I-Bike Power Meter

Steele

I have been drinking the EN Kool-Aid for 15 weeks now - training with power and pace has changed my Tri life. I have been training all winter on my trainer, it gives me watts, pace everything I need.

Now with the advent of spring and outdoor riding, I need a PM for my bike. I cannot afford to drop $1500 on a PM right now, just not in the cards. I was looking at the I-Bike PM's, they are more in line with my budget, looks like they can give me the info I need to continue to train with power outdoors. 

Has anyone used these? I realize you get what you pay for - do these I-Bike PM's serve the purpose?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Bill

GMAN 19030

Not sure what your budget is but the cheapest Powertap is $600 (wired) or $850 (wireless) is on par with some of the iBike offerings. You can find great used deals over at the Slowtwitch classifieds on occasion.

Steven Ford

I looked at the IBIKE and thought there are to many variables for it to give a consistent accurate reading.   I know there was some debate about this on the old 3.0 forum and Chris Gleason gave some really good thoughts and why not to go with it. It was his case that I used to get the powertap instead.

 

 

graham_m_dunn

I-bike requires so much fiddling, the reproducibility of results is very low -- which makes it a toy, not a tool. Look for an older wired powertap. I picked one up for $300 last winter after 13 days of searching craigslist and ST classified. Add a disk cover and you're good to race as well.

jhbinsc

+1 on a used PM. I've never talked to anyone who had an iBike and liked it or felt it was accurate/reproducible. I bought a used SRM PCV in great shape for $1000 and have seen them under $1000 at times.

Chris G

Posted By Steven Ford on 25 Mar 2011 09:40 AM

I looked at the IBIKE and thought there are to many variables for it to give a consistent accurate reading.   I know there was some debate about this on the old 3.0 forum and Chris Gleason gave some really good thoughts and why not to go with it. It was his case that I used to get the powertap instead.

 

 

Ahhh, the quarterly ibike thread.  You can search the old threads or about a million of them on ST as to why not to buy an ibike.  It seems like the vast majority of the pro ibike folks are those that use them in conjunction with a PT, quarq or SRM.  If you have one of those to calibrate the thing then it can be used to get pretty decent results.  You will not have that option and so you will be attempting to calibrate the thing by wieghing yourself with your bike in all your clothes then doing roll down tests to estimate your .cda and then estimate your .crr to get a WAG as to what power you are putting out.  There are a lot of assumptions in there.  Also, sitting up vs in the bars you get wildly different values there.  There are posts in the ibike forums about how people need to recalibrate when you put on or take off a jacket.  The power measured by your powertap wheel will not be effected by road surface, tire inflation, what clothes you are wearing and if you are sitting up.  For those that say I am in the aero bars 99% of the time anyways so it really does not matter...uh yeah sure.

The major issue is that they are really not that cheap.  You will not be sorry if you buy a PT instead.  If you do go with an ibike however it might make a really cool computer head for when you buy the PT or quarq as you can do what amounts to do it yourself wind tunnel type analysis.

There are those that think I am wrong about this.  The most vocal pro ibike person is no longer part of EN [i think] but it turned out that he kinda sorta worked for the ibike guys and used his with a PT hub anyhow.

Paul Hough

@ Chris - I think it was "NavyTriGuy" who was a big proponent of the iBike. He always said the calibration was simple and that consistent measurement was more important than accurate measurement. There are some studies that show iBike measures fairly well against the main brands, but they might have been performed under perfect conditions.

I don't use power at all, and the recurring posts to this very forum about team members problems with power (e.g., equipment failure in training and in races) haven't helped convince me. Only the Garmin Vector might get me to drink the koolaid.

Al Truscott

not much to add except confirmatory personal experience. I used an iB ike thru various iteration of hard and software from 2006 thru 2010. The current versions are much easier and more reliable than before, and I was able rot successfully train and race with power in 2010. But once I got my PowerTap Sep 2010, it was like night and day, like the difference between Mac OS and Windows. Yah, you can make Windowswork, but why bother with all that stuff when Macwill do all the background work for you? I did use the iBike as my receiver for the PT for a while, and it was fun playhing with all the aero adjustment info, but once I found a Joule for 40% off, the iBike has been taking up space in a dresser drawer ever since. The only downside is I don't have real-time temp on the Joule.And, I don't have to spend excess time every ride worrying about the many variable which can send the calibration out of whack ( I won't list them here). Just spin the wheel and go. And there is MUCH less volatility to the readouts, making on-copurse corrections in effort level much easier.

I loved my iBike even with all its quirks, but I took way to long to see the light. don't be tempted. Better a used wired PT then a new iAero.

filarl

I have an iBike. I had a lot of problems getting it to work BUT(!) I'm not very tech savvy and have no time or patience to be fiddling with it as my only "free" time is time that eats into a planned workout or further cuts into my sleep. They have a forum for tech issues, so if you're seriously interested in getting one, you should read through them to get a feel for how much work it is to get it working properly. Having said that, their tech support guys are good about responding via their forum and were good about even taking phone calls from my bike mechanic. I don't know the exact current cost, but for about $200 you can have something that gives you your basic power readings, including your average, if you are extremely strapped for cash and have more patience and time to get it to work than I do.

mgraffeo

I'd consider getting an iBike Aero as an expensive head unit for a PowerTap or Quarq, in order to take advantage of its real time cda measurements (buying your own wind tunnel). Otherwise, hard to get behind. Another downside is the fact that power inside and outside are measured totally differently, and therefore have no bearing on one another. That's why I ended up with a wired PT.

wrightb2

The only thing I will add to the iBike thread is I have a top-of-the-line IAero in a drawer that is in good shape and I'll sell it for next to nothing to anyone who wants to experiment with it.

Seriously, I won't sell it to another team member because this thing doesn't work as advertised unless you have a PHD in tinkering with your training/racing gear. I am a certified gear-head (or nut by many of my friends estimation) and I thought the iBike Aero was going to be the coolest thing I'd ever picked up but it just isn't so. My wireless Powertap is much more reliable and much less trouble.

Just remember if it sounds to good to be true it probably is....

 

Chris G

How much is next to nothing? If that is the one that can be used as a head unit for a ant plus unit I would like to play with it for at home aero testing some things.

Norton

I purchased a bottom-of-the-line Ibike (200.00!) last summer when my SRM went kablooie and was being rebuilt.

I found it easy to set up and amazingly accurate. Having said that I shelved it the minute my SRM came back.