Originally posted by grayghost
I am thinking about purchasing the power kit for my Polar s710 monitor. Are any of you currently using this product, if so what are your feelings vs. Power Tap.
Please let me know both positives and negatives
Thanks
Originally posted by tomUK
PT has to be the way to go.
There is little price difference. With the exchange rate as it currently is you would be wise to order one from the states. The cost translates to approx £474.
You are unlikely to incure any duty or VAT as the cost of goods is too low.
Cheers,
Ed.
Originally posted by grayghost
I am thinking about purchasing the power kit for my Polar s710 monitor. Are any of you currently using this product, if so what are your feelings vs. Power Tap.
Please let me know both positives and negatives
Thanks
HarryS said:For whatever it is worth on this controversial topic, I'll offer my recent experience . Since I already owned a Polar S720 which I use (and love) as a bike computer I decided to invest into a power option from EBAY (~$200). Because so many articles have been written about it, I was able to install it in just about one hour, albeit I have tinkered with it quite a bit subsequently. The measurements vary from cog to cog as decribed by others when the unit is on a trainer and may differ by up to 25%. However, this difference simply went away when I used the unit on the road on a known measured incline where the differences were in the 2-3% range. I also could not find the "over-reading" error reported by others when I used it against a known power resistance provided by a Kurt Kinetics trainer. Reproducibility between rides both on the road and on the trainer have been excellent.
Does that mean that absolute power is accurate? Probably not but that is not very important to me. The features that I like and use are ones that are hard to find in any other package.
1.) One small watch unit as the main brains without any wireless stuff other than the heart rate belt.
2.) Great integrated software that shows and catalogues all your workouts and graphs them in a very flexible way.
3.) Pedaling index (PI) and left right balance can be displayed while you ride. I have used this to greatly improve my pedaling technique. I honestly believe that this feature alone is worth having the Polar. I now ride with the PI on display all the time and have noticable improved my pedaling. I have also been able to correct a slight left right imbalance that I started with. I have seen posts about this function not working. It works great on my bike. You pedal with only one foot, you get 100% of the index to that foot. You shift your preceived effort and you immediately see it. As far as I know, none of the other units have PI or L-R balance.
4.) If you own a Polar 720, the additional cost is very small indeed. As to moving it from bike to bike, I spend another $200 and got a second unit on EBAY for my other bike (so thats an additional $400 for 2 bikes).
5.) On the trainer, my spinerval tapes use mostly 23, 15, 13 and 12 cogs in the big ring. I measured the unit a few times against the known resistance on the Kurt Kinetics. I found that the 15 and 12 were within 2%, as was the 23, while the 17,19, &21 were reading higher by up to 20% and the 13 and 12 were reading lower. I could simply adjust the values now for this error in my training. However, I love looking at the wattage simply as an indicator to maintain my effort high for a given workout. Absolute accuracy does not matter as much.
6.) It very light by the time you factor in the components you don't need. The actual weight penalty for me was on the order of 150g extra.
Dislikes:
1.) Fiddle factor during installation. If you have the local bikes store lube your chain and adjust your brakes, don't get it. If you love fiddling with your bike, this unit is a must. You can kill weekend after weekend figuring out how to improve it. As a tip, the chain speed sensor is very sensitive to position.
2.) Cadence magnet. The one that comes with it is hardly functional. I got a rare earth magnet from radio shack and used electric tape to tape it to the inside of the crank. It has been stable since.
3.) Handlebar mount is made for standard handlebar. I have an oversised and used wireties to attach. Not the prettiest of options but it works.
4.) The small contacts between watch and the base. Make sure to tighten the strap real good so that the unit will not move.
5.) variability of readout on trainer. On the plus side, it does give you cadence and speed readings from the rear wheel so can be easily used on a trainer for as long as you are careful interpreting the results.
So all in all, I would say a valuable training tool for a few hundred dollars, particularly if you already have a Polar 720.
There is a very interesting published scientific paper evaluating this unit out there that is rather positive. I have downloaded the pdf file. You can find it on pubmed.
"Int J Sports Med. 2003 Apr;24(3):156-61. Validity and reliability of the Polar S710 mobile cycling powermeter. Millet GP, Tronche C, Fuster N, Bentley DJ, Candau R."
grayghost said:I am thinking about purchasing the power kit for my Polar s710 monitor. Are any of you currently using this product, if so what are your feelings vs. Power Tap.
Please let me know both positives and negatives
Thanks
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