I recieved mine yesterday after about 4 week wait including the holidays. I switched to 165mm cranks this fall and 105’s were cheap, I I didn’t see any value of spending $100 more on Ultegras. Supposedly they shift slightly better?
Installation of course was a 5 minute deal. Firmware took a couple minutes to update with my wife’s iphone. I’m not sure how it doesn’t ship with latest firmware, they must have a inventory of the pods and the cranks individually, and simple assemble them “to order”. That also means that it might not be bench tested after assembly. Interesting? I also did a zero calibration. Though it didn’t really show a confirmation that it calibrated, so I might do it again.
It paired easily with my new Timex 2.0 computer. I picked it over the Garmin 500, as uploading with my 405 and the Garmin software I’ve found to be a PITA, while the Timex is integrated with Trainingpeaks.
First trainer ride. The downside of the Timex, is that it displays “live” data of I think 1s interals, not a 2-3s rolling average like the Garmin. It also can’t do the zero calibration and some other power data. The flucuating data stream has good and bad. The bad, is that you end up doing some “mental averaging” to a certain extent. The good is that it forces you to pay attention to riding evenly and smoothly. When I was riding smoothly it would level off and hold within 2-3 watts. When I wasn’t and expecially if I allowed 1 leg to push harder than the other, it could jump 10-20 watts. SO it’s pretty clear that there is a drawback to 1 leg masurement. However, in steady state rides, I don’t think it will be an issue, and even better, it forces you to ride smoothly and evenly. But I would question to usefulness for MTB, and the accuracy when doing very short sprint efforts. I think it will improve outdoors where I have more flywheel effect. I’ll find out this weekend as it’s suppsoed to warm up enough to clear the roads and even get over 40F. Wohoo! 45F will feel like a summer heat wave at this point. I might wear shorts! ACtually that does get me just into the edge of knicker weather if it’s sunny outside.
Specific power observations. If I assume my Coggan threshold HR range correlate perfectly to the power ranges, then it puts my FTP around maybe 310-320… about where I thought it was. About 4.3 watts/kg. About what I’d expect for those with similar bike splits. But I’ll obviously have to test it here soon. What I did see was that I could comforably maintain a steady zone 2 effort at a conservative 220watts at 130 HR. I’m thinking that holding 220-230 in at IMWI will give me a solid 5:10ish bike split baring flats or high winds and still allow me to run well off the bike. But obviously my long rides and 70.3 races the next 7 months will tell me what I’m actually capable of.
Overall I’m pretty satisfied. What I found to be VERY clear, is that watching HR and power at the same time shows how huge the lag is. I could easily spin up into zone 4 about 350 watts, but still be showing a HR just barely in zone 3. That could ruin you race for sure.
I’ll post a follow-up after a few outdoor rides.