Wednesday, September 9, 2009

crappy decisions

So the bearings in my powertap hub are shot. Finally time to send it back to Saris for a rebuild. Now, the dilemma.

Option #1. $300. Saris rebuilds the current hub, sends it back to me, but I live without heart rate. My heart rate strap stopped working two years ago and Saris no longer makes a model compatible with my older powertap SL. So, this option essentially gets me back to where I was before, with all moving parts and seals replaced. Still wired.

Option #2. $460. Same deal with the wheel, but Saris also sells me a new CPU (2.4 version) and a compatible heart rate moniter. I'd like a heart rate monitor again. Still wired.

Option #3. $1000. Saris guts my hub body and besides bearings and seals, replaces the old 12mm axle with a supposedly much stiffer 15mm axel. Also updates the innerards to the new SL+ wireless version. New CPU. New heart rate monitor. New everything. Except the hub body.

I can't hardly believe how stinking expensive this power crap is. Nuts. The worst of it is (probably) that you spend all this money and then you don't really have anything new to look at. The bike still looks the same (except without that unsightly wire).

I'm half tempted to go the $1000 option and then just turn around and sell the wheelset (Bontrager Race X Lite Aero), but I'm not quite sure I'm ready to give up on power. I'm also not sure that I could sell the wheelset, even with the upgrades, for much more than $1000. If I was really lucky I might be able to get $1500. But then what?

What a pain...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There are other options for power. One of the most impressive to me is a devise that does not use the wheel or crank and can be easily moved from bike to bike. http://www.ibikesports.com/ And it costs much less. I don't know all the details, and there are some assumptive issues that make it not so exact in some circumstances, but in my mind the trade-offs are worth it for the flexibility -- and though we like to think of ourselves as something special, truth is we can learn a lot from the data even if it has some assumptive errors. I've looked these over and talked with the company about them. I can see possibilities for error, but overall it's pretty impressive. It uses the same general assumption concepts I used on the inference dyno I developed for cars.

ELG