polar power unit vs others



By head unit, I meant the mounting bracket device that you zip tie onto your bar. It appears that if you get a good one, it works fine from the start given a good install of the sensors. A bad one either doesn't work at all or cuts in and out on you right from the first ride.

Your HRM is the receiver. As far as how much ride data it will hold, that depends on what functions you have activated, and how often you have your receiver set to record its readings. With mine set to track all possible data on the shortest possible intervals, I can get about the same number of rides as you are getting.
 
beerco said:
Agreed. It seems that the only ones who really advocate the polar have never owned another powermeter. I ran a polar for two years and ended up selling it for a used powertap. I'm much happier now.

Hmph, I resent the implication.

The Powertap may well be a brilliantly accurate piece of kit, but it's fundamentally flawed insofaras nobody that races to any kind of serious level is ever going to accept a situation where they're forced to use the same wheelset for racing, timetrialling, summer training, winter training, wet-weather training and turbo/rollers.

In the real world of racing and training therefore you're left with a choice between ergomo (rare and info' is scarce), Polar and SRM. As I said way back on post no 2 of this thread, there is no doubt whatsoever that the SRM is a vastly superior piece of kit. However, last time I looked it costs as much as I bring home after tax every month, whereas the Polar cost under £200. These are the compromises we make when we make purchase decisions. When I needed a car last year I may have wanted the new DB9, but I got a 2nd hand hatch-back instead. It runs fine, so does my Polar Power kit.
 
rob of the og said:
The Powertap may well be a brilliantly accurate piece of kit, but it's fundamentally flawed insofaras nobody that races to any kind of serious level is ever going to accept a situation where they're forced to use the same wheelset for racing, timetrialling, summer training, winter training, wet-weather training and turbo/rollers.

yes they do. I coach a couple of pros who use the PT for training and racing. one uses the same wheel, and another bought a second hub so that they have a training wheel and racing wheel (last year they just used the same wheel)

on the other hand i've happily used the same wheel for training and racing (albeit i only rarely TT -- but if i did i would fit a wheel cover).

Rob, i'm not arguing with your discussion -- those are important considerations you make -- i'm just running a counter argument to your hypothesis of no one uses the same wheel

ric
 
ric_stern/RST said:
yes they do....

I stand corrected, and a little suprised... perhaps pro's though are a bit more confident taking their shiny carbon race rims out in the rain and mud than the rest of us?

And of course, if one bought 2 hubs that would be work out more than buying an SRM.

Still, I'm certainly not going to argue with Mr Stern - my Polar really would be useless if I didn't have his articles and comments to base my training on.
 
rob of the og said:
I stand corrected, and a little suprised... perhaps pro's though are a bit more confident taking their shiny carbon race rims out in the rain and mud than the rest of us?

they used bog standard aluminium rims

And of course, if one bought 2 hubs that would be work out more than buying an SRM.

A PT is £600 and a second hub is £400. I generally do them with an offer, and if two are purchased together or with coaching there's always a discount.

An SRM Pro which is the comparable power meter (not an Amateur) is £1950

Still, I'm certainly not going to argue with Mr Stern - my Polar really would be useless if I didn't have his articles and comments to base my training on.

please don't call me "Mr Stern" i keep looking around for my father!!!! i'm not arguing i'm just pointing out the options!

also have we seen each other out training?

ric
 
The one advantage to the Polar over PT is the ability to use any wheel but this is also limited because losing your cadence magnet means no speed data. The saving grace is you still have your power functions as well as cadence and HR.

I found this out the hard way on a TT.
 
rob of the og said:
Hmph, I resent the implication.

The Powertap may well be a brilliantly accurate piece of kit, but it's fundamentally flawed insofaras nobody that races to any kind of serious level is ever going to accept a situation where they're forced to use the same wheelset for racing, timetrialling, summer training, winter training, wet-weather training and turbo/rollers.

In the real world of racing and training therefore you're left with a choice between ergomo (rare and info' is scarce), Polar and SRM. As I said way back on post no 2 of this thread, there is no doubt whatsoever that the SRM is a vastly superior piece of kit. However, last time I looked it costs as much as I bring home after tax every month, whereas the Polar cost under £200. These are the compromises we make when we make purchase decisions. When I needed a car last year I may have wanted the new DB9, but I got a 2nd hand hatch-back instead. It runs fine, so does my Polar Power kit.
I would echo what Ric said regarding serious racers using the PT. Most "serious" racers would probably have some sort of shop or sponsor support whereby they could have at least two PT running on training vs racing wheels. Certainly worth the investments vs some other high dollar accessories.

Additionally, I would contend the statement that "As I said way back on post no 2 of this thread, there is no doubt whatsoever that the SRM is a vastly superior piece of kit." Some would argue the PT is superior to the SRM Pro, and some would argue the converse, but I doubt anyone that is knowledgeable about both systems would argue one is *vastly* superior to the other. In fact, as has been pointed out on this site previously, the PT has been shown to be more consistently accurate than the SRM.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15235334

Steve
 
mdplayer said:
Any idea what was wrong with your head unit? Mine seems to work fine, but the only problem I have with it is storage. The unit certainly doesnt store 500 hours (or whatever the number is) on it. I know that if i dont clear it every 3 rides, the storage is full...

Anyone else see a problem like this??
You have to set the recording rate appropriately. Most people set it to once every five seconds - the fastest recording rate. This uses the most memory per unit of real time. If you switch to the longer recording rates, you can use your Polar for a longer ride.
Also, if you are bothering to record each ride, you should try downloading them. It's fun in a geeky kind of way.
 
rob of the og said:
Hmph, I resent the implication.

