pavel
05-21-2014, 11:50 AM
TL;DR version: great power meter, battery and bearings suck butt.
I bought my first power meter last october because the prices finally came down, had it built up to an a23, 32h, 2x because I was going to beat it up pretty good. It performed exactly as I expected, and I started training with power, which certainly helped me progress.
I rode the wheel almost daily through fall and (relatively dry northern california) winter. If I had to estimate, I'd say I put approximately 3000-4000 miles on it (judging by strava milage minus cross, track, crits and putz around recovery rides on a different bike).
1. The battery life: atrocious. G3 uses a small hearing aid kind of battery that lasts at the ABSOLUTE most 3 months of daily use. The first time my battery died was about a month in.
2. SW/FW: For whatever reason, the battery dying coincided with needing a firmware update. After replacing the battery in that first month, the unit would not work properly until I plugged it in and updated FW, which is another special pain in the ass because it never seems to work quite like you wanted to. Pain in the ass, but when all is said and done, it's fine and it works.
3. Crash resistance: At some point, I got rear-ended by some idiot sucking my wheel during his commute, who ran straight into me when I had to hit the brakes. He taco'd my wheel beyond repair, and left a pretty good scar where his tire rubbed agains the plastic shell of the hub. Cosmetically, a bit of a blemish, but the hub did not suffer and was rebuilt into yet another A23.
4. Bearings: Ugh. Sometime after the wheel being rebuilt (March) I had to pull the wheel to swap the cassette to put it on my 9 speed bike. The bearings felt rough. REALLY rough. I took off the cassette, pulled the freehub body. The freehub body bearings felt like they were pretty toasted. The hub bearings did not feel a whole lot better.
>I find this a bit strange given that the winter was a relatively dry one up here. Yes, it rained, and yes, I did ride in the rain, but nowhere nearly enough to justify bearing death. I've ridden plenty of other hubs in the rain before without any issue. My take on this is that it is hard to drop the price of a product by nearly half and not have quality take a bit of a dive.
5. Customer service: After spending several days chasing answers from the shop and CycleOps, it was determined that you cannot do ANY service on this hub yourself save swapping the freehub. If bearings have to be replaced, it has to be done in the factory, unlike the previous generation which can be done with a bearing press at the LBS. If the hub is out of warranty, this service will cost you $350. If the hub is under warranty, its free plus the cost of shipping.
Given my experience with the bearings, I wasnt so thrilled about this hub and future prospects (thinking that its just a matter of time before I have to start shelling out $350/year or half the cost of the hub just to keep it running.) I decided that the best thing to do would be to convert it to a track hub, where it would see about 1/3 or less use as it did on roads, and would likely never ever be subjected to wet weather again.
The issue with converting the powertap to track was tricky. Having talked to CycleOps, they were of course willing to warranty the hub as it was less than a year old. However, they still wanted to charge me $350 if I wanted to do a track conversion since it involved installing a new torque tube, completely changing the axle and installing a new fixed driver. I thought that sucked, but I went ahead anyway because at this point, I really wanted to have power at the track.
I sent my hub after getting an RMA # and waited. The gentleman on the other side (Kip) assured me that there would be a 2 day turn-around. I checked tracking, and contacted him several days later to give him my credit card. I got an answering machine and no email response that week.
The following tuesday, Kip emailed me to tell me that he had been out for several days, that the hub had not been worked on, and that he would NOT be charging me for the work because it was taking longer than he said. HOLY CRAP, I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS. EFFING FANSTASTIC, THANKS KIP! In any case, 3 days later the hub was on its way back to me, and is being built up into a track tubular. I also received (at my request) a replacement freehub body under warranty.
As for the road: my shop owner friend had an unsold SL+ in inventory and I decided that would be my new power meter for road training. I got it for a song because it's the older model. Serviceable locally and had it built up within a week of asking for a new wheel.
As stated before, I do not believe you can drastically drop the price of an item without sacrificing some quality. From reading about SL+ and my friends who ride them, I believe these older models are superior to the G3 in quality and serviceability. I think the extra grams are more than worth not having to pay out $350 for a bearing swap.
My overall view on the G3:
Functionality: as a power meter, it's great. Power readings are accurate and very consistent. 5/5
Reliability: due to battery life and my experience with the bearings, I'd say its pretty poor. 2/5
Customer service: 10/5, but I'd imagine it would be still be 4.5/5 if I was charged for the service. They are good at communicating with customers and are pretty clear.
