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PowerTap — using it and uploading to computer December 2, 2007

Posted by Kylie in : General, PowerTap , 3 comments

For now I’m just riding with the PT and seeing what I see. While riding the PT is pretty easy to use — the buttons are easy to press in gloves, and once you get used to how they scroll through screens it becomes pretty easy to see the information you wanted to see. It is very much like a regular cycling computer (too bad I haven’t used one in years).

When it came to time to read the data, first things first: I wanted to know what would happen as I uploaded things since I have this fear of losing data. Even if I don’t yet know how to read the data.

So what I learned:

1. Plug the PT into the computer and upload it into the software that you have choosen. This does nothing to the information on the device.

2. If you hold both buttons down on the PT until - clr - is displayed, it will clear all the data on the PT. Do this only after you have the data, since it doesn’t just clear the display but also removes all the data.

3. There is no way to reset the PT display without also removing all the data: so if you want to do 2 rides back to back, you have to either upload to your computer and do a clr of the device (steps 1 and 2) or leave all the data in place and have a time and a distance that is the total of the rides still on it. So not my favorite solution, but I’ll get used to it.

Ok so on first glance the PowerAgent 7 software that comes with the PowerTap is a bit… well, sucky. It appears to break every workout up based on every pause. Bleck! A day later I noticed though that as you upload it you do have a merge option. Oops. So it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought. I’m still not sure if I like it, and I’ve heard such good things about CyclingPeaks that I downloaded the trial version of that to test out.

Again, CyclingPeaks was a tough program to figure out. But I think it is easier to use and has a better interface (and that’s probably just because that is what I’ve heard about it). However, it has issues with my computer. It doesn’t always correctly read my PT. I still am not sure why it sometimes can’t find it and then a second later can. This is on a Vista machine, so perhaps it has something to do with that.