Do you remember that electrifying feeling when you were a child unwrapping presents on Christmas morning? I had that same feeling when I was loading the iBike PowerStroke firmware upgrade on my iBike Newton power meter.
We all heard the pre-release news about PowerStroke and now it’s finally here! If you’re not aware, PowerStroke is a pedaling efficiency tool that works on your iBike Newton power meter. A few systems, like Computrainer, are able to measure your pedaling efficiency on a stationary trainer but we don’t ride or race on a stationary trainer. We ride over rolling hills, long climbs, bumps, potholes, and rough back country roads, all of which have an impact on your efficiency. PowerStroke is the first device in history to measure pedaling style, performance, and efficiency in the real world – on the road! It also quantifies our inefficiency and presents it as wasted watts, time, and motion. Awesome!
First, PowerStroke is only available to iBike Newton power meter riders. You can either purchase a firmware upgrade if you already own a Newton (that’s what I did) or you can buy a new iBike Newton power meter that comes pre-loaded with it. (iBike Newton PowerStroke+).
A Quick note to those of us existing iBike Newton owners – be sure you’ve downloaded the latest version if iBike Isaac ride analysis software (as of this blog it is version 2.0.1). This version of Isaac displays much more information (time standing out of the saddle, coasting, breaking) and has a “PStroke” button to review your pedaling plot. I’ll refer to this as a “PS plot.”
There’s no additional set up or functional difference in how we use our iBike Newton power meters. All of the PowerStroke measurement happens behind the scenes. That’s good news to me. Velocomp, the manufacturer of iBike, states that PowerStroke can consume memory and the current build of iBike Newton can hold enough data for up to a 6 hour ride. If you’re going really long, you may want to either shut the PowerStroke feature off before the ride or after 5.5 hours. Caution: I haven’t done that long of a ride yet so please don’t yell at me if something happens to your data if you shut it off after 5.5 hours and you lose your data.
Ok, So I’m all loaded up with the new PowerStroke and ready to roll! Check back to iBikeBlog on Friday to get complete details of my ride! I’m so fired up!!!
Before I take off, do you have any experimentation requests? Please e-mail iBikeBlog. Do you have questions about technology, training, nutrition, or weight loss? I can help. Please e-mail iBikeBlog. Thank you!
