PowerTap Wheel Upgrade Opinions?

65cmFixie

I have a PowerTap Pro rear wheel built with a Mavic Open Pro rim. I'd like to go with a lighter, higher performance wheel, but keep the power measurement capability. I am considering building a wheel with the new PowerTap SL hub or going with the Bontrager X Lite Aero wheel which can be had with a PowerTap hub. Any opinions out there? Or any other ideas?

Woofer

You may want to wait on that SL. They had some sort of problem (possibly inherent in the design) and lots of current owners are unhappy. The complaints are that some of them are very sensitive to water - getting damaged after wet rides, some are very sensitive to temperature, causing the zero to go off. Not everyone has these problems.

Also you should check the compatibility of the wiring harness with each of your wheels if you get an SL. Not every wiring harness is going to work IIRC, but I don't recall the details off the top of my head.

A really high volume email list, search for PowerTap SL
http://lists.topica.com/lists/wattage/read

Do you do mostly crits or climbing road races or a mix? I would go with Hed Alps rim or Hed Deep rim in back if money is no object. Or a Zipp 404/808 if you like Zipp.

edit:I think I emailed American Classic a whiles back and they said they would build a 420 rim with a PowerTap hub but they have to build the wheel in house - they don't let anyone build with their rim.

rule62

Of the four people whom I know with Powertap SL's at the moment...mine is the only one that hasn't been sent back for repair. Thank all that is good and holy that I am only testing it for my LBS. Mine is definitely screwy, including being temperature sensitive, frequently needing mid-ride torque zeroing, and it cuts in and out on long rides to the point that I typically lose about 20% of my data.

The techs have said that they have no fix at the moment, so I might as well go on and use it as is. They were working some prototypes at the TDG and are trying to come up with a fix. My LBS' powertap guru has not heard back from them yet whether they were able to gain any ground on all of the SL's problems.

If we hear something, I will post it here. At some point here, I am going to switch over to the Pro until the SL is ready for primetime.

BlueJersey

Mine is working fine though. Maybe history is repreating itself again. Same as the history of the first powertap, mine is the earlier batch and it has been working flawlessly. I had it at the beginning of Feb (they begin to ship them out around mid of Jan). I used it during Winter commute and till 2 days ago.