First ride
We ventured out onto the Castle Combe motor racing circuit for our first ride on the Vector power pedals, a largely smooth and almost entirely flat surface offering the obvious advantage to the tester of repeatable conditions. We’ll spare ourselves the embarrassment of sharing the outputs measured by the Vector, but it’s fair to say they were consistent across the laps, and corresponded to our rising or falling effort.
Out-of-the-saddle sprints saw the numbers rise instantly and dramatically, while recovery saw them tumble. Sustained efforts brought a sustained output. Our immediate suspicion that by failing to record a Cavendish-esque 1600 watts, we had uncovered some fatal flaw in the Vector’s calibration proved unfounded. It was soberingly accurate.
The profile on our loan Edge 510 unit displayed all the data fields on a single page, although this is configurable (speed, for example, is displayed on a separate page in standard configuration). Our ‘power page’ displayed outputs for the previous three seconds, the previous 30 seconds, average power and cadence, among others. Further readings for periodised outputs, ranging from five seconds to 20 minutes, or a customised selection, can be viewed in Garmin Connect.
The most impressive technical feature is the Vector’s ability to display a left-right power balance, which for this correspondent and other delegates we spoke to showed a marginal favouring of a stronger leg, which increased as the laps unfolded and became an early indicator of fatigue.
Of greater use still might be the Functional Threshold Power (FTP) reading, effectively the maximum sustainable output over a period of an hour. The FTP rating will form the basis for all subsequent training zones (Garmin specify seven zones, ranging from Active Recovery to Neuromuscular Power). Garmin Vector displays “market-leading ride data”, much of which will be familiar to Training Peaks users, including FTP, Organised Power, Intensity Factor and Training Stress Score.
