Powertap users

nath1 said:

Hi there, im thinking of buying the power tap and would love to know what peoples opinions are who have used this bit of kit. I have visited various webb shops to see the its feature but would prefer to hear the negatives and positives. For instance does the sofware come with it for uploading to a PC, what feature are on the computer interface. The only thing that concerns me is that it has to be built into a wheel so im thinking how long the spoke holes would last in the hub with a few years of heavy mileage. Whats your opinions guys . cheers

Your question is kind of general; you should post your question to the Power Training forum, where many of us will chime in. First, software: I (and many others) could never get the Saris software to run, and a few who could said it was both slow and unreliable. The "industry standard" is cyclingpeaks and I strongly recommend it if you buy the PT. You can learn a lot about it on www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com. I don't understand your concerns about the spoke holes, since I have lots of hubs with 3-5 seasons of 10,000miles/yr with no spoke hole problems, and I don't expect the PT to be any different. I only have a bit over a year on my PT hub, but the bearings will give out before the spoke holes. The PT hub electronics (I have the PT SL) are a bit fragile (meaning mine has been back to Saris for repair) but is a great training tool, and Saris customer support is excellent. The biggest weakness is that the HR data tends to drop out too frequently (for some reason the HR chip is the PT's "achilles heel"😉, but once you're training with power you don't care much about HR. Other than that, no real negatives.