Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Well this was a rude shock Welcome to power meter land, where a fool and his money are soon parted

I picked up a cheap Quarq on Ebay. Yay!
Need a new BB to run it. OK, that's cool. not too pricey either
No Magnet. Can't find one on Ebay Getting some deeply scary quotes or little help altogether

My cheap quarq is about to increase value by 20% unless I can find some speedy solutions. To make matters worse, I don't know how to test this thing. I managed to get it to pair to my Bryton, the ANT+ number is in the battery case, but I couldn't convince it to give me a power reading despite successful calibration? I know this thing needs cadence to work, but I've waved a couple of speed sensor/cadence sensor magnets around the spider at close range while twisting the crank in my hands and nothing?

I'm not freaking out, yet, but... do I need a specific Quarq magnet? I think they are fairly shallow, I was waving came off a Cateye RD200 wheel magnet and the Duotrap Bontrager cadence magnet. There is a box section on the spider which I assumed wanted to read the magnet that I focussed my time on, but I waved it everywhere. The battery definitely works! How do I ensure this thing is functional?

Alex Simmons might be able to help.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 4

I'm sure he's one of the best in Oz for this, but I wouldn't presume on his help to the point where I'd PM him. I'm just realising that this cheap power meter is likely to cost me another fortnight and 150 bucks to get onto the bike, and I don't know if it's even functional at this point!

This little black duck has a while to go before it goes quarq quarq... (yes, I think I'm a comic genius)

Jes, look at the bid history

I've got some magnets in stock - which type do you require?

I need the adhesive putty and Quarq magnet... BB holder won't work with the frame.

Xplora wrote:I need the adhesive putty and Quarq magnet... BB holder won't work with the frame.

Selleys do some great epoxy putties , Get the aqua putty

Jes, The price needs to be right, sadly... I'm out near Blacktown, and I don't really know the best way to pick up from the Shire I've tried to test the water, but I can get one from the USA for a similar cost once you consider I'm doing a century to pick it up lol

Xplora wrote:I need the adhesive putty and Quarq magnet... BB holder won't work with the frame.

I have this. If you need it - PM me your name & address.

Xplora wrote:Jes, The price needs to be right, sadly... I'm out near Blacktown, and I don't really know the best way to pick up from the Shire I've tried to test the water, but I can get one from the USA for a similar cost once you consider I'm doing a century to pick it up lol

email your name/address to me and I'll sort something out
alex AT rstsport.com

you don't need a specific magnet, but the power meter needs to be detecting both torque and rotational speed in order to transmit a power number, and the rotational speed can only come from a magnet tripping the power meter's reed switches.

placement of the magnet relative to the inner plate of the power meter spider is important. not sure about the model you have purchased, but the current models have little guidelines marked to show where it should pass the magnet.

Deon, Alex, you're both a gentleman and a scholar!

Xplora wrote:Deon, Alex, you're both a gentleman and a scholar!

Alex is a lot closer to you bud so talk to him. If you don't work something out PM me your deets and I'll throw it in the post for you.

I've got a magnet for my QUARQ that is actually off a SRM - someone from this forum reccommended it to me after I posted about the trouble I was having with the standard QUARQ magnet. It just attaches to the bottom bracket (see second pic). You need to run it very close to the crank to get it to work.

The curse of the Quarq continues... thanks for the letter Alex; I opened it up with glee but it arrived empty. AusPost is flat out dodgy, I swear.

Unless it is securely enclosed in cardboard, the magnet will attach itself to the mail sorting machines, and remove itself from an envelope...

Cheers Deon, got it! I would give you and Alex a kiss for your efforts, but my wife would not be impressed xoxoxo
Installation today? Pain forever? FTP FTW!

Xplora wrote:Cheers Deon, got it! I would give you and Alex a kiss for your efforts, but my wife would not be impressed xoxoxo
Installation today? Pain forever? FTP FTW!

No worries mate, glad I could help and hope you get it all working.

Have fun with the FTP test to work out your zones, I HATE doing those!!!

How do I know if the putty is ok or not? Trek said it should be soft, seems to be fairly firm like old blue tack but it's definitely not "epoxy hard" like you expect epoxy to be. Will it firm up exposed to air? Is it supposed to be a two part putty? A trip to bunnings was not inspiring at all -LOL

Xplora wrote:How do I know if the putty is ok or not? Trek said it should be soft, seems to be fairly firm like old blue tack but it's definitely not "epoxy hard" like you expect epoxy to be. Will it firm up exposed to air? Is it supposed to be a two part putty? A trip to bunnings was not inspiring at all -LOL

It's pretty firm, similar to blutac... Knead it together then press the magnet into it, and onto a clean portion of your BB shell.... Will set rock hard over 24hrs... [THUMBS UP SIGN]

Ok it's finally installed and functional to the best of my knowledge. Power numbers are much stronger than the powercal. I understand why people think powercal is BS now, you cannot get a number to pace from or aim at. The quarq jumps around a lot (thinking about increasing effort jumped the watts by 30w) but there is a definite connection between RPE and power and its certainly more consistent than powercal.

That said, the coggan hunter and friel books are dead on he money - it's a really expensive number on the screen. Standing up is 600w. Awesome. Now what? I didn't understand how to use cadence or HR at first either, so we'll give it time.

I want to publicly acknowledge the following people, thy have gone of their way to help another human being out.
Alex Simmons
Jack aka ProLite aka Deon
Porridgewog
For their help with the magnets. Not a penny asked for, God bless you. A real lesson in eBay learnt. You want the expensive toys, you pay to play.
And Dan P at Trek Rouse Hill for putting up with me and not laughing at my situation to my face. I am sure they laughed once I left the shop, that's ok. I am sure Charles just shook his head he did a great job putting it all together.

Glad it all worked out for you. Mine records from memory at 1s intervals, if you have it set quicker that might be why your numbers aren't smooth?

Alex will know more about this than I do as I set mine up several years ago and am still using the same Garmin and havn't had to touch or adjust anything - it just works.

Now that you have power you can probably dump the HR strap.

You just have to put the power data to good use now

Xplora wrote:Ok it's finally installed and functional to the best of my knowledge. Power numbers are much stronger than the powercal. I understand why people think powercal is BS now, you cannot get a number to pace from or aim at. The quarq jumps around a lot (thinking about increasing effort jumped the watts by 30w) but there is a definite connection between RPE and power and its certainly more consistent than powercal.

That said, the coggan hunter and friel books are dead on he money - it's a really expensive number on the screen. Standing up is 600w. Awesome. Now what? I didn't understand how to use cadence or HR at first either, so we'll give it time.

I want to publicly acknowledge the following people, thy have gone of their way to help another human being out.
Alex Simmons
Jack aka ProLite aka Deon
Porridgewog
For their help with the magnets. Not a penny asked for, God bless you. A real lesson in eBay learnt. You want the expensive toys, you pay to play.
And Dan P at Trek Rouse Hill for putting up with me and not laughing at my situation to my face. I am sure they laughed once I left the shop, that's ok. I am sure Charles just shook his head he did a great job putting it all together.

Okay, what do you do in a 322m sprint? See Friel's book page 67 and 68. (how do I know that). You won't be able to do that on a computrainer, but still.

Your HR was probably low, that's why the Powercal gave you low numbers.

Okay my magnet went dead...only had one spare, went to the key engraver store down the road, bought for small magnets and whoala that worked fine for $4. Much better solution. Go to a key engraver and make an enquiry