One of the most significant obstacles to the general adoption of power meters by regular cyclists has just been that they just don’t come on new bikes when you buy them. Sure cost had been a big stumbling block for many years and isn’t going to disappear too soon, but with a lot more competition in the market now, prices have come down a lot. But power meters are complicated bits of tech that many cyclists either weren’t sure if they would benefit from, or weren’t sure if it was worth the hassle to ditch the cranks already on your bike to buy and install an expensive and complicated add-on.
Well, maybe SRAM has a better solution. Their Quarq brand was developing their next-gen DZero power meter platform and figured why not try to go one step farther and make it easier for cyclists to transition into tracking their power. SO they developed what they are calling the Quarq Prime Power Ready crankset in carbon & alloy, and they are getting it spec’ed as OEM on a bunch of new bikes for next season. Take a closer look at what companies will be putting the cranks on their bikes in 2017, and how they expect Power Ready to get more riders analyzing their power output to improve their performance…
Designed as a simple add-on power measuring spider, DZero is still going to require an additional purchase after you buy a new bike, so Quarq are being a bit sneaky when they talk about OEM spec. But the Quarq Prime Power Ready crankset is already being built up and shipped on 2017 bikes from Canyon, Felt, Fuji, and Trek in both a premium carbon version and a lower-priced forged aluminum set of arms. The idea is that the cranks have been designed specifically to bolt on the upcoming Quarq DZero Power Meter, which will simply replace the stock removable spider with the smarter DZero version.
While it isn’t a far cry from the removable spider cranks that you have already seen from SRAM, the thinking goes that for cyclists on the fence about whether or not to go down the path to power measurement, getting a bike with a set of cranks specifically designed and labeled as “Power Ready” will help them make a choice in a new bike purchase, and smooth the transition to the upgrade.
The cranks still perform well without adding on the power-metering spider, but buyers who want to make the upgrade can quickly have the Quarq DZero spider installed by the shop before they pedal out of the door, or can easily make the upgrade later down the road.