The Powertap may well be a brilliantly accurate piece of kit, but it's fundamentally flawed insofaras nobody that races to any kind of serious level is ever going to accept a situation where they're forced to use the same wheelset for racing, timetrialling, summer training, winter training, wet-weather training and turbo/rollers.

Firstly I'll echo Ric, and Steve et. al.

Secondly I'll agree that you're correct, but only because most people who race at any kind of serious level aren't smart enough to realize that hub weight has little bearing on wheel performance (aero basically trumps all).

As Ric said. Two wheelsets are still cheaper than an SRM. Although I think that the crank is a better place to measure power for training (Hub's better for modeling performance), with SRMs being what they are today, I'd still rather have two PT wheels rather than a single SRM.
 
Steve McGregor said:
Additionally, I would contend the statement that "As I said way back on post no 2 of this thread, there is no doubt whatsoever that the SRM is a vastly superior piece of kit." Some would argue the PT is superior to the SRM Pro, and some would argue the converse,but I doubt anyone that is knowledgeable about both systems would argue one is *vastly* superior to the other. In fact, as has been pointed out on this site previously, the PT has been shown to be more consistently accurate than the SRM.
I wasn't talking about the SRM vs Powertap - I'd already ruled out the Powertap on the grounds that we've discussed - I said that SRM is "vastly superior" to the Polar Power kit. I don't think anyone here would have a problem with that statement.


Beerco said:
only because most people who race at any kind of serious level aren't smart enough to realize that hub weight has little bearing on wheel performance (aero basically trumps all).
I'm not bothered about the weight of the hub. I'm concerned about using the same wheel for races as for winter training. It rains quite a lot here and I wouldn't want to take carbon (or any decent) rims out in bad conditions in january, neither do I want to have to keep replacing the bearings in a Powertap because they're covered in gunk.

ric_stern/RST said:
An SRM Pro which is the comparable power meter (not an Amateur) is £1950
Well then I'd better correct my statement about bringing home that much after tax each month :( more like before tax.

ric_stern/RST said:
please don't call me "Mr Stern" i keep looking around for my father!!!! i'm not arguing i'm just pointing out the options!
lol, I thought afterwards perhaps I should have put Dr Stern, or would that be pre-emeptive? Anyway, all I meant to do was comment on the always high quality of your training advice on here and on your own website.

ric_stern/RST said:
also have we seen each other out training?
may well have done, my photo is on this webpage (I'm on the right of the photo, obscuring the club sign)

http://www.powellrj.com/index.html
 
Weisse Luft said:
The one advantage to the Polar over PT is the ability to use any wheel but this is also limited because losing your cadence magnet means no speed data. The saving grace is you still have your power functions as well as cadence and HR.

I found this out the hard way on a TT.

I think you're getting things the wrong way around? If you lost the cadence magnet then you lose all the power functions. Any set-up is only as good as the quality of the installation.
 
rob of the og said:
I think you're getting things the wrong way around? If you lost the cadence magnet then you lose all the power functions. Any set-up is only as good as the quality of the installation.


My bad. If you lose your speed magnet, the Polar functions fine in power mode. You lose speed and distance data, naturally. I have never lost my cadence magnet but have accidently bumped the cadence sensor just a millimeter or so off, rendering it useless until realigning it.
 
Woofer said:
Also, if you are bothering to record each ride, you should try downloading them. It's fun in a geeky kind of way.
Definitely. :)

http://www.employees.org/~bozceri/training/20050221T223529.07278.srd.html

In case anyone's curious from a Polar accuracy point of view, the dark blue line in the power plot is the "calculated" power based on my trainer's (Kurt Kinetic) fluid resistance model (a cubic function of speed) and the light blue line is the Polar measured data (both averaged linearly over 30 seconds). Given trainers are the one place Polar does poorly, I consider this a pretty darn good match.

Berend
 
rob of the og said:
I wasn't talking about the SRM vs Powertap - I'd already ruled out the Powertap on the grounds that we've discussed - I said that SRM is "vastly superior" to the Polar Power kit. I don't think anyone here would have a problem with that statement.



I'm not bothered about the weight of the hub. I'm concerned about using the same wheel for races as for winter training. It rains quite a lot here and I wouldn't want to take carbon (or any decent) rims out in bad conditions in january, neither do I want to have to keep replacing the bearings in a Powertap because they're covered in gunk.
My apologies Rob. Upon rereading your message, it's clear you were comparing Polar to SRM. I guess I need to get more rest, but not likely.

Steve
 
rob of the og said:
I'm not bothered about the weight of the hub. I'm concerned about using the same wheel for races as for winter training. It rains quite a lot here and I wouldn't want to take carbon (or any decent) rims out in bad conditions in january, neither do I want to have to keep replacing the bearings in a Powertap because they're covered in gunk.

being that i live just a few km down the road from you (in sunny Llantrisant) i can testify that it does indeed rain a lot! Although i currently have bog standard rims on my PTs (an Open Pro and a 30-mm aluminium rim) i find that i don't have to do much maintanence on the actual bearings. I probably take them to my local bike shop to be regreased on the drive side once or twice a year. they seem fine (of course when it's raining really heavy here i ride the trainer).


lol, I thought afterwards perhaps I should have put Dr Stern, or would that be pre-emeptive? Anyway, all I meant to do was comment on the always high quality of your training advice on here and on your own website.

thanks. but i'm not doctor either. Ric is fine!

may well have done, my photo is on this webpage (I'm on the right of the photo, obscuring the club sign)

http://www.powellrj.com/index.html

i see plenty of people out from OVW but i can't say i recognise you. of course, i am always riding very fast, so at supersonic speeds it can be difficult to establish exactly who it is i've seen!!!!!!! :D

i can be fairly well spotted on my red and white SWorks E5 and red/white/black RST kit

ric