I’m looking at a power meter and I was curious about PowerTap users. The fact that the PowerTap is tied to a specific wheel is it’s biggest downside. I know many people have training wheels & race wheels. I was wondering how many people have two (or more) sets of wheels and have a PowerTap on both (all) so they can always train with power. Or do you simply put the PowerTap on your race wheel & always use it in both training & racing?
My first foray into power was with a Cyclops Powerbeam Pro. That hooked me on power so later I picked up a set of Enve 45/65’s with G3 powertap for racing and training. Later on I got a set of Enve System 8.9s with G3 powertap mostly for racing, but I don’t hesitate to train on them.
I don’t have one now, but I used one for a while. The trick is to get it laced into a solid training rim and then put a disc cover on that wheel when you race. Cheap, fast, and effective.
What he said
We used to have one powertap wheel that my wife and I shared. We would swap on race tires and tubes for race day. It was a Jet-9 and we had a wheel cover for it. So for bike racing we had a nice deep rear wheel, and for TTs/triathlons we had a disc once we put the wheel cover on.
Changing tires all the time got to be a bit tedious, as bike racers race nearly every weekend, also the huge amount of miles we were putting on it (think, ~40 hours a week) would cause us to need hub rebuilds or spoke replacements at times just before big races, so I recently bought a 2nd, race only wheel, another Jet 9, newer model. Again we have a disc cover for it that goes on for TTs/Triathlons, and the race tires just stay on it.
The powertap is so affordable and accurate, so you can do that and still come in under the cost of many other options.
If you are a triathlete, your training miles are less, and the frequency of races are less, so having a single wheel where you swap on race tires and a disc cover is much less onerous.
I have a srm on my tri bike. I just bought a powertap wheelset on eBay for my road bike/s.
I have one on my Jet 9 and one on my Jet 5. The Jet 9 is used for TT and Tri and otherwise lives on the trainer with the TT bike. The Jet 5 is used on my road bike for all other training and racing.
Look for deep discounts via sales or sponsorships (join a bike team or club…) and you can pick them up at a reasonable price.
Had one in my training wheel for a few years, but didn’t race with it. But those were road races, so I wasn’t too concerned about it (you either keep up or you get dropped…doesn’t matter what the PM says). Post-race data would have been nice to see, but I was OK without it.
When I started racing tris, I wanted to have power on the bike, so got an extra hub off Chainlove and laced it into my 404 and added a wheel cover.
I’ve got 3
Old Tune hub, when I first got it I put a cover on it for racing.
Gen 2 with G3 internals in a Jet 90
G3 in a training rim (Alex DA28)
jaretj
I don’t have one now, but I used one for a while. The trick is to get it laced into a solid training rim and then put a disc cover on that wheel when you race. Cheap, fast, and effective.
This is what I’ve been doing. If I’m racing back to back weekends I’ll just leave the cover on and swap out my race tire and tube for the week.
3 powertaps across two bikes.
Racewheels , training wheels tribike
Roadbike has it s own set of wheels.
Two for me.
2011, I bought one laced to a Zipp 808 and used it for racing and training that year and for part of 2012. Worked fine.
2012, I bought a used one laced to a box rim and now use this for all of my training.
I have not had my race tire/tube or disc cover off the Zipp yet this year.
Yes, have two. One for training on the roads and one for race day (with a wheelcover) and the trainer
Two here, one for my roadie (DT Swiss training wheel) and one for my tri (Enve 46). I used to switch them back and forth and only use the training one when training but got tired of that. Keep the Enve on my tri bike at all times and just change out tires when I race.
Two - both G3. One on the HT Mountain bike laced into a DT Swiss wheel and one on my road bike laced into enve 40mm. No swapping wheels there…
I also just use it on my HT because my other mountain bikes aren’t compatible - thru axle instead of QR like on the ht and one is also 1x11. If they were compatible, I’d swap out to have the power on the bike I was racing.
I also have 2. Bought a G3 with a set of standard wheels for my road bike and loved training with power…so 6 months later I bought a set of Zipp 404 with a G3 that a friend was selling to put on my tri bike.
I’ve since moved on to a crank based PM, but back when I used exclusively powertap I had 3 wheels, although I could have gotten by just fine with 2 (a race wheel and a training wheel).
i have one - laced into a Jet 60. it lives on my tri bike year round, and i just stick a cover on it for races. When i got it over 2 years ago i planned to also use it on my road bike - after all it takes about a minute to swap rear wheels and make sure i have an 80mm spare tube - but so far i never have. i think i have issues with not wanting too many things informing me i am not working hard enough.
one recommendation - i bought my PT Pro and had it laced into a wheel i already had. The cost for the PT, sapim spokes and labor was a lot more than the cost of a used PT already laced into a 60mm deep wheel, so if i did it again i would have bought used (and sold the 60mm wheel)
I have two but both are on Mavic Open Pro’s. My first one was an older wired version. I wanted wireless a couple years later so bought a new wheel/powertap SL+ and stopped using the wired one. Last winter I sent the wired version back to Powertap and they upgraded it to wireless with new G3 internals. So now I have a training wheel on both road and tri bike. I use a disk cover for tri racing.
I’ve got two. Bought the original used on a Velocity A23 rim as part of a complete wheelset. Then wanted to upgrade to one on a “racier” wheel and bought a second used one on an 88 mm chinese carbon clincher. I now leave the race wheel on my tri bike even when I’m training on it and use the original Velocity wheel on my road bike for training on it and also used it on the trainer for power.
A complete used wheelset w/ Powertap plus a used carbon clincher rear wheel with Powertap cost me ~$1500 and I’ve had virtually no problems with either the wheels or the Powertaps. The biggest challenge I’ve had is that neither one came with the cap wrench for changing the batteries. I could get the older model off just with a jar opener and elbow grease, but had to take it into the shop to get the newer one off.
I’ve got 4 - race wheels and training wheels for my tri bike. I also have one on my road bike and one on my commuter bike, but that’s only because I built up a new set of training wheels this year and put my old ones on my commuter.