Nothing to add other than I've been happy with mine. Based on the current 50% discount to the price I bought it, I wouldn't be surprised if the rumor you heard was true.

If you are looking for more hearsay, someone told me that PowerTap is phasing out both the C1 AND the P1's and focusing on hubs. I don't know if there is any validity to that or if it just a rumor. I am hoping the latter, but watching this thread hoping something credible comes up.

Thanks for this. At that price I'm in:)

Yeah it's pretty badass. You can do a Cobb short arm "crank based" power meter for less than 650.

Purchased both the C1 chainrings on sale and the Cobb Cranks (alloy) on sale. Unfortunately, the C1 chainrings did not fit on the Cobb cranks despite what PowerTap indicates on their website. It's kind of strange since PowerTap indicates they tested with a Cobb crank physically in hand. The rings won't lay flat because they hit part of the crank in the attached photo.

I ended up buying a short Sram Apex crankset (10 speed) from http://bikesmithdesign.com. The C1's fit on that fine.

The chain ring selection has made me dismiss these, but for the price I might buy one anyway.

They probably took a hit in the pedal market when the prices dropped last year, and they own the hub market.

IMO power meter pricing has another $200 or so to fall. If they concentrate on the hub market and do a couple of OEM deals, PMs could become standard equipment on new bikes very soon. That would put some pressure on the crank-mounted guys to get down to $199 where they will eventually end up.

---

***

I'd love an updated disk brake hub.

Now that FSA has followed Shimano to 4-bolt (and, on some of their newest stuff, direct mount) chainrings, very few new bikes are coming with cranksets that are compatible with the 5 bolt C1's.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

That's weird because I have seen the C1 on numerous Cobb cranks.

The C1 definitely fits on Cobb cranks. At least the alloy ones. I haven't installed them on the carbon's yet.

---

Jim Manton / ERO Sports

Doesn't fit on BBright frames, like Cervelos.

In my case they didn't fit. It was very close to fitting, but the center hole of the rings hit the chainring support arms. It wouldn't lay flat but would rock as I tried to get it to line up.

v

The hub market will be interesting because the switch to disc brakes will make a lot of PTs obsolete. I currently have 4 PTs in various wheels and if I made the jump to disc on the road and TT bike I would really consider moving to crank-based power.

Someone really needs to make a series of short cranks that are Quarq Prime capable. They also need to have a hot design. Cobb stuff is just so ugly.

I can't confirm or deny it being phased out, but I think retiring this iteration of the C1 would be a good thing for Powertap. They're a great company overall, and have top-notch customer service, but I feel this version is/was a dud. I had 2 units fail 3 times due to water ingress issues, direct from the factory. Compound that with the battery life issues, and incompatibility with the newest SRAM and Shimano cranksets, I feel it's time for a reboot. Maybe time for a C2, or just retire this product line to focus on the hubs and pedals.

It fits on my S3 with BBright just fine with a FSA SLK Light 386 EVO crankset.

Confirmed.

Nice! PT says on their site that C1's won't fit on BBright frames so I'd crossed them off my list.

Hi

They do fit BB right but you have to watch were and how many shims you use.
With wheels Manufacturing adapters it’s real close on the drive side.
If doing it again I would have taken 1or 2 mm off the non drive Adapter to move it right a little
Jere B

I could see phasing out C1 but not the P1. The market is too big in pedal PMs to give it up, I do think they need a 2nd gen of the P1 to be released. They were big when they came out and people were tired of Vector problems, but not that Vector3 is out sales have definitely shifted back to Garmin.

Based on a quote from DCRainmaker in a thread about the P1, the sales of the P1 have shrunk to essentially zero since the release of the Vector 3. The assioma has a small chunk of the market and the rest goes to Garmin. With that on the pedal side and the competition from the new power2max and Quarq releases on the crank spider side it's no surprise those two products are struggling. The hub is still a good product but it doesn't have the price advantage it used to over the crank options or even much of an advantage over pedals so it's probably losing a lot of sales as well.

A P2 is definitely needed if they want to hold on in the pedal market. Given that they've had about two years since the release of the P1 you would think they would have had time to come up with an answer to the vectors.

I actually think the hub market will grow going forward, especially with disc. The biggest problem with hub based power meters is that people wanted multiple choices of wheels. For example you, who has 4 of them. Reasons usually around wanting separate race wheels of varying depth and not wanting to train with carbon brake surfaces or wheels that are a bit sketchier in crosswinds. Not sure what your reasons were.

However, over the last 3-5 years, people have been changing their thoughts, especially with the introduction of disc. They no longer want a super deep set, a mid depth set, low weight set, and a training set. They just want one set to do it all. Testing has showed that dropping 150 grams of wheel weight isn't going to make a huge difference for most people. Testing has also shown that we don't experience high yaw angles nearly as much as we thought where super deep wheels shine (meaning most people don't need a set of 60/60 and 90/90). Wheel technology has also improved in the crosswinds and the introduction of disc removes the carbon brake surface issue.

What you're seeing these days are people choosing to buy disc braked bikes and one set of 40-50 mm, 1550g carbon wheels they plan to ride all the time. Now they want to add power. They can do so buy spending the same amount of money in their hub or their crank...or more money on their pedals. Given that people are very loyal to their pedals (like speedplay), and the new DA cranks look super sexy (at least IMHO), I would be more likely to choose a hub based power meter for a disc braked bike than I currently would if I were buying a rim braked bike.

The troubles of trying to swap power between two different bikes that may need two different wheelsets still exist, but the barriers of having multiple wheels for one specific bike decreases IMHO.

Time to put the power meter into the cassette! How cool would that be?