Garmin Vector Thread - Early Adopters doing the hard work so you don't have to...
So, Last week, I made the move to Garmin Vector. I didn't have a real reason, per say, but I thought it would give me a fun project as well power for my less "racey" bikes. I am just at a place where I don't like riding without power and now seem to be collecting power meters.
If you have seen it, here is all the info that you will need on Garmin Vector. DCR does a really good job with the product review and testing. I just thought I would fire this up to share a few thoughts.
First off, the unit is awesome! The thing just looks cool and feels great. It seems really precision made It promises power for everything from vintage road bikes, to hybrids, commuters and potentially mountain bikes unless you are doing crazy stuff. For instance, I have a cyclocross bike I ride on the streets at night in the winter because it is so sure footed. These pedals would be great for that bike.
The only issue for me out of the box is the Look KEO style pedals. I am a Speedplay guy and use them on all my bikes, Changing to KEO has not been fun. Adjusting them just seemed to take forever...
The install is super easy! But, there are a bunch of little pitfalls. You MUST have a torque wrench and you MUST have a very NARROW/THIN crow foot wrench to access the wrench flat on the spindle body. Every crow foot I own is WAY to fat. It needs to be a 15mm wrench with under 6mm of thickness to access the spindle, so I needed to order another crowfoot online. I am still waiting for it.
Another big watch out is setting the crank length on the Garmin properly. On my first and only ride, I had the length set way off. 110mm by default versus the 172.5mm I needed. This caused what felt like a 50-60 watt short fall versus my RPE. Now that I have that fixed, I will need to test again.
On the one ride I have done, the unit seemed really stable. Power was consistent and the unit connected and communicated with the Garmin 510 really easily. The power was way too low, but it was stable and responded appropriately. Other than some user error on my end - bad crank length, no torque wrench - I think this thing is gonna work really well once I get my act together.
The highlight of the system for me was that I was able to get power on a 20 year old bike, that I don't want to alter. My steel Colnago has all original parts for the period and changing the crank or the wheel hub are just not an option. With vector, I can have the best of the old, with power. Also, not only can I use this with my vintage bike, but I can put it on other bikes that would not have the type of wheel or cranks in common. I think will also travel really well, if you bring the wrench and set the crank length correctly.
More to come!
Comments
Thanks for posting your experience. I just want to totally ruin your thread by telling everyone...
DO NOT BUY A FIRST GENERATION POWERMETER!!!
This coming from a guy who's been selling PM's since '05-06, Ergomo, Power, and Quarq.
Seems to me that if you're selling a $xxxx PM that requires a special wrench and torque wrench to get the thing working correctly, you could buy a shit ton of said tools for cheap and include them with the purchase. Maybe raise the price by ~$75 to cover it.
The Ergomo also required a special installation tool (included in the powermeter) and some very particular installation requirements, including torque and orientation of doohickey. But I guess it wouldn't be too big of a deal to check the torque on a pair of pedals from time to time and every American male can benefit from experiencing the satisfying "click" of a $$ wrench torquing a $0.15 bolt to manufacture's spec, especially with a fine ale in the other hand
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New folks: you'll learn that Dino and John Withrow are our resident Cycling Gear Beta Testers, likely with some Rocky IV'esque cold war arms race going on
The lack of the $10 crowfoot wrench is rather perplexing..... The cheapest kids toys I ever buy for my kids always have the allen wrench in the package.
I knew that I was risking a kick to the nuts from Coach Rich by early adopting, but since I am a power collector of sorts, I felt it was worth the risk....
Class project:
Dino on a bike with Quarq, PT, Vector, iBike, Garmin 500, 510, 800, 810, iPhone and Strava app.
Next step is to use with another meter on the bike at the same time, but based on my ride this afternoon, I would bet they are within a few watts.....
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/390993805
On a more serious note, I was extremely excited for the Vector several years ago when it was still the MetriGear Vector. Not that I find it entirely un-appealing today, but the price has increased considerably and I'm less enthused over the change in pedal platform from Speedplay to Look-compatible. The ease of transfer between bikes while not unreasonable is also not as compelling as I had originally hoped. Still, I can think of some compelling reasons of why I would like a pedal-based specifically as it pertains to ease of travel and bike transport. Every year we hear people talk about losing access to their PM for the final 2-3 weeks of IM prep due to services like TBT, would be a non-issue if all you had to do was throw a pair of pedals in your carry-on versus trying to travel with an entire wheel or crank.
That or we just hope that Brim Brothers ever makes it to market so Dino can test drive that for me too
I've heard from a friend that swapping the pedals b/t bikes isn't as easy as advertised and that a part or two is at risk of breaking in doing so. Have you had any problems like this? How easy is the actual move from one bike to another? Any comments on this appreciated!
I can't see breaking any components during the move. The thing is very well built and all the stuff that should be metal is metal. There is not a lot of plastic to break. Also, things like the pedal bodies and communication pods are replaceable rather cheaply. The expensive parts are the strain gages and they are inside a pretty stout spindle.
I have not ridden with multiple PMs at the same time, I am have sort of done so by choice. Who is to say which unit is right and will I be be chasing 5 watts between a pedal based system versus a hub based simply because of where they measure.
For me the real import stuff is that it is consistent across many rides, because it is the delta of the unit itself across multiple rides that is important. Since getting the install right, the unit has been very reliable and consistent. I think it reads a bit high compared to some other units, but I also think this may be because tit is the furthest upstream in the drive train and should be expected.
I think it is a great piece of hardware....
If you guys do decide to get a Vector, worth through me, as Wheelbuilder is a Garmin dealer.