If I remember, care, or am bored enough in another 6 months I will update this with my findings on the track version and updates, if any on the SL+ (although I think that this has been well documented by now.)_
I bought my first power meter last october because the prices finally came down, had it built up to an a23, 32h, 2x because I was going to beat it up pretty good. It performed exactly as I expected, and I started training with power, which certainly helped me progress.
I rode the wheel almost daily through fall and (relatively dry northern california) winter. If I had to estimate, I'd say I put approximately 3000-4000 miles on it (judging by strava milage minus cross, track, crits and putz around recovery rides on a different bike).
1. The battery life: atrocious. G3 uses a small hearing aid kind of battery that lasts at the ABSOLUTE most 3 months of daily use. The first time my battery died was about a month in.
2. SW/FW: For whatever reason, the battery dying coincided with needing a firmware update. After replacing the battery in that first month, the unit would not work properly until I plugged it in and updated FW, which is another special pain in the ass because it never seems to work quite like you wanted to. Pain in the ass, but when all is said and done, it's fine and it works.
3. Crash resistance: At some point, I got rear-ended by some idiot sucking my wheel during his commute, who ran straight into me when I had to hit the brakes. He taco'd my wheel beyond repair, and left a pretty good scar where his tire rubbed agains the plastic shell of the hub. Cosmetically, a bit of a blemish, but the hub did not suffer and was rebuilt into yet another A23.
4. Bearings: Ugh. Sometime after the wheel being rebuilt (March) I had to pull the wheel to swap the cassette to put it on my 9 speed bike. The bearings felt rough. REALLY rough. I took off the cassette, pulled the freehub body. The freehub body bearings felt like they were pretty toasted. The hub bearings did not feel a whole lot better.
>I find this a bit strange given that the winter was a relatively dry one up here. Yes, it rained, and yes, I did ride in the rain, but nowhere nearly enough to justify bearing death. I've ridden plenty of other hubs in the rain before without any issue. My take on this is that it is hard to drop the price of a product by nearly half and not have quality take a bit of a dive.
5. Customer service: After spending several days chasing answers from the shop and CycleOps, it was determined that you cannot do ANY service on this hub yourself save swapping the freehub. If bearings have to be replaced, it has to be done in the factory, unlike the previous generation which can be done with a bearing press at the LBS. If the hub is out of warranty, this service will cost you $350. If the hub is under warranty, its free plus the cost of shipping.
Given my experience with the bearings, I wasnt so thrilled about this hub and future prospects (thinking that its just a matter of time before I have to start shelling out $350/year or half the cost of the hub just to keep it running.) I decided that the best thing to do would be to convert it to a track hub, where it would see about 1/3 or less use as it did on roads, and would likely never ever be subjected to wet weather again.
The issue with converting the powertap to track was tricky. Having talked to CycleOps, they were of course willing to warranty the hub as it was less than a year old. However, they still wanted to charge me $350 if I wanted to do a track conversion since it involved installing a new torque tube, completely changing the axle and installing a new fixed driver. I thought that sucked, but I went ahead anyway because at this point, I really wanted to have power at the track.
I sent my hub after getting an RMA # and waited. The gentleman on the other side (Kip) assured me that there would be a 2 day turn-around. I checked tracking, and contacted him several days later to give him my credit card. I got an answering machine and no email response that week.
The following tuesday, Kip emailed me to tell me that he had been out for several days, that the hub had not been worked on, and that he would NOT be charging me for the work because it was taking longer than he said. HOLY CRAP, I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS. EFFING FANSTASTIC, THANKS KIP! In any case, 3 days later the hub was on its way back to me, and is being built up into a track tubular. I also received (at my request) a replacement freehub body under warranty.
As for the road: my shop owner friend had an unsold SL+ in inventory and I decided that would be my new power meter for road training. I got it for a song because it's the older model. Serviceable locally and had it built up within a week of asking for a new wheel.
As stated before, I do not believe you can drastically drop the price of an item without sacrificing some quality. From reading about SL+ and my friends who ride them, I believe these older models are superior to the G3 in quality and serviceability. I think the extra grams are more than worth not having to pay out $350 for a bearing swap.
My overall view on the G3:
Functionality: as a power meter, it's great. Power readings are accurate and very consistent. 5/5
Reliability: due to battery life and my experience with the bearings, I'd say its pretty poor. 2/5
Customer service: 10/5, but I'd imagine it would be still be 4.5/5 if I was charged for the service. They are good at communicating with customers and are pretty clear.
If I remember, care, or am bored enough in another 6 months I will update this with my findings on the track version and updates, if any on the SL+ (although I think that this has been well documented by now.)_