Power meter - am I wasting my money?

eddiefiola

colinsmith123 wrote:

eddiefiola wrote:

i ordered my Stages from here, emailed them first about the 4-5 weeks delivery time and they said 10 days, hope thats true.

http://www.stagescycling.eu/shop/ROAD/Shimano/

I hope that is true, too. Come back in 10 days and confirm and I think they'll receive a string of orders.

Well it's on it's way, I have a UPS tracking number and am currently seeing it in Frankfurt, theres a bank holiday tomorrow in Germany so I guess it will be delivered Friday.

They (Stages) actually tried to fob me off, when I checked delivery was still going ahead they wanted to delay me a week but I gave then shit and they sent it out as planned.

meanredspider

Both Stages and Power2Max did that to me - tried to promise good delivery until I got my order confirmation. Ended up getting my Stages from Merlin

colinsmith123

meanredspider wrote:

Both Stages and Power2Max did that to me - tried to promise good delivery until I got my order confirmation. Ended up getting my Stages from Merlin

Still no sign of my PT being repaired. When Paligap say allow 10 working days minimum, what I am interpreting this as, some 15 working days later is 'PTs have a significant reliability issue. We cannot keep up with the numbers being returned. In addition, do not email us with any enquiries as to when it might be repaired, we will not respond as we do not provide any kind of positive customer service. Go buy another PM.'

Stages Dura Ace in stock at Merlin???? Mmmmm, tempting. So when I hit the Merlin BUY button, and it is inevitable, thirty seconds later another email will arrive. Dear Mr Smith, your PT is fixed and will be with you tomorrow.

meanredspider

colinsmith123 wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Both Stages and Power2Max did that to me - tried to promise good delivery until I got my order confirmation. Ended up getting my Stages from Merlin

Still no sign of my PT being repaired. When Paligap say allow 10 working days minimum, what I am interpreting this as, some 15 working days later is 'PTs have a significant reliability issue. We cannot keep up with the numbers being returned. In addition, do not email us with any enquiries as to when it might be repaired, we will not respond as we do not provide any kind of positive customer service. Go buy another PM.'

Stages Dura Ace in stock at Merlin???? Mmmmm, tempting. So when I hit the Merlin BUY button, and it is inevitable, thirty seconds later another email will arrive. Dear Mr Smith, your PT is fixed and will be with you tomorrow.

Well you can always return the Stages or cancel the order :twisted:

eddiefiola

My Stages turned up today, day after promised delivery day but yesterday was a Bank Holiday here so to be expected, freshly Instagrammed, Twittered and Facebooked while in the box and now to install and use the thing

eddiefiola

1st 'Powered' ride http://app.strava.com/activities/147319235 actual power seems to be much higher than Stravas Estimated power before.

RChung

eddiefiola wrote:

actual power seems to be much higher than Stravas Estimated power before.

Were the Strava estimates consistent before?

eddiefiola

Never really paid attention, I actually looked at the wrong totals so my 'much higher' is probably BS.

A 20 min FTP test track tonight was average 247w, last time I did it one month ago Strava estimated it at 224 w, so not actually a huge difference, plus the wind was against me tonight so would expect power to be higher.

RChung

eddiefiola wrote:

Never really paid attention

I don't use Strava so I don't know much about it -- but it would be interesting if it were inaccurate but consistent.

neeb

It is indeed unreliable and inaccurate, although I've often wondered if it could easily be much better.

It's odd when you look at, say, a Strava segment leader board and the power values from the minority of people who have PMs are consistently much higher or lower than the estimated power for the people that don't. Why can't the Strava software just smooth the data and use the real power data from the PM users along with weight of the rider, speed over that segment, wind direction and speed on that day etc to come up with far more accurate estimates for people without PMs? The people with PMs are basically providing potentially pretty accurate calibration points for each segment. OK, there are factors such as rider aerodynamics that can''t be taken into account, but even that could be very approximately estimated, e.g. by comparison to times for people of similar weight and performance.

That said, I was about to post some examples of way-out power estimates from segments I know, but when I looked just now the estimates seemed to be nearer the real PM data than they were when I last looked. Maybe Strava have improved things recently?

RChung

Oh, I wasn't asking if they were inaccurate across individuals, or compared to a power meter. I was wondering whether for the same person on the same segment Strava's power estimates were consistent. IOW, if you were faster (or slower) on one day than the previous day, is the power estimate higher (or lower)?

Alex_Simmons/RST

RChung wrote:

Oh, I wasn't asking if they were inaccurate across individuals, or compared to a power meter. I was wondering whether for the same person on the same segment Strava's power estimates were consistent. IOW, if you were faster (or slower) on one day than the previous day, is the power estimate higher (or lower)?

It correlates directly with speed. IOW it's a speedo dressed up as power estimator.
https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/2095 ... lculations

Strava does permit upload of power meter data, which overrides estimated power values. Usually there's a symbol showing when a rider's power data is from a power meter, and not estimated.

I don't use Strava myself either. It's not something I find particularly motivating, but many do, and anything that motivates you to ride more is usually a good thing.

RChung

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

RChung wrote:

Oh, I wasn't asking if they were inaccurate across individuals, or compared to a power meter. I was wondering whether for the same person on the same segment Strava's power estimates were consistent. IOW, if you were faster (or slower) on one day than the previous day, is the power estimate higher (or lower)?

It correlates directly with speed. IOW it's a speedo dressed up as power estimator.
https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/2095 ... lculations

Strava does permit upload of power meter data, which overrides estimated power values. Usually there's a symbol showing when a rider's power data is from a power meter, and not estimated.

I don't use Strava myself either. It's not something I find particularly motivating, but many do, and anything that motivates you to ride more is usually a good thing.

Ah! Thanks. Sounds sort of like the old HAC-4. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. So it could fall into the "inaccurate, but consistent" category.

Yes, some people find Strava very motivating, and that's a good thing. (Unless it motivates them to descend at dangerous speeds. That aspect of Strava has never made sense to me. Climbing KOM's? Sure, absolutely. Descending KOM's? Nuts.)

napoleond

I've found Strava estimated power to be inaccurate and inconsistent.

RChung

NapoleonD wrote:

I've found Strava estimated power to be inaccurate and inconsistent.

If you look at a single segment you've ridden a lot and you rank order your segment times from slowest to fastest, will the estimated powers have close to the same rank order? If you compare the average speed over that segment to estimated power, is the r relatively high?