good luck tonight! Be sure to come back and let me know how it goes. Im still awaiting a magnet from quarq. Once it is here, will probably have the LBS do it once with me watching, if they are cool with that.
Anyone use their own magnet for this? Im going to mount it to the cable harness underneath, but was debating taping a small magnet to the frame to try it out while waiting. Would that work?
Last summer during a ride my quarq stopped working. After a bit of debugging I realized that the magnet that the LBS had installed using the putty had fallen off. I was on vacation with limited resources, but had a strong hobby magnet (from Walmart) and some tubular glue in my tool kit. It has worked flawlessly with that setup.
Thanks guys. All set to perform the “surgery” this evening. Hopefully it works out as straight forward as it sounds. I am hoping that all this “technology” will be a step up over my wired SRM Powercontrol 5 off a taper square bottom bracket. Something tells me that the technology will be cooler and the user experience will be nicer, but it will have zero impact on the fact that my quads are still powered by the same heart and lungs and the weight on my actual frame (that would be my skeleton) won’t change either.
I do like some of the features that the Quarq guys have over SRM in terms of battery replacement, Ant+ support (open standards) and auto zeroing. Will be interesting too see how all this works. I’ll probably have Tom A threatening to ship post office calibrated weights so that I can ensure that my slope is accurate (by the way, thanks for all the guidance a few years ago…now I can compare my SRM measurements to Quarq) :-).
I think I need to bookmark this for whenever someone says “I don’t care if my PM is accurate, just so long as the relative numbers are consistent”
Yes, that entire process was useful as recently I was also on powertap. I have been on SRM, Computrainer, and Powertap and have been able to compare fairly accurately the "numbers’ between systems. CT and PT are hub based measurements so should be a touch lower than SRM and Quarq. Finally I do ride enough days with no meters to also calibrate my “internal meter”.
By the way last year at Tremblant 70.3. my SRM pick up “slid a bit” and my readings were really off. They just seemed insanely low, so I rode on perceived exertion and disregarded…after a while, I noticed that my “new power” was around 140-150 “new watts”, which is “exactly” 2/3 my half IM pace of around 210-220W (depends on the day and fitness).
So after a while, I ended up riding to the “new zone” and basically did the bike split I would expect. Not sure of the internals of the SRM but could it be possible it was only picking up two out of three “outputs”? Anyway, all that to say, yes, being able to compare numbers accurately has high value…and tuning them to ones “internal meter” is also a good thing.
awesome jbank. Thanks for the tip. I have a magnet on my GSC-10 Cadence sensor and I was thinking, at least for indoor conditions for now, attaching that to the frame with a small bit of epoxy or tape just to test/play with the device could hold me over until the cable harness mount arrives from quarq.
If you don’t have a rubber mallet at home you might want to pick one up. I`ve done the remove/regrease process a bunch of times and removal of the spindle was not always quite as simple as tapping. I may need to give’er a little love nudge with a mallet to pop her out and get her back in.
Re: magnet placement, I had the new Riken spider as a replacement for my drifty S975 and I’m finding it a bugger to get the magnet in close enough. There are little inwardly curving raised sections at the back, and one has a wee notch in it. It has made it really difficult for me to get my magnet “in” close enough to be picked up by the reed switches reliably. It may be less of a problem for you, assuming press-fit BB30 bearings. I’m running a bit of a non-standard setup with BB30 Quarq in my Orbea Ordu with BSA bottom bracket. I’m using the Rotor BSA30 adaptors which are a little wider in diameter than normal Hollowtech or GXP. This makes it harder for me to get the magnet in closer to the spindle, if that makes sense.
I posted about it here, but judging by the quiet I may be the only person running a dodgy BB30 to BSA conversion setup, in which case it probably isn’t going to be a problem for you!
I posted about it here, but judging by the quiet I may be the only person running a dodgy BB30 to BSA conversion setup, in which case it probably isn’t going to be a problem for you!
No…I’ve got an Elsa mounted to an aluminum P3 using the Rotor BSA30 BB and the “ring mount” magnet that goes behind the DS bearing cup is working just fine. IIRC, I may have stacked a second magnet onto it to make sure the triggering was reliable.
One more question. When I removed my old Vision Cranks, there was a “springy” ring that sits outside the bearing seal ring. The Quarq mounting instructions don’t show this as part of the sequence of remounting. Instead, Quarq seems to have a plastic ring that is adjustable so that both cranks arms end up tight up “flush” with the frame and there is no side to side play. Can anyone confirm this. I’m mounting without that “springy” ring.
Depends on what bike it is going on. In general, you can use either teh wave washer with more spacers on a BB30 frameset, but if it is say a P5, you need to use teh wave washer only, there will not be room for the plastic adjuster.
OK, so it seems like the plastic adjuster will make the overall Q factor wider than the “wave washer” (sorry for my lack of mechanical terminology precision…my background is Elec Eng, not Mech Eng) :-). I am putting it on a Slice. Right now the axle and non drive side arm are in the freezer per Tom A’s instructions on freezing it to let it pass through as It seemed a bit hard to make it happen just by arm force without risking popping out one of the press fit bearings (maybe they are in there tighter than I think and I assume if you get it “in” it will be aligned coming “out”, but I don’t want to take any chances).
The only thing that will make the q factor wider is replacing the axle with a longer one. The only thing the spacers and wave washers do is take up dead space so the crank can’t float side to side. You really don’t need a wave washer at all if if you can get the amount of spacers exactly correct, but thats tough to do.
