iLike iRide iBike – Initial iBike Impressions
Early in the day on Tuesday I checked the weather to see if I would be able to ride in the evening after work. After a beautiful weekend it was now raining and pretty cool. Looking at the hour-by-hour forecast I was happy to see a small window open at the time I needed. It was the night to set up my new iBike iAero.
I had ordered my iBike back on April 5th. By the 13th it hadn’t yet arrived. So, I called down to the iBike HQ in Florida to check to see if I could get a tracking number. It was then I learned that the order had been misplaced. “We’re sorry,” the pleasant voice on the other end said. “We’ll get it out to you right away. You should have it be Wednesday.”
That was okay because I was looking to get the iAero in order to review it here on LowCadence.com as I have the Garmin 500 paired with my Quarq CinQo. Another purpose for it was to mount it on the black Giant TCR Advanced. When I have ridden that bike my coach has had to estimate my workout. An iBike would be a simple way to capture the power readings when I ride that bike as well as to get measurements when I start to train on the time trial rig.
Late Thursday the iBike arrived. I decided to not worry with it because I had several things to deal with and it was a race weekend. Better to wait until I had more time.
Then Friday went crazy! I was supposed to drive down to Charleston Friday evening for the Pivotal Fitness Race Weekend. Before leaving, I was to pick up my Boyd Bikes wheels. There had been a delay in getting the wheels built because of a shipment problem with the spokes. Turns out I didn’t have the wheels put together until close to 5 PM. It was too late to get in a ride and I didn’t want to race the wheels without getting some miles on them first. At the same time, being they were carbon wheels with the cork brakes and new cassette, I didn’t want to go changing things out.
My bright idea was to load both bikes up on the car. I would setup the black Giant with the iBike and race it on Saturday. After the race, I would get some miles in on the white Giant and race it Sunday afternoon. It seemed a perfect plan.
Late Friday, I was in the garage of my teammate’s in-laws connecting the sensors to the bike. There are five parts to connect to your bike with the iBike. The speed sensor and its magnet are placed either on the front fork/front wheel or on the right chainstay/rear wheel. The cadence sensor goes on the left chainstay with its magnet on the left crank. Finally, you mount the wireless base on the stem.
This setup was relatively simple. Though I do wish they would put some sort of two-sided tape on the crank magnet. I’m not confident that the cable tie is going to keep it from slipping on the crank arm. Also, for someone just experiencing iBike, I was really concerned about the placement of the wireless base on the stem. The instructions have the impression that its placement was very important.
After getting it all on there, I tried to get some sleep before making the drive from Kiawah Island to the I’On Village in Mount Pleasant. Coming across the draw bridge we got turned around a little bit and lost about ten minutes. Time was starting to get tight.
I unloaded the bike and got ready. Then I planned to set up my iBike during my warm up. This was stupid.
People familiar with the iBike are aware of the iBike Hokey Pokey. It is a dance you have to do when setting up the device. When you look at the instructions it looks rather daunting with declarations such as “Hold the bike VERY still.” You are left thinking that it is VERY easy to mess up the setup. In the pressure of that moment, I just couldn’t get it right and finally decided to race sans power meter.
I took the computer unit off and staring up at me was the huge wireless base. It looked like something into which I would not want to do a face plant. I put the unit back on and went to the line with it turned off.
I’ll be honest, I think the problems I had getting things set up had a big bearing on my performance in the race. 1) I did not get a good warm up because I was playing with the iBike, 2) I was questioning whether or not the iBike would be worth it, and 3) frankly, my mind wasn’t on the race. After finishing 19th, I just ignored the iBike and got out my tried and true white Giant with the new Boyd Wheels and Quarq power meter.
That brings us to Tuesday night. This time I took more time to carefully read the instructions. Without the pressure of an impending race, they made more sense. I started the iBike dance and found that really it wasn’t that hard and the unit walked you through the process. However, you would NEVER be able to set up your iBike for the first time without the printed instructions. There were a couple of times I wasn’t entirely sure of the next step and went forward by faith — to find that taking the instructions as face value lead me to the correct steps.
After several minutes turning the bike this way and that and clicking here and there on the unit, I was able to throw my leg over the bike and start turning the pedals. It was time to do the “out and back” to calibrate the device. It also began to rain. Did I mention it was cool?
The iBike uses the forces acting against the rider to measure the power being produced rather than measuring the power being applied to the resistance by the rider. This makes the speed sensor, environmental sensors, and wind sensor very important. All of these variables enter a formula that also includes the build of the rider, his position on the bike, and the weight of the rider and bike. This calibrating ride would set the stage for the formula to start spitting out the results.
The iBike screen instructed me to ride in one direction for one mile. As I did so it counted up to the necessary distance. After completing the required distance I turned around it it recognized that I was now on the “back” portion of the calibration ride. At one point, I thought the device was locked up because when I looked down at the screen it showed .2 miles even though I was nearing the end. Ahhhhh, it was counting down!
My experience with the setup was tainted by my Saturday morning mess. To be honest, after riding with a power meter that uses physical strain gauges to measure forces, I was a little skeptical of the mathematical magic that drives the iBike. However, the bottom line is that the iBike did everything it was supposed to do during the setup. Despite my skepticism and lack of confidence, after about 30 minutes I was done and ready to ride.
Taking the bike along one of my normal routes, I kept my eye on the power read out. I’ve come to know what to expect on the various sections. Once again, the iBike was shooting down my skepticism. It will take some closer inspection of the data to find how close the readings are to my CinQo, but my initial impression is that the numbers were very close.
Then I started to think about all the positives of having the unit. For starters, here I was riding my black Giant and getting the data I would need to upload for my coach to see. Also, it was giving me some numbers I don’t see with my CinQo — the forces of the wind. Being the data weenie that I am, that is going to be fun to play with!
By the time I reached home shivering and wet in the 55 degree evening, I was grinning on the inside. The iBike works. There is a lot more for me to learn about the device and I know that I can dial it in even further. I’ll be letting you know how it goes. Until then…
I like what I see with the iBike.
Wait, so the iBike doesn’t use any kind of hub or wheel to determine the power?For $200 some broke collegiate racers can be training with power? That sounds amazing. Great initial review.
Never mind, finally figured out their website and the various computers, an iBike pro is still quite a bit cheaper than a normal power setup.
I think $700 for the ibike pro is way overpriced. You can get a wired powertap wheel built from competitive cyclist for less than that.
But then how are you going to get data from a race? I know I wouldn’t want a heavy wired power tap wheel on my bike during a race.
In my opinion, the wireless iPro is the way to go, unless you have a wireless SRM, Quarq, or wireless powertap. . .then you’ll need the iAero to read the watts from one of those. And when you do that you can do some really cool virtual wind tunnel measurements. I tweaked my time trial position around last year and was over a minute faster at the French Broad time trial.