Compatible bike pedals with power meter

[Daniele Gusmini]

Hi,

I’m looking for pedals with a power meter.

Can you recommend some models compatible with Suunto Vertical?

Thank you

Daniele

[Ze Stuart]

@Daniele-Gusmini logically any that support Bluetooth will work, but the Suunto watches only support single-sided power, so if you’re only going to use it with a Suunto, you can save some money with a single-sided variant (like the Garmin Rally pedals). I haven’t used them for ages, mind.

Something to be mindful of is that the pedal will report cadence data, but our Suuntos will not read cadence and power from the same unit: if you want cadence it has to come from a bike pod, which can either be the Suunto one (works, but the magnet positioning is not reliable without epoxy). You can read my notes on it here:

https://zulusierra.co/p/combination-speed-cadence-sensor-troubleshooting

And my notes on ‘tricking’ your Suunto into working with a full suite of modern bike sensors, and like it, here:

https://zulusierra.co/p/wyuring-suunto-for-cycling-sensors

Anecdotally, the last time I used power meter pedals, I found them unreliable, and have stuck with SRAM’s crank based power meter since. You can normally get for under $500 if you shop around, less if you’re happy with single-sided power data. The power meter pedals I had were Garmin, connecting to a Garmin bike computer, and even in the same ecosystem sometimes the connection to the bike computer would drop, or only one side would connect… I like the idea of just moving my power meter pedals between bikes, but couldn’t make it into a reliable reality.

[VoiGAS]

@Ze-Stuart Wow, didn’t realize Suunto is that limited in regard of biking. Just one sensor per type, single side power, no combined metrics. Also no AOD Display on the AMOLED watches (for Bike mount) and no Suunto Bike Computers available.
Really strange, because it doesn’t seem to be rockez science to add these features. And maybe a No Go for a Road Biker to use Suunto. Lucky me, I don’t need these things fortunatly

[Ze Stuart]

@VoiGAS the display on my Race doesn’t turn off when it’s on my handlebars, I think they fixed that, no? The map switches to dark mode after a couple of minutes or something, but I don’t find it to be a problem.

Sensors, though, yes it’s a shambles. I can only hope that the sensor issues go the way of the UI lag we used to have, that is to say magically vanish after an update when they (I assume) re-write their whole Bluetooth implementation: I don’t think it’s changed since the days of the Spartan, or before.

Nerdy trivia: I ran the Unix binary strings against a firmware package a few years ago, and it looks like there’s support for multiple sensor types (references to bikepod 1, bikepod 2 and so on), but it’s never come to anything we can access.

[VoiGAS]

@Ze-Stuart Would be great with the display - for me it darkens to a very low brightness. The biggest differences are in the maps for sure an I guess the display is also somehow readable in the dark mode.
So you are right, it should be at least usable

Edit: Exciting find with the multiple sensors! Maybe they will come in the future

[Daniele Gusmini]

@Ze-Stuart thanks for your info

I think for now I’ll keep the “Suunto Bike Sensor” to use the bike indoor.

[Likarnik]

@Ze-Stuart I have assioma power pedals and have them paired as power pod. They transmit cadence, so I ditched suunto bike pod

[Ze Stuart]

@Likarnik interesting, how do you have them configured in the sensors? Are you relying on GNSS for speed?

[nseslija]

Hi, I am using Favero Assioma DUO with my Vertical. Not for a long time though…so far no problems…

[Likarnik]

@Ze-Stuart yes, I found that by incident, I went on a trip and took my power pedals with me, but no suunto bike pod. I rented a bike, put on my power pedals and cadence was just there, no additional settings. For speed, GNSS is enough for me. I had more problems with bike pod, as it was moving during wheel changes, sometimes over bump the ‘hand’ measuring speed just wen to far from magnet and so on. Crappy plastic started to dissolve

[Ze Stuart]

@Likarnik yes, the bike pod is miserable. Not a Suunto complaint, all bike sensors with magnets are.

So the pedals are connected as bike pod for cadence, how are they paired for power? I can pair my crank power meter as a BP, but power doesn’t come across, and I can’t pair to it as both power and BP…

[Likarnik]

@Ze-Stuart I just paired them once, as power pod. Pedals transmitted cadence even if bike pod was paired but not available (on rental bike). Not sure was the priority when I had pedals for power and bike pod for speed for measuring cadence - what was the source. Later I just removed bike pod from pairing and that is all.

[Ze Stuart]

@Likarnik really interesting, thanks! I’d love to know why the combined power/cadence meters I’ve used over the years don’t send cadence data to Suunto. Such a black box of a device.

[A Former User]

Hello,

I use garmin ralle xc100 on my MTB in parallel to the suunto bike pod.
In this combination, cadence will be tracked from bike pod (if the magnet will be replaced, cadence data is gone). So (suunto?) bike pod wins.

On my road bike, I use the 4iiii ultegra crank power meter, without bike pod.
In this case, cadence and power will be taken from the pwr meter.

Both power meters working fine with suunto 9peak pro.

As far as I know, suunto supports still only single power meters.
So, dual pwr meters would be wasted money.

BR

[Ze Stuart]

@morm1 said in Compatible bike pedals with power meter:

As far as I know, suunto supports still only single power meters.
So, dual pwr meters would be wasted money.

Agreed, really interesting to see that other power/cadence devices can send both the Suunto.

[nseslija]

@Ze-Stuart Assioma DUO as I can see use info from both pedals, connecting only to left. And cadence is there, of course.

[Ze Stuart]

@nseslija clearly I need to update my blog post, thanks again.

[Manuel Extreme]

@Daniele-Gusmini

Favero Assioma DUO