I’ve been working on a deep dive into power meters for months as I research options for the best power meters. Quite simply, it’s a rabbit hole of confusing options. If you’d asked me about it before I started, I would have told you it was simple and mostly a matter of where you wanted to measure power. I had no idea how wrong I was.
Tech Specs: SRM XPower Road Pedals
Price: $1249 / € 1149
Accuracy: ±1.5%
Axle Diameter: 30mm
battery: 250 hour rechargeable
Weight: 537 for crank arms in 172.5 plus axle and 179 for the chainrings (716 total)
Warranty: 3-years
Where things start to get complicated is when you look at crank based systems. If you want to up the ante, start trying to decipher what is the best. When Rotor announced the brand had a new power meter coming and it was the lightest dual sided power meter on the market, I thought that would be pretty straight forward. Then I started weighing things. The Rotor claim is very specific and it’s not entirely clear cut that it matters. It’s still worth a look though.
There’s a lot to unpack about the details of one crank vs another when it comes to power options but either way, Rotor offers something that’s unique. Now that I’ve managed to understand a bit, I’m ready to talk about the details. If you are looking for a new power meter, keep reading to see if the Rotor 2INpower SL makes sense for you.
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Design and aesthetics
Crank based power meters are not all the same. What seems like small design decisions have big effects on what you get. There’s also increasing overlap between what software can handle vs what hardware you need. Rotor is a tiny company but even Rotor has three distinct types of power meters and it’s not immediately obvious what the difference is.
In this case, I spent time with the 2INpower SL which is a true dual sided power meter. Although it’s integrated into a crank, there are a total of eight strain gauges. Four of the gauges measure power from the spindle. The other four strain gauges measure power in the drive side crank arm.
Having those four distinct gauges in two locations matters. Only when there are strain gauges in two locations do you get actual left and right measurement….
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