You can’t pop out the first bearing you pass through, its got a stop
One more question. When I removed my old Vision Cranks, there was a “springy” ring that sits outside the bearing seal ring. The Quarq mounting instructions don’t show this as part of the sequence of remounting. Instead, Quarq seems to have a plastic ring that is adjustable so that both cranks arms end up tight up “flush” with the frame and there is no side to side play. Can anyone confirm this. I’m mounting without that “springy” ring.
For your application, you are doing it correctly. Adjuster, no wave washer, on NDS.
Thanks guys for the help. Everything went in smoothly based on the above feedback. Tom A, the freezer trick was perfect…funny thing is my wife was helping my son with chemistry and physics and goes, “What, are you trying ? Some particle theory experiment putting that crank in beside the frozen orange juice?”
Also, I used the putty and put two quarq provided magnets side touching each other (effectively a larger wider signal magnet) so that they are both around 30mm from the centre of the axle (radius), and the Garmin Edge 500 picked things up. They are both around 2 mm from the sensor “ring”. The putty was useful to build up a bit of “height”.
You know, I am an old school “taper square” fan (don’t fix it if it ain’t broke), but the user experience installing and removing BB30 was not bad at all. Still not totally sold that this “solves” any major problem that taper square was not solving, other than wear if you need to frequently change cranks on a bike, and maybe a touch of weight.
Still use taper on my TT bike. But the main reason Cannondale gave for inventing BB30 was that the bigger BB shell allowed the use of the bigger frame tubes., without going to a wider stance on the crank.
Meike from Quarq tells me that my experiment putting 2 magnets side by side to effectively create a larger magnet and resulting stronger field, is not required on a BB30 bike as one magnet provides plenty of magnetic field and you end up within the 2 mm tolerance and can be right on the 30 mm radius that is recommended (at least when mounting with putty on the drive side chain stay “root”.
As for the why BB30 was created, I see what you are saying. Seems like an incremental benefit and not a bad one. In the end, my user experience with BB30 seems superior to user experience with taper square, but I doubt I would select a bike because it has BB30 over standard English threaded BB. To me this is like a “4th order feature” for a bike. If the bike comes with BB30, then sure, it is nice.
Also it seems to me for those of you who want “narrow Q factor” there is a lot of room to go narrower with BB30. Personally I like the 145mm Q factor that I am on with the Elsa, but it seems like you could go a lot more narrow (like 5 mm on each side) with a narrower axle?
For me BB30 or square taper is a bi\ge deal because I ride very heels in and need a lot of ankle clearance. On the wider bikes mycleats have to be pretty wide to allow my heels to clear the chainstays or crankarms.
Good thing is I ride with my knees really close in
Interesting you say this. The Vision BB30 cranks that I just took out seem to splay out more from a narrower “starting point” than the Quarq cranks that get to a wider stance with 5 mm of “spacers” on the axle (hopefully I am properly explaining this).
Just for info, I’ve got a compact Elsa and changed from SRAM 50/34 to Praxis 52/36 rings and the slope was within .2%. And after the short settling in process, the zero offset is rock solid in ride (changes by no more than 5 counts). I think they got it right with the new product!
I’m thinking about doing exactly that…compact Elsa and going with 52/36 Praxis rings. How is the set up so far? I have a 2011 Quarq Saturn compact running with Di2 that has been good really intrigued with the promise of Elsa. Although I’ve been reading some issues with Quarq software revisions on these new cranks.
Just for info, I’ve got a compact Elsa and changed from SRAM 50/34 to Praxis 52/36 rings and the slope was within .2%. And after the short settling in process, the zero offset is rock solid in ride (changes by no more than 5 counts). I think they got it right with the new product!
I’m thinking about doing exactly that…compact Elsa and going with 52/36 Praxis rings. How is the set up so far? I have a 2011 Quarq Saturn compact running with Di2 that has been good really intrigued with the promise of Elsa. Although I’ve been reading some issues with Quarq software revisions on these new cranks.
Sorry to Dev for the mini-hijack.
My drivetrain is Dura Ace Di2 7970. Before this quarq I had a regular Rotor 3D Quarq with 53/39 Dura Ace 7900 chainrings (sort of a “FrankenQuarq”). With the 7900 chainrings, as you could imagine, the shifting was perfect every time. With my new crank and the Praxis 52/36 rings, I’d say its 95% as good. There is the odd shift to the big ring that is a bit less than perfect, but otherwise I can’t tell the difference. I am happier with this ratio, it gives me a bit more range in the big ring so I stay in that longer, and of course the small ring has lots more climbing range. I use an 11-25 in back.
As an FYI, just before I put the Elsa on with 50/34, my Vision cranks were 52/36. I had an 12-28 on the back. The thing I prefer about the 50 is that I can stay in the big ring somewhat longer before having to shift down, which I find to be a larger benefit on many tri courses with rollers. Yes, the 52 provides 4% more big gear range, but in practice, I only need the 52-12 or 52-11, on downhills, but then it is fast enough to tuck and hold the same speed at zero watt output. Anyway, I am not sure what I like more…the 50 on the uphills without having to downshift or the 52 on longer downhills. I am not strong enough to put a 52 on the flats even with a big tailwind.
Keep in mind that Jacques Anquetil won the Tour de France on 52x13 (4:1 gear ratio…which can be achieved with a 48x12). I think he was riding faster than all of us :-). Anyway, I can see the attraction of the 52/36 and if you are a in the range of 4.3W per kilo or greater, then it is almost required (although I recall Tom Evans training on 50-34).
