Power Tap G3 Hub – First Impressions

I’m excited to say I’ve finally got my hands on my very own power meter. Though it doesn’t carry the same kind of excitement as a new bike does or a new set of aero wheels, it does, however, carry a different kind of excitement for me, what the effect of another year of training and the addition of an improved training device will have on my race results come June. That’s really what it comes down to, I didn’t purchase one of these because I wanted to look fast, as the new Power Taps are really quite subtle, I purchased one because I want to train smarter and race faster.

Very Low Pro

For purchasing my Power Meter I consulted Dave Usher at North Shore Road Bike. He sorted me out with this Power Tap G3 wheel in no time. He gave me the full run down on how to sync it with my Garmin 500 computer, how to change the battery when it runs out of juice, and swapped over my tire and cassette in a small fraction of the time it would’ve taken me!

My first impressions…. “What does it all mean?!” I’m on a down week right now and have only done one ride on it so far. The numbers popping up on my garmin don’t really mean all that much to me yet as I don’t have any reference point. I suppose I have an idea of what my power output is when riding easy on my trainer now, but that’s about it. It will be a bit more interesting when Sean has me do some power testing to set up my zones, potentially early next week. This may be a bit humbling as the only power numbers I’ve ever seen are those of professionals like Pete Jacobs’ numbers from Kona. I’m guessing the test will probably be a tad painful too as the most suffering I’ve done in the last 3 months is deal with a grumpy wife arriving home hungry after a long day at work (most days I’ll take anything over that!)

Is this good?!!

I’m looking forward to learning more about using this device though and interested to see what my training zones look like after doing some tests. I’ll do a little write up after I’ve had some time to really test this out and share my thoughts. Happy training everyone and Happy Holidays!