Mass Effect 2 Mega Trainer 1.02 Gratis
Milan Skidmore
The PowerPod comes from the folks behind the iBike, though, they see the PowerPod as a new brand/product identity. With the Velocomp iBike, it was a full head unit, versus this is just the power portion that can connect to other ANT+ head units (and soon Bluetooth Smart too). This makes it far more appealing to the legions of Garmin, Polar, and Suunto fans (among many other brands) that want to use their own head units.
This port takes in the incoming airstream and measures it, it then compares it against your speed from the ANT+ speed sensor and is able to determine power output. It also contains an incline sensor, accelerometer, and barometer. This allows it to determine pressure changes as well as elevation changes. Further, with the PowerStroke enabled it can use the sensor information to measure the barely visible shifting/tilting of each pedal stroke as you ride.
When it comes to using the PowerPod, most people will use it with a head unit to display power (since the unit has no display). However, you can technically use it without a head unit, as it records all rides internally for later download (see software section later).
All of my bikes have at least 2, if not 3-4 power meters on them (direct force power meters), such as Quarq, PowerTap pedals, PowerTap hubs, and various other units. Using only a single additional power meter makes it difficult to know who is right, and who is wrong. Yes, even the most expensive power meters out there can be wrong. Figuring out which one and when they are wrong is the hard part.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy sections were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well, more details here.)
From there, you can slice and dice up your ride and look at the whole of it, or just portions. You can see the top portion is showing wasted motion (mostly side to side) within my riding. While the bottom is showing the actual pedal stroke.
A primary challenge on many MTB rides are hills, where opposing wind is less (slower bike speeds) and gravity (hill slope) is dominant. When wind speed drops aerodynamic effects are not as important (opposing wind force drops roughly as the cube of the bike speed).
What is the effect of having Dynamic Power Smoothing turned on in the Powerpod and the use of following data fields on Garmin edge 810: Actual Power, Power 3s, Power 30s? Would it be better to turn off DPS in the Powerpod or can/should DPS be switched off in the Garmin Device for those data fields?
To the best of my knowledge we are the only PM that tells users exactly how we process our data before sending it, and why. DPS processes the raw data to deliver the benefits of smoothness and responsiveness, which we think is essential for effective use of power numbers.
Note too that bike computers ALSO process the power sensor numbers they receive. This means that what the cyclist ultimately sees on the bike computer screen is a mish-mash of unknown filtering in the power sensor itself, and then more filtering in the bike computer.
Next, comes head units. All head units on the market today that record power do so at 1s resolution. Even if you set Smart Recording on a Garmin, it will override you in the background and set 1s for connected power meters.
My recommendation is if you have a Garmin unit, then turn off DPS and use the 3/10/30s smoothing options on the unit. This preserves the original data as transmitted by the PowerPod, and still gives you smoothing to work with. Data preservation helps for apps beyond the unit itself, when it comes to power analysis.
In my commute this morning, i decided to test the effect on ride positions on PowerPod. In the chart below, i did most of the ride on the hood. In the first four and a half minutes, PP was reporting higher power number than the Quarq Riken AL. I attribute this to PP doing its self-calibration. After that, the power numbers match relatively well. At around the 15:00 mark, i decided to ride in the drops. Because the drag coefficient (CdA) is static in PP, when i rode in the drops, my actual CdA was lower than the CdA configured in PP for riding on the hood. As expected, PP reported higher average power number than the Quarq PM (249.7W versus 233.5W). For the segment immediately after, i intentionally sat up and rode hands-free, thereby significantly increasing the actual CdA. PP reported way lower power numbers than what i was actually producing (170W vs 223.4W). I know no one rides sitting up hands-free but i did that just to see what effect it would have on PP.
One thing that I cannot get my head round is how the PowerPod could or should deal with freewheeling, especially downhill. The Garmin speed sensor on my rear hub would be telling the unit that I am moving (possibly even accelerating) and the PowerPod will be registering an air flow (possibly even an increasing flow) but how on earth can it tell whether I am peddling and therefore whether I am actually laying down any power? I might be sprinting like a maniac or I might have tucked into a full-on aero position for all it knows. Is it basically just guess work based on the change in elevation?
I know that Ray has been testing PowerPod since November. It is obvious he is careful and thorough in his work, and I am impressed by how well he has understood, tested, and clearly presented the many facets of PowerPod.
Writing about technology is not easy but in terms of substance I find his review of PowerPod to be fair, honest, and complete. And independent, too: I had no clue what he was going to say about PowerPod until the review was posted. (By the way, his honesty sometimes hurts; Ray has not been enthusiastic about some of our earlier-generation products) :-)
Typically with posts, I do an initial draft, and then Randy Cantu (who has written here before, but mostly edits posts behind the scenes), takes the drafts and edits them and cleans them up. He focuses on basics, rather than changing my writing style too much.
Would this unit capture the right power with a trailer attached? Will it be able to assume the speed, cadence, slope and wind to figure this out? I imagine the combined cadence/speed and slope would give this.
I went on my first ride with my kickstarter backed PowerPod yesterday on a rare 75 degree day in early March in Massachusetts. I noticed a few drops to 0W as I was pedaling steady. It was fairly windy out, and I have a GSC-10 that I plan on giving some attention to before my next ride by adjusting the distance to the magnet. Could the GSC-10 be the culprit for the 0W drops?
Great review Ray. Pretty impressive to see how well this does without a direct measurement. I bet a lot of long distance triathletes with be interested in pairing it with another power meter for aero measurements.
Recently I did a 20 minute FTP test, according to the PowerPod I produced around 170 watts on average, which is quiet a bit lower than what my trainer expected. He estimated at least 250 watts and during similar tests on my Tacx Flow (not the most accurate when it comes to power, but still) I produced around 270 watts. So I went to link to bikecalculator.com and entered my ride data, I used 2 different windspeeds because the exact windspeed for that area at that time of day is a bit hard to find. The results can be found in this screenshot:
link to dropbox.com
vs powerpod:
link to dropbox.com
Curiosity question. How viable would it be to mount the device on the seat tube? As in where the water bottle mount exists. I understand how a cable or camera could alter the air pressure flow having close proximity, yet wonder if the airflow/pressure is that much different interior to a road bike frame.
Last year I was sure I would by the Wahoo Elemnt but the current delay and the size make me overthink.
Best would be if Garmin would add power to Edge 25 but this seems unrealistic. Ray asked them several times (link to dcrainmaker.com). Would be my preferred solution.
I tried to point out here (post 289) to John before that by applying industry best-practice to his European pricing, he could sell a lot more in the Europe Union. He is certainly smart enough to understand this, but his reply here was evasive/defensive. My personal interpretation : he is, at this point in time, less interested in the European consumer / market.
I am slightly confused how the PowerPod accounts for different bicycles. if I put down 300W on a hybrid with heavy tyres and 300W on a carbon road bike I will be going significantly faster on the latter, but as far as the pod is concerned all its sees is higher wind speed and a higher speed from the speed sensor. How then can it tell that the power would be the same in both situations?
thanks
Ed
On your hybrid, watts will increase, in part, because of the higher rolling resistance of fat tires; on the road bike, your watts will increase more because of higher bike speeds and more wind resistance.
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