Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Garmin Vector power meter pedals: cheapest place to buy them?

any ideas?*

*expects avalanche of don't bother replies

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

Add new comment

15 comments

Avatar
allez neg | 9 years ago
0 likes

Fight the Power!

Avatar
PzychotropicMac | 9 years ago
0 likes

What's wrong with getting what you pay for? Importing will also leave you with zero comeback should you have issues. Worth it when spending 1k+?

Avatar
Charles_Hunter | 9 years ago
0 likes

Have you thought about the stages power meter?

Avatar
giobox replied to Charles_Hunter | 9 years ago
0 likes
Charles_Hunter wrote:

Have you thought about the stages power meter?

I was going to say this as well. I don't want to start another debate about this as its been done to death, but for most practical training purposes the separate L/R data is meaningless. At best it might help in training when recovering from injury, but beyond this it is pure marketing. Plus, if its good enough for the Sky boys to train on... (and yes, I realise they ride what they are paid to). Its significantly lighter too, although we are talking tens of grams here.

If it wasn't for my bike having a Rotor crankset I would be all over the Stages option.

Avatar
Tarquin | 9 years ago
0 likes

Try and buy them from abroad.

They are $1250 from bikebug.com (Australia) which is a lot cheaper than uk pricing!

Avatar
snappyandrew replied to Tarquin | 9 years ago
0 likes

Blimey. Is that for real? thats nearly half price. Any one done this before? Is the guarantee still valid?

Avatar
glynr36 replied to snappyandrew | 9 years ago
0 likes
snappyandrew wrote:

Blimey. Is that for real? thats nearly half price. Any one done this before? Is the guarantee still valid?

You can add on nearly 30% for importing something out the EU.

Avatar
bomba | 9 years ago
0 likes

Just going back to the original post, there's 10% off at Cyclestore this weekend (code: 10EGG) which takes the Vectors down to £1215 (and I think they're on Quidco too)

Avatar
Neil753 | 9 years ago
0 likes

According to garmin's income statement over the last three years, overall sales have actually been declining but profits have been steadily rising.

I'm tempted to add Garmin to my portfolio, and urge the fast boys in the club to buy as much Garmin gear as possible  16

Avatar
Flying Scot | 9 years ago
0 likes

As with anything new, I am waiting for the phase 2 and hopefully cheaper version.

Still the only power meter I would invest in.

If anyone knows, do Garmin have a fixed price 'return to base' service and rebuild service?

Avatar
Nick T | 9 years ago
0 likes

How do you know your comparison power meter is 100% accurate? It's unusual to hear you've gotten such wildly inconsistent readings when reviews from road.cc, bikeradar, dcrainmaker et al have found them to be as consistent as any other meter. Of course no two meters will track exactly the same as each other but that's largely irrelevant. I've looked at my friends readings and they've been solidly consistent over the time he's had them, enough to tempt me into buying then at least.

Avatar
bomba replied to Nick T | 9 years ago
0 likes
Nick T wrote:

How do you know your comparison power meter is 100% accurate?

My reply actually said 'calibrated powermeterS'. The same thought had crossed my mind, so I borrowed another powermeter to check and got similar results. The other issue is that according to the Coggan/Allen power profiling chart (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8DoooXOKBCQ/TOpykeTwAYI/AAAAAAAAQTY/QLKfKGX4YR...), some of the figures coming out meant that I should have been competing at the domestic/international pro level. Much as I would have loved that to be true, my race results suggest otherwise...

Nick T wrote:

It's unusual to hear you've gotten such wildly inconsistent readings when reviews from road.cc, bikeradar, dcrainmaker et al have found them to be as consistent as any other meter.

I'm not suggesting that Vectors are inherently inaccurate, just that I had a duff pair (and that my experience may not be unique). Is it that surprising that reviewers got decent ones? I imagine the Vectors sent out for review tend to be checked and tested with far more scrutiny than those being shipped to consumers.

Nick T wrote:

Of course no two meters will track exactly the same as each other but that's largely irrelevant.

Yes and no. As long as they track within a couple of percentage points and it's consistent, then I agree. The Vectors I had were nowhere near this.

Nick T wrote:

I've looked at my friends readings and they've been solidly consistent over the time he's had them, enough to tempt me into buying then at least.

Good luck. I genuinely think they have the makings of a great product that solves a lot of issues with portability between bikes, however, like a lot of powermeters, they appear to be suffering from 1st gen issues.

Avatar
bomba | 9 years ago
0 likes

Of course. All properly torqued / washered, etc, and they gave out readings, as expected. The problem was running them against other (calibrated) powermeters which showed large discrepancies. The sign that something that was definitely wrong though was the fact that going from a static calibration (+/- 2%) to a dynamic calibration (supposedly <1%) often threw readings out by 10-20%.

Spent ages and ages trying to get readings to vaguely match correct figures, but all to no avail and I eventually returned them (and from rumours I've heard, I am far from the only one).

If I'd not had other powermeters to compare them against, I wouldn't have known anything was wrong. Has made me wonder how many riders are going to be riding round on Vectors convinced that everything's fine, but with inaccurate (and worse, inconsistent) power metrics...

Avatar
Nick T | 9 years ago
0 likes

A friend of mine has had his his Vectors for 6 months with zero issues.

Did you torque them up to spec?

Avatar
bomba | 9 years ago
0 likes

Believe they're on a UK-wide pricing fix, so £1349 is the only price available. You can get a bit of cash-back if you go via Quidco...

* ...but, as someone who bought a pair (and returned them for issues with accuracy and consistency), can I be first in the avalanche to tell you not to bother  1

Latest Comments