I have the option of purchasing both of these at basically the same price. Should I go for the older model with carbon cranks or the newer model with Bluetooth and possibly higher residual value at a slight weight penalty?
I don’t currently use any Bluetooth devices or sensors but you never know what the tech landscape is going to look like a year or two down the line and flexibility is always useful e.g. I wouldn’t mind using my phone as a head unit on the turbo running TrainerRoad. On the other hand, it’s always nice to shave a few grams.
Which one would you guys go for?
I’ve gone back-and-forth several times over now, so someone please make the decision for me!
Go with the new one. You can always upgrade the crankarms later if the weight bothers you (it probably won’t).
I believe the d-zero comes with carbon crank arms
https://www.quarq.com/store/item/1767/
.
Yeah theres a carbon and an alloy version (just like with the Riken). As far as I know only the crankarm material is different, which is removable and can thus be upgraded at a later stage if you so choose. If course it would be most economical to get the carbon right away as these new 8 bolt arms are not widely available aftermarket (if at all), but on a fixed budget I would go with new PM and heavier arms. I’m not entirey sure but I’d assume the dzero spider is lighter than the riken so even with a boat anchor for an arm, you are getting at least some savings in the spider.
Yeah, the new Carbon DZero would be the best of both worlds, but that comes at a hefty premium compared to the deal I can get on the two models mentioned above.
I did have a look at the published weights and whilst it’s not entirely clear (the official weights don’t all state crank length or BB-type) it looked as though the DZero AL does indeed shave a bit of weight off the Riken AL and comes in 799 g vs the 659 g of the Riken R.
I would go with the new model. My experiences with the prior generation were less than great. I’d hope they learned a thing or two, and integrated those changes with the new model.
Resale value will be better on the new unit.