Garmin Vector Pedal Power Meter Moves from Vaporware to Hardware

What about a MTB option?

I wonder how vulnerable they would be on a mountain bike.

Not that I don’t find this an interesting idea for those into power measurement, I am, but I know it will just tell me I’m slow…

Anyway, I’m not seeing any reason, why the hanging chad unit couldn’t be flipped 180 and put “on top” of the crank to hide behind where your shoe is etc. Only downside is now the “Garmin” is upside-down.

That would eliminate any chance of pedal/vector strike, wouldn’t it?

Why can’t the piece that hangs down, be turned upright for better clearance?

Great idea….if you never crash. And as far as “cleanest and most discreet”. Yeah….if you don’t count the fugly transmitter pod that’s just asking to get jacked up sticking out like that.

On a budget stick with Quark or Powertap. Or get it done right, and spend your money on nice wheels and an SRM…..ride cheap frames and Ultegra.

The Vector certainly has potential. It’s relatively inexpensive (compared to power meters). It does measure the rider’s actual power output (if that’s important to someone), and it is ANT compatible. Being a pedal based system does make it more crash vulnerable than Quark, SRM, and PowerTap, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a problem. Its ANT compatible puts it ahead of the Polar/Look variant, especially if you’re using a Mac computer (Wake up, Polar: Apple is a pretty huge manufacturer and has significant market share). The Vector is certainly easy to switch between bikes (I think the pedal style, though, will rule it out for MTB use and perhaps CX use). One big plus is that this brings another player to the power meter market, which should, hopefully, drive down prices of other power meters, and this good for anyone that’ll be in the market for power meters.

I think it’ll be a generation or two before a pedal system will be available without a “pod”. After all, the manufacturers do have to make certain that the pedal sensor signal is sufficiently strong at the computer head. As for hitting the pod in aggressive cornering, that may not be a problem. Perhaps Garmin and Polar have already determined that the pedal will strike first, preventing the pod from striking. Whether that’s the case or not will be a function of pedal dimensions, pod dimensions, crank arm length, and bottom bracket height. It’s not something that can be determined by just looking at the pictures available.

For those asking if flipping the pod will work, the answer is that it doesn’t really change anything. If for example the pod is most vulnerable at 10° before BDC, flipping the pod will make it most vulnerable at 10° past BDC.

The looks a a super solution for $500. (and it will be $500 someday) Remember when the 1st CD players were $1000+??

For $1500 I think that Quarq might still be a better option for the near term. Especially if you already have a big commitment to another pedal style. In either case the ability to run a variety of wheels is a bonus. I often see folks training w/ pt hubs on zipp wheels. To me this is silly as it takes away the race day advantage of a race wheel. I would think bigger race day advantages might come from training on a heavy wheel and racing on a uber wheel..

I guess I was most impressed that they managed to get this so far along in development w/o spy photos showing up on the web. (or maybe I missed them).

I actually think these would fair pretty well on a road bike for durability. They would not last a month on a Mt bike though. I would also bet that Garmin will do crash replacement pricing if you demolish a set.

Thoughts on a Quarq vs the Vector??

It doesn’t matter which way you point the pod, the letters will be upside down at some point, and it will point straight down at either 3 or 9 o’clock….

Why not put the pedal transmitters inside the crank axle, just run some tiny wires down the crankarms tuck the unit inside the crank axle and tape down the wires, unit totally protected and less bulky, I would destroy these in the first race I did with them.

The vitaeforte picture is irrelevant unless it details the pedal, BB height, lean angle, crank length, or q-factor. It’s doubly irrelevant considering the dimensions of the Vector system (pedals and pod) aren’t given. With that said, it’s difficult to believe that any company–Polar/Look or Garmin–would over look such a clearance issue. It would have been found in testing. All that notwithstanding, when the pedal is at BDC, the pod can’t strike because the pod axis of symmetry is perpendicular to the crank arm. At BDC then, the only pod dimension of concern is the half-width of the bod. Even that’s inconsequential because the extreme lean angle needed to ground the pedal will mean that the pedal will strike before the side of the pod. The Pod would be in most danger of striking the ground when it is at angle defined by ± arctangent[(L/(C+w)], where L is the length of the pod from the center of it’s mounting hole to the tip of the pod, w is the half-width of the pod(a corner of the pod will touch down first), and C is the crank arm length. If the pod length is 50mm, the the half-width is 15, and the crank arm length is 175, that angle is ±14.7° from BDC. Measuring my XL Look 595, I found that the frame center to the outside face of the crank arm distance is approximately 76.2mm, and and the bottom bracket height is approximately 266mm. Using all these figures to solve for the maximum lean angle before pod contact with the ground, I found the maximum lean angle to be approximately 47.8°. At that lean angle, your tires will have lost adhesion, and recovery won’t be an option. This doesn’t into account the beveled edge or the thickness of the pod transmitter.

Tyler, thanks for updating the article to reflect the editorial niggles that I mentioned above. That goes a long way with me, and shows your commitment to distributing quality information. Cheers!

It’s simple geometry. Everyone learns it, and with a bit of trigonometry ( it’s a type of “math”), the whole “analysis” takes just a few minutes. You’ll find that “statistics” would be the wrong thing to use. You can look up and learn what “geometry”, “statistics”, and “trigonometry are in Wikipedia (it’s a “website” and here’s its address: http//www.wikipedia.org ) . A “diagram” is a simplified drawing to show, in this case, the “physical relationship” between various parts of a bike. Is there a diagram here somewhere?

Luckily, given the 24 hour length of a day on Earth (our “planet”), there’s plenty of time available to take 15-30 minutes and do a simple “analysis”.

As for needing a power meter or not, luckily that’s not determined by a definition of “need.” If such things were, riders would have things that were a lot more alike. After all, who really “needs” the bike they currently have and couldn’t get by with something much less expensive?

I would say its a preference thing. Look at the pro peloton, they don’t all sport power meters either. But as a training tool, I would say it’s as useful as other forms of data available. I would even say it could be a better form of data because other forms of data are very dependent on terrain, where as power is literally the effort you’re putting into the pedals.

Required for success? Of course not.

Is it a useful tool? Without a doubt.

Unfortunately, for the time being my decision to use or not use is limited by my checkbook.

@scrubzero, when you pedal not only do the pedal axles deflect, but the whole bicycle deflects and then springs back returning most of the energy except the energy that is aborbed by elastic hysteresis as heat. (See hysteresis loop on the graph.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

Here are a couple of thoughts. It has motion sensors and registers when the spindle is being turned, so if you are just standing and coasting it will not register power, you need to be turning the pedals for it to register power. Second, if you are crit racer you do not need to be concerned about corners, think a bit more about the tab that hangs. It will not hit. If your crank is at the 6 position, the tab will acutally be at 9. Even just before 6 oclock your shoe and the outside of the pedal will hit before the tab. Go put your shoe in your pedal and tip your bike over until it hits the ground. Look and see how much the crank is off the ground, while your shoe is leaning against the ground. The real question to ask is battery life and changing batteries. How is that done.