they were originally due in March. Yikes, so I don't know if it will be a couple of weeks or a couple of months, or even longer.

Not sure if I'm going to keep the order. Gives me pause on the entire P2M gravel option since you are tied to their proprietary chainrings. A bit put off that they're taking orders that they can't fulfill with no warning on their website and that I had to ask to find that out.

I've got power on the tri rig but not the gravel rig, which I'm also using for road. Did some really hard efforts on it yesterday and really wish I had the power numbers...
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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Get the FSA powerbox, it's the same powermeter as the P2Max but you should have a much easier time getting chainrings.
In fact they have a 800 number that you can call and they are extremely helpful.

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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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I had an old cyclocross bike that I wanted to "gravelize". Caliper brakes. Decided to have WheelBuilder build me a custom wheel with a PowerTap. I realize wheel-hub-based PMs aren't quite in vogue these days but it was definitely the right choice. Cheap and the crank is not a limiting factor
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ryans] [ In reply to ]
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I have a quarq dfour with 48/33 chanrings from TA specialties. Works awesome
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [DylanD] [ In reply to ]
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DylanD wrote:
I just got the garmin rally pedal power meter and working great so far. Figured I needed pedals anyways so may as well kill two birds. Plus pretty inexpensive compared to others if you factor in the cost of pedals anyway

from a simplicity standpoint this makes the most sense. I already have my Assioma pedals which I swap between road and tri bikes. Gravel bike just has a staged left arm pm. If I was starting from scratch I’d just go with rally pedals and be done with it.

I’d say for gravel anyway I mostly look at power after the fact or maybe check it to make sure I’m not going too hard. I feel like on gravel going by feel works out far better given that gravel my entire body is getting just hammered.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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tttiltheend wrote:
Well, went ahead and ordered a gravel Power2Max crankset from their North America site and after not hearing any update on the order for a few days inquired and it turns out that they have no chainrings in stock. He couldn't give me an ETA on the chainrings but said they were originally due in March. Yikes, so I don't know if it will be a couple of weeks or a couple of months, or even longer.

Not sure if I'm going to keep the order. Gives me pause on the entire P2M gravel option since you are tied to their proprietary chainrings. A bit put off that they're taking orders that they can't fulfill with no warning on their website and that I had to ask to find that out.

I've got power on the tri rig but not the gravel rig, which I'm also using for road. Did some really hard efforts on it yesterday and really wish I had the power numbers...

Disappointing to read that, as I was looking at the Power2max NG for my gravel bike. I've got an Easton crankset on it now and liked the P2M option better than the Easton's Cinch.

I might just find some Specialties TA 48/33 rings for my Quarq.

Suffer Well.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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Been super happy with that setup, been running it for 8 months or so and it's worked great, no shifting issues at all. One word of advice, I have a quarq dfour and maybe I ordered a slightly wrong chainring setup but I had to put some thin washers between the spider and chainrings, otherwise the chainrings warped slightly due to cutouts on the back. IMO its nbd because it's worked fine ever since, just thought I'd let you know.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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jmh wrote:
tttiltheend wrote:
Well, went ahead and ordered a gravel Power2Max crankset from their North America site and after not hearing any update on the order for a few days inquired and it turns out that they have no chainrings in stock. He couldn't give me an ETA on the chainrings but said they were originally due in March. Yikes, so I don't know if it will be a couple of weeks or a couple of months, or even longer.

Not sure if I'm going to keep the order. Gives me pause on the entire P2M gravel option since you are tied to their proprietary chainrings. A bit put off that they're taking orders that they can't fulfill with no warning on their website and that I had to ask to find that out.

I've got power on the tri rig but not the gravel rig, which I'm also using for road. Did some really hard efforts on it yesterday and really wish I had the power numbers...


Disappointing to read that, as I was looking at the Power2max NG for my gravel bike. I've got an Easton crankset on it now and liked the P2M option better than the Easton's Cinch.

I might just find some Specialties TA 48/33 rings for my Quarq.

I decided to stick with the order, and heard about a week ago that the rings were coming next week, then got a shipping notice yesterday and the P2M gravel meter is supposedly arriving today. So if you're interested I'd ping them and see about availability as he said the last shipment of rings sold out quickly.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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tttiltheend wrote:
jmh wrote:
tttiltheend wrote:
Well, went ahead and ordered a gravel Power2Max crankset from their North America site and after not hearing any update on the order for a few days inquired and it turns out that they have no chainrings in stock. He couldn't give me an ETA on the chainrings but said they were originally due in March. Yikes, so I don't know if it will be a couple of weeks or a couple of months, or even longer.

Not sure if I'm going to keep the order. Gives me pause on the entire P2M gravel option since you are tied to their proprietary chainrings. A bit put off that they're taking orders that they can't fulfill with no warning on their website and that I had to ask to find that out.

I've got power on the tri rig but not the gravel rig, which I'm also using for road. Did some really hard efforts on it yesterday and really wish I had the power numbers...


Disappointing to read that, as I was looking at the Power2max NG for my gravel bike. I've got an Easton crankset on it now and liked the P2M option better than the Easton's Cinch.

I might just find some Specialties TA 48/33 rings for my Quarq.


I decided to stick with the order, and heard about a week ago that the rings were coming next week, then got a shipping notice yesterday and the P2M gravel meter is supposedly arriving today. So if you're interested I'd ping them and see about availability as he said the last shipment of rings sold out quickly.

That jives with the response from my web inquiry a few minutes ago. Nigel said that they had the 46/30 in stock and the 48/31 are expected from Rotor in about 2 weeks.

Suffer Well.
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [ In reply to ]
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I dont if it's the best.. but I have Easton carbon cranks so I got the Cinch power meter spindle. Yeah it's 1 sided and all, but it seems to work well and match my other PM's on other bikes. (Vector,quarq and SRM)
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Re: Best Power Meter Options - Gravel [jmh] [ In reply to ]
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Have done a couple of rides on my new P2M gravel meter and I'm pleased to say that despite my concerns, the rings shift great.
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