MetriGear Vector in CyclingNews Readers' Poll

It's been awhile since I mentioned the Metrigear Vector; I've been interested lately in solving the more fundamental issues of how fluctuations in speed, wind speed, and road grade affect power. Indeed, I fear that I may have made an error in my analysis of grade fluctuations. But I'm still checking over these calculations, so back to the Metrigear Vector for now.

First, congratulations to Metrigear for getting the Vector nominated as one of candidates for "best new product" in the 2009 CyclingNews reader poll! And they clearly contributed to the nomination of "Power Meters" in the nomination for "best tech innovation". Now I need to come clean here. I didn't vote for it in either category. Well, for "best new product", it's not a product until the blue tape is retired.


And for tech innovation power meters have been around for a long time, and there continues to be incremental improvement. And while the Vector promises to take a major step forward (or perhaps back to 1992?) with its focus on force measurement, that's not demonstrated yet. So I'm all over it for the 2010 poll, but not quite yet.

Instead I voted for SRAM XX for the product and "electronic shifting" for the tech innovation. Love it or leave it, and I choose the latter, you've got to admire the engineering of Di2.

So I'm looking forward to 2010 as being the year where Metrigear takes the CyclingNews Poll. However, Vector winning CyclingNews best product for 2009 is a bit like Obama winning the Peace Prize in 2009.

Next time I'll look at some data just posted to the MetriGear blog.

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