The wired handlebar mount for my iBike cycle computer died this summer, and I’m quite impressed with myself. Unusually I didn’t panic (too much) about being unable to collect data, and I didn’t run out and drop £800 that I didn’t have on an upgrade to a Powertap. I was helped a little by the promises of other major manufacturers to release new power meters in the autumn, which, when they finally appeared, failed to set new price points. So I paid £85 including the exchange rate and postage from the USA to replace my knackered wired mount with a shiny new wireless stem mount.
The iBike stem mount is a little expensive because the Ant+ hardware is here, in the mount, rather than in the computer. The downside of this is that to put multiple wireless mounts on multiple bikes it’ll cost you a fair few quid. The next generation iBike IV will have the Ant+ hardware built into it, I think, and is due out sometime in 2012.
Moving my iBike to the stem has helped a few things. The wind port is in a better place, and isn’t affected by the position of my hands. The iBike doesn’t think I have a tailwind every time I go uphill any more. Road vibration on really rough surfaces seems to be less of a problem now. Being closer to the head tube, that makes sense. With Ant+ connectivity the iBike picked up the Garmin speed and cadence sensor that I already had on the back of my training bike, and my heart rate sensor’s chest belt. Now the computer displays heart rate and cadence, and zeros my wattage when it sees that I’m not pedalling. The iBike already does that when normally calculating your power output, but when you dip into a super aero position flying downhill the huge effects of gravity and the change to your co-efficient of resistance with respect to aerodynamics spikes the calculated power output. This helps a little here, but it’s not perfect (keep pedalling and the displayed power output is still wrong).
When I open up my ride data in the iBike 6 software cadence and HR data is displayed, so I no longer need to import and combine my Garmin data from the same ride, which saves me time. (The ability to import ride data from other devices into the iBike ride file is a very powerful feature).
The new v6.0 software feature of comparing your ride data to your calibration file is helpful in giving the user confidence in the data, and to show that the iBike’s working reasonably well.
So fixing my iBike wasn’t just a repair bill, it was a little upgrade.
