New Rotor Power uses a small power meter mounted to each crankarm. Built around their 3D+ drilled and forged crankarms, there are four strain gauges built into each side. It’s only about 30g heavier than their non-power equipped 3D+ MAS crankset. They’re shipping it only with the new MAS spider (described below) because they want you to be able to really fine time your position using the new power data.
It’s ANT+ and each side is calibrated independently, which simply means doing a firmware update for your cycling computer and pressing OK a couple times to set it up. Battery is easily replaceable by unscrewing the top cap.
It uses a 30mm axle and will fit any PF/BB30, BB386EVO and BBright out of the box and any Shimano 24mm / BSA bike using one of their UBB outboard bottom brackets with a 30mm ID bearing. Basically, it’ll fit any frame, even Italian threads. Here are the options:
Available first quarter 2013, starts shipping at the end of the year. Pricing should be around €1,700 but isn’t finalized. These are rapid prototypes, the finished pieces will be much smoother and flow into the crank design more smoothly. Crankarm graphics will be a bit different, too.
The new Flow aero crankset claims to be both stiffer and lighter than competing aero cranksets while still being very slippery to the wind. Designed with CFD to get the rounded leading edges of the crank arms, it’s a forged and CNC’d piece that gets a new Micro Adjust Spider (MAS) that offers smaller adjustment increments than their standard cranks. Standard is 5° increments, the MAS has two holes and provides 2.5° adjustments. Super picky triathletes can now dial their position in to maximize power output and efficiency. It was designed with Garmin’s Robbie Ketchum (he helps the riders optimize their positions and biomechanics) to test the design and decided it was better to separate the crank from the spider with a bit of space. Wind tunnel testing on the bike says it’ll improve your Ironman bike leg by 26.4 seconds versus their standard 3D+ crankset. Available now.
