Stages Power Meter Adds FSA, Ultegra Options

Power estimator……

Yep. Pretty much, but this almost falls into guestimator territory. You get what you pay for. If you stuck a 19g lump of plastic to your crank you’d save a 1g and $600!

@alvis So you’ve used a Stages power meter? Care to share your analysis with us?

@alvis

Mr DC Rainmaker doesn’t agree
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/06/stages-review-update.html

Cheaper doesn’t automatically mean worse

You should check out with the guys on SlowTwitch who are improving their FTP based on the Stages PM. Have some respect for products you obviously haven’t tested – at least not as scientifically as Ray

Not about using or not. Its about understanding strain measurement, gauge placement, materials and structural geometry, load paths, neutral axes. Precision load cell design is a well defined engineering discipline. Doing what stages, and the pioneer system do will give numbers, but they may as well be house numbers. If it does what you want it to do then sling $600 in their direction, but don’t be under the illusion you are measuring true power. Then ignore any article about Horners power numbers, or anything else you read about any other riders figures. BS can be bullshit but its more likely to be bicycle ‘science’

@alvis – until you’ve run a real world test, try and keep the know-it-all superiority posts to a minimum. Start with this: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/06/stages-review-update.html

I went from quarq to stages and running these in the real world have worked better than my quarq (because of getting caught up in flash thunderstorms that mess with the quarq)

Can I run my current Stages power meter that is fixed to a Ultegra 6700 10 speed left crank arm on a Ultegra 6800 crankset? It looks like they attach the same way, but I can’t find if the q-factor has changed between Ultegra 10 speed and 11 speed.

I think that it is safe to say that you usually get what you pay for in this world. Stages is an excellent choice for some and maybe not others. I have friends who use Stages and seem happy but they are not power meter experts (most people I come across aren’t). I am lucky enough to be able to afford SRM and it works for me. Since neither myself nor any of my friends are training for the next Grand Tour we are all happy with what we have. Don’t knock a company who is trying to offer a great value product to many people who wants to try and train with power.

Psi, you maybe right, but I think you should look at how they do the measurement. Strain gauging is a very well defined and precise process to obtain a specific measurement. Placement of the gauges in respect to the load path through the part is critical to accurate data. Stages actually stand more chance of getting this right than any spider based system. However placing the gauges on a single surface of a (nominally)rectangular section is ignoring a considerable portion of the recordable load data. They would also get better data (closer to the tangential loading they should measure) by placing the gauges on one (better both) of the ‘edge’ faces. This would give them improved accuracy. I find it fascinating that all PM reviews compare one bike power meter to another and everybody accepts accuracy if one set of numbers are similar to another. With all due respect to DC Rainmaker his reviews follow this same trend. As the critical measurement is the torque lets see reviews of the ability of these devices to show accurate and consistent torque measurements against a defined standard. At least then we would all have objective numbers on which to base our choice of where to put our dollars rather than marketing driven BS.

@alvis

I think the stages engineering is quite fine. In fact it is impressive that they can accomodate so many crank options. The only knock that they have on them is that they have a left leg x 2 estimation.

I have a stages power meter and find it quite useful. At worst, you can say it may be off by 10 watts. Can I predict my own power within 10 watts without a power meter? Most definitely not.

With DCRainmakers reviews, it is evident that every power meter has some descripancy to each other. In some cases he has shown that the stages even tracks closer than other power meters. Whether it is a descripancy attributed to a left leg x 2 estimation (Stages), drive train losses (Powertap), lack of temperature compensation (Quarq, older power meters), or a delicate setup (polar, vector) most power meters will report different values.

So unless you are a special person whose whole workout or race is ruined because he didn’t have perfect power meter data, then you need to stop being such a naysayer.

alvis seems to be prodding at an underlying existential dilemma here. isn’t it all essentially crap? your Garmin can’t give you your speed or distance with 100% accuracy. it’s all like, a scam, man… and we’re all just specs in the universe peeping about our plastic toys until we cease to exist. that’s deep. word.

alvis, you may be right about all the technicalities etc, I won’t pretend knowing enough about it. But I have used a stages power meter for one season and I know it works for me. The data that it gives me from ride to ride is consistent, which in return helps me improve as a cyclist and that’s all I care about. A more “accurate” powermeter, costing 200+% more, would never give me 200+% better results.

@ham-planet I would agree with you. The good news is I could care less.

I Love my Stages Cycling PM.

@alvis all the criticisms of the stages cranks are justified but surely the point of a PM is as a training device so as long as you are getting a consistent power number specific to the rider who will have there own power figures to hit in an effort then it doesn’t really matter, thats why we use power instead of HR??????

Does anyone know if the FSA crank is supported on a standard set of chainrings (53/39)? I was told only compacts were available.

@alvis… Sky team uses Stages power meter… nuf said.