Powercal?... really???
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Powercal?... really???
Postby toolonglegs » Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:30 pm
I haven't seen anyone mention these yet... or have I missed it.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby sogood » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:38 pm
RK wrote:And that is Wikipedia - I can write my own definition.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:54 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby toolonglegs » Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:11 pm
My heart rate zones were ( are ) never anywhere near what they were supposed to be corresponding to the power zones.
Just interesting that powertap and more so Lim would do something like this.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby sogood » Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:12 pm
RK wrote:And that is Wikipedia - I can write my own definition.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby ireland57 » Sun Nov 18, 2012 5:15 pm
I'm sorry I did.
It's erratic like a heart beat.
Often when I run it on a different bike it upsets the Garmin (500) and I've got to do a full reset. P1ssing me off big time.
Doesn't do it with my proper hr strap.
It does give similar average power figures to a computrainer I use.
But basically.......almost useless.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby craigg » Mon Nov 19, 2012 2:58 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Mon Jan 14, 2013 2:32 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby g-boaf » Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:48 pm
In any case, the Powercal is like "Big Bertha" at Le Mans in 1971. Largely unproven - left of field and interesting. I prefer it to the Garmin premium heart-rate strap though.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:00 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Bif Coglione » Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:11 pm
1. At about one-tenth of the cost of a set of Powertap wheels and a smaller fraction of the cost of SRM cranks it is incredibly cheap.
2. If the power figures are even a bit closer to actual power than heart rate numbers then you may get better results using this rather than heart rate alone. I haven't had it long enough to comment on that. It will be interesting to see if the power drops while my heart rate stays up when I'm fatigued. If so it's a useful tool.
3. There is no installation required - just pair it with an ANT+ display and you're off.
4. You can buy it once and use it on multiple bikes.
Worst case if you don't like the numbers it's a slightly expensive HR strap. My biggest gripe is that due to what appears to be non-compliance with the ANT+ standard for power meters (ie that cadence from a power meter is optional) the Edge 500 constantly displays a cadence of 255 when the Powercal is paired with it (despite a Garmin GSC10 speed/cadence unit also being paired and transmitting cadence information). Hopefully Garmin will fix this with a firmware upgrade at some point.
No doubt the power figures are a bit rubbery, but you have to admire the idea - HR monitors have been producing calory counts for years so it's clever in an obvious way to make a device that produces power based on heart rate. From what I've read the process isn't as trivial as suggested by some of these posts - I think it's more about how the heart rate changes than simply looking up a heart rate in a table.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Mon Apr 15, 2013 11:34 am
I'm feeling a bit like this could be a winner for me, no good for sprint workouts but a lot easier to get the TSS and so forth, and honestly, I think I'm massively overtraining so something to force me to put the brakes on would be worth its weight in gold... or CycleOps plastic...
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby g-boaf » Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:39 pm
Edit: Good god, Xplora is going to get one. Isn't he fast enough already!
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:08 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby twizzle » Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:21 pm
...real cyclists don't have squeaky chains...
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:37 pm
Definitely seems to be the ducks guts if you are not going to use it for sprint intervals etc.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby twizzle » Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:39 pm
You re-jig the zones to suit your heat rate based on resting/max.
Or rent a PM for a week and work out your TRIMP calculations more accurately based on your HR response.
...real cyclists don't have squeaky chains...
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby twizzle » Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:45 pm
...real cyclists don't have squeaky chains...
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:36 am
I'll just grab the thing, see how it goes. It's so much cheaper than any power solution (even Alex's cheap 400 dollar Powertaps are 4x the cost) that I don't think it can be discounted. I did some weights yesterday, first set of 30 only got the heart rate to 80-90bpm (after short warmup)... I'm skeptical on heart rate LOL because my legs definitely knew about it.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby sb944 » Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:20 am
So I can manually calibrate this against the trainer and try to use that figure on the road, regardless of bike or wheel. To test this, I have a Calga TT under my belt now, and feel I rode almost as well as I could, so consistantly flat out for 40 minutes straight, with a little left in the tank afterwards. Powercal claims 235W average on this ride. My adjusted FTP on the trainer is currenly 240W, so it definitely seems I can take figures I work out at on the trainer, onto the road, which is excellent news.
My biggest problem with this was how it was jumping all over the place (which I know power meters do too), and seemed quite random sometimes. It's definitely slow at reacting. I'd be 30m up a steep hill, and it would say 130W, or I'd be stopped at lights and it would say I'm putting out 130W still. So for some peoples this lag may make it impossible to use. For my use, which is aimed at longer segment training and TT's right now, I can see the last 60 seconds average should be very useful, especially if I'm mainly maintaining similar power for 40 minutes during a race. For my next Calga race, I plan to just look down once a minute, make sure I'm not going too hard, and spend the next 59 seconds focusing on the race. So I'll have more to review after I give that a go.
Would I recommend? Hard to say yet. I still need more experience, and should probably really review it properly by using a power meter for a while and compare it with using real power figures. For now it seems useful as a cheap and easy power estimate.
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:53 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby sb944 » Wed Apr 17, 2013 4:16 pm
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Wed May 15, 2013 11:05 pm
Powercal just left Wiggle HQ finally!
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Re: Powercal?... really???
Postby Xplora » Fri May 24, 2013 8:56 pm
Edit: Hmmm HR got down to 42 and stayed around 45 while sitting in front of the TV
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