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TECH NEWS
Limits power meter 15 days remaining if you want a Limits power meter for £161
The Limits power meter that we told you about last month has smashed its funding target on Indiegogo with five days of its campaign remaining. The project currently has pledges from 1,007 contributors amounting to 212% of the US$100,000 (about £65,000) goal. You need to stick at least US$249 (about £161) in the pot to be in line to receive a Limits power meter when they become available at the end of the year.
The Limits power meter is a CNC machined cromoly device that fits between your left crank and any standard pedal (9/16th x 20tpi axle). You remove the pedal, screw the Limits devices into the hole, and then tighten the pedal onto the Limits. There is, of course, a dummy unit that fits to the right crank so as to maintain symmetry.
The system is designed to work with any frame, crank and pedal, and you don’t need to replace any existing components. Swapping between bikes is said to be an easy task with normal workshop tools.
£161 (plus US$10, around £6.50) makes the Limits system the most affordable power meter that we know of (feel free to tell us down below if you know of any cheaper power meter).
The Limits power meter measures your cadence using an inclinometer (so there’s no need for a magnet) that, according to the designers, can detect rotational change of less than 1°, while strain gauges measure the force you’re applying and use that, along with crank length, to work out torque.
The system uses this information to calculate your power and sends it to a head unit via ANT+. That means the system is compatible with Garmin Edge computers, for example. The team behind Limits says that future versions will offer Bluetooth Smart compatibility as well.
How accurate is the Limits system? That’s the first question everyone wants answered. The claim is ±2%.
The expected retail price is US$384 (about £250), so you’ll save yourself around £90 if you go through Indiegogo, but you need to act quickly because there are only five days remaining.
We've not used the Limits system so we can't comment on the performance.
For more info go to our previous story or go to the Limits page on Indiegogo.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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17 comments
Don't hold your breath for the brim brothers one, anyway I finally cracked and ordered jam today in the form of a Stages FSA power meter from Germany for 450 quid. They are much cheaper over there.
I fear everyone who did has long since passed on...
Isn't anyone bothered about the massive increase in Q-factor? If one of the posters above mentioned that a bike fit found that they needed spacers, what about everyone else that doesn't? This will mess with fit.
I imagine there is also a noticeable decrease in effective crank stiffness, as you're increasing the lever arm between pedal/shoe interface and crank.
Don't fancy it myself.
When is someone going to make shoes/cleats with a power meter built in? Talk about easy to swap between bikes!
Possibly, a bit, if you can't offset it e.g. cleat placement or axle length. I'm "fortunate" in that I need spacers anyway (really putting the quack into Q-factor) but the paper they link to is very interesting (particularly the thesis itself and the easy measurement for 'self-selected Q-factor') and worth a read.
http://www.brimbrothers.com/
..still waiting...
Jam today - Stages, or half-price jam tomorrow - Limits (someday, oneday, maybe never...)
I was disturbed by the repeated use of the word 'contribution' on Indiegogo for something that doesn't exist.
Limits also seem to have a number of staff who I guess are making their living from the contributions. And their video has two athletes extolling the virtues of power meters - in general, not Limits specifically. If you've got as far as reading the page you probably already know why power meters are a good thing.
So I bought jam yesterday.
I love a bargain and want power data, but not for me.
I hovered over the button, but decided to wait. If comes out and its good, then even at full retail its a great price.
18 months is a long time, there might be many other, cheap and tested and proven powermeters around by then. It's a pig in a poke, at best.
I put money in, and I don't expect anything for 18 months. Their schedule seems awfully optimistic. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.
given they dont even have a working prototype from the conversation DCR had with them, it seems the tech specs and attachment options for these is likely to be impossible to discuss right now with any degree of certainty.
Good idea but cant say I'm optimistic we'll see one any day soon.
Indeed. Road.cc should be more careful about giving them this much publicity, given the lack of any working unit, IMO.
I backed them because I was curious, not in a hurry and just had a tax refund - but I would agree with these gents that road.cc should think twice about how they're presenting this - I would hope for some information about the apparent state of affairs (e.g. very near the start of things by the sound of it) and a link to Rays post as a minimum.
As far as progress goes, they do actually seem to a have prototype sensor but (a) it's wired and (b) they haven't discussed anything about its current performance, especially accuracy. I do think they'll get something, hopefully something useful, but I highly doubt it'll be in anything remotely like their published time-scales. IMO anyway.
Thank you for all finding out.
Yes you can fit them with allen keys. I'd also look up DCRainmakers blog on them before you part with your money.
That guy sees every powermeter and bit of kit going.
Actually the question that doesn't seem to have been answered is are they compatible with pedals that only use an allen key to fit them? such as the Time iclic/xpresso pedals.
I emailed to ask and got no answer. A bike fit last year assessed me as needing pedal spacers and I absolutely could not get Look pedals to stay in them - this would have the same problem.
There's apparently a hole through the sensor so you can fit pedals that use Allen keys to tighten - I saw it in print somewhere but can't find it at the moment on their site or Facebook, although they do show such a pedal set in their setup guide
http://limits.technology/setup/
with this at the bottom