Originally slated for a late 2016 release, the Stages Power Meter for Campagnolo’s carbon crank arms proved to be more of an engineering challenge than either party anticipated. But, they figured it out, and after tweaking the design of their power meter’s shell, it’s ready to ship as of today for Super Record, Record and Chorus cranksets.
The new power meter units for Campy use a wrap-around design, which is different than those used for other brand arms and the prototypes they showed at Eurobike 2015. Those wings aren’t for holding the device onto the crank arm. Because they measure flex with strain gauges to determine power output, and because Campagnolo’s arms flex differently, they needed to reposition the gauges to accurately capture effort. Power through for pricing and details…
Regarding the new design, we received this statement from Stages Cycling: “Those ‘wings’ house the strain gauges we use on the Campagnolo meter. The design or the geometry of a crank arm (whether carbon or alloy) can have a huge influence on how the arm acts under load. In this case our standard carbon gauge that we use on FSA manufactured cranks does not work. This is why Campy took so long for us to get to market. When we initially figured out how to constantly gauge a carbon crank arm we underestimated the influence of the arm’s design, and once in rigorous testing we learned that the Campagnolo needed both a custom gauge and custom gauge placement in order to accurately and consistently (over all loads and temperatures) measure the crank arm deflection. It simply took this long to get the gauge design correct and implemented in production. Our Campagnolo meters look different, but they are have been our most tested meters to date (before release) and now we’re as confident in their quality as any of the other meters we’re manufacturing.”
All three options will come in 170/172.5/175mm arm lengths. Look for the Super Record version to retail for $949.99, which includes the left-side crank arm with pre-installed power meter.
Record is $799 (above), and Chorus is $699 (below).
Like all of Stages’ units, they have active temperature compensation, tool-free battery replacement and accelerometer based cadence. They communicate with any modern head unit via Bluetooth Smart and ANT+, and updates are wireless through their smartphone app.
The Dash GPS cycling computer they showed at Eurobike last year, along with their Link cloud based training system, should also be available this spring.
