The PowerTap Experience

I've been riding with a PowerTap for the last couple weeks or so - one week in tandem with my SRM Pro on the Pinarello, and this past week or so by itself on the Cannondale I'm transitioning to.

I've done a myriad of different efforts and rides with the PowerTap, and there's a few things during this experience that have really made me think a bit.

First off, damn, trying to download the PT on a windows Vista machine was a total pain! I have an older hard wired PT pro with a serial download cable. I downloaded the newest version of the PT software off of the saris site, and couldn't get it to work since Saris is no longer supporting serial connections and only supporting USB connections (I'm no expert on this stuff, so it's entirely possible that I just didn't push the right sequence of buttons and rub my belly while tapping my head just so in order to make my configuration work out). :-)

Next, I used the CD that came with the power meter (that I bought used a few years back and had re-furbished by saris after it mysteriously just stopped working a summer or two ago) - the software I tried installing was Link ver 1.04 - and that software also wouldn't work.

I tried many times with the PowerLink Lite CD, that also came with the PM, to just download the data - and eventually got that sucker to work... Several times during the past week, though, I got weird downloads - just crap data with big spikes. These (obviously jacked up) downloads went away on a second attempt at downloading, but really, it was just a painful experience...

Additionally, I've been doing some sprints lately with the PowerTap, and it just seems really odd that I'm able to generate the exact same wattage for 3 or 4 consecutive 1.26 second samples. I seriously doubt that I'm that consistent over that 5 second-ish period. I'm not sure what to believe with that data... Oh, where is the SRM config that will work on this bike??? :-) It looks like this coming Monday I'll have all the parts I need to make that happen - but I reckon I'll have some challenges I didn't anticipate when trying to make it all work... If there is one thing I have learned in the past 35 years, it's that nothing is "easy"! :-)

The last thing I've been trying to get my hands around is the whole "interval" feature of the PowerTap. I've always taken for granted how the SRM integrates this feature. I like to see how things went during the last interval I did while I'm rackin' up those bonus points coasting back down to the bottom of the hill. With the SRM it was as simple as hitting the set button at the end of the effort and seeing the time of the interval, and the average watts of the interval. If I wanted to review the first interval while coasting down during the third interval (to see if my power to RPE ratio is in check...) I just simultaneously hit the "mode" and "pro" buttons (or whatever sequence that is that I instinctively do now...) and cycle through the interval data of interest. Takes a few seconds or so...

With the PT, I haven't yet figured out how to get the same information as the SRM until I download. But then again, I haven't RTFM. Anybody else figured out how to actually make use of the PT interval functions???

Anyway, a side benefit of the whole PT experience is that I don't really look at the display while going hard anymore - I just kinda "go hard" - ya know ridin' by feel, all retro and stuff! Interesting to note that I am not limited by the flashing numbers with the PT, and I go just as fast - well, faster on some efforts recently - than I've done in the past.

'Course - I'm a couple kg's lighter than I've ever been before too - so that confounds the whole "pissed off at the powertap" effect! :-)

Seriously, though, if anyone can help me make sense of the whole powertap interval function thing, I welcome the input!