I'm looking to change the original chainset that came on my bike (2016 fsa gossamer) because a test ride on a Reilly Gradient showed me just how much better the R8000 chainset is in terms of stiffness and shift performance. I'm at the stage in my development where I want to start training with power so it seems like the right time to kill two birds with one stone. Mucho research later and I've settled on the Stages LR R8000. I badly broke my left femur and a bike fit physio showed me that I've got a significant power imbalance so a left or right only PM is not a lot of use to me.
Any inputs from people with Stages PMs much appreciated. I train mostly on road but I also spend a good deal of time doing mixed surface rides on everything from gravel to single track, the latter of which is largely unsuitable for my bike but I have a bash at it anyhoo.
Lastly, if anyone happens to have a Reilly Gradient and could check whether or not there's 1cm clearance to the frame from about 1/3 of the crank to the pedal axle then it would be helpful to know because there's almost certainly going to be a lovely titanium Gradient in my life soon and the Stages needs that much clearance.
If you want L/R be careful that some of the power meters are "calculating" the L/R and not actually really measuring it (i.e. Power2Max). For a true L/R you will have to go for the dual Stages, Pioneer dual, Garmin pedals etc...
BTW my Stages powermeter (Gen. 2) give 10-15% more Watts than my Power2Max or Dura Ace. Not a problem per se. Only if you compare your power and use different types of power meters.
TonyM wrote:If you want L/R be careful that some of the power meters are "calculating" the L/R and not actually really measuring it (i.e. Power2Max). For a true L/R you will have to go for the dual Stages, Pioneer dual, Garmin pedals etc...
BTW my Stages powermeter (Gen. 2) give 10-15% more Watts than my Power2Max or Dura Ace. Not a problem per se. Only if you compare your power and use different types of power meters.
Agree - my friend warned me off getting a single sided meter and said if I wanted true L/R then a crank or pedal PM was required, which having read into it makes a good deal of sense. I've just started training with power on a Kickr turbo that I bought from a guy in my club and i'm looking forward to being able to train with power on my bike too. I'll do a comparison between the Kickr and my bike's PM so I compare rides between both (I'm planning on retiring my CAADX to turbo trainer duty when my new bike is finished).
I ended up going with the new 4iiii Ultegra R8000 dual sided Podiiiium PM - (Podiiiium is coin battery rather than the rechargeable Precision model) because 4iiii have cleverly linked up with the Chipolo tracking network so if my bike is pinched then at some point in the future at least my PMs (both left and right PMs register with Chipolo separately) will show up somewhere at some point even if my bike gets broken up for parts. The location tracking is built into the 4iiii app and it's a bit of additional peace of mind. Some very non-scientific comparison with my Wahoo Kickr shows that they produce very similar power numbers and yesterday I rode with a PM for the first time on the rode and it was fascinating to compare my perceived effort to how many watts I was actually putting out.
