Power Meter benefits for new triathlete

As others have stated, it's useless if you don't know how to use it to structure your workouts.  It can provide invaluable feedback, but it takes a little bit of education.  I love mine, but I've found I get the most out of it when I have a coach to maximize it's benefit.

As great of a tool as it is, it can also be your worst enemy if you don't like having your power numbers staring you in the face all the time.  If you're a person who likes unstructured fun training, then a PM might not be for you.  If you like to have every minute of your workouts planned and with a specific purpose, then a PM is the best thing ever. 

If you think you're going to be at this long term, I'd go with a crank based PM, most likely the quarq.  I have a PowerTap, and while it works great, it's limiting on wheel choices.  The costs of buying a new race wheel with a PT hub versus buying one without more than justifies the upfront expense of the crank PM. 

Which I have. 

I still would prefer to have the crank based PM and then have more alternatives on wheels.  The only thing keeping me from doing that is that I've already invested money into the PT...  If I could go back, I would go with the quarq and not the PT. 

I think purchasing a specific model powermeter is going to come down to personal preference… I have 3 powertap wheels and a Quarq. I have multiple bikes and the thought of switching a crank out to move a powermeter for training just doesn’t sound like much fun. Albeit I can do it and it may only take 10 minutes it does not seem like a good use of time plus if I goof it up, I would rather reseat a wheel during a race then DNF because I goofed up the installation of a crank.

The one that really perplexes me is the one that goes in the pedal spindle. While I think it is a great idea and in talking with some engineers that developed the PowerTap it has left a lot of questions that need to be answered before I would jump to that ship.

I don’t see the Metigear coming out in the immediate future so I would not be holding my breath. Nor do I see it being as "economical" as they stated that it would be.  There is only one head unit that will accept two ANT+ streams of data at once and it costs a mere $1300.00. So for the correct set up, you are at 2K for the two powermeters (one in each pedal as described on their website “Independently measures forces in each leg, and reports total power (watts)&rdquo So by my math this device is going to roughly cost around $3300.00 (unless another manufacturer can come up with a device that can accept two streams of data cheaper) to get it to be where it needs to be to operate correctly, further the manufacturer of this head unit is currently working on their own powermeter that works off of crank arms so production of the head unit for Metigear is not their highest priority. At that price you can get 2 powertap wheels one Zipp 404 with an SL+ the other a DT Swiss with a PRO+ and Servo Computer or for 300 dollars less or for about 200 dollars more 2 Quarq’s with 2 Garmin 500’s.

You never are upfront!  When I bought my PowerTap I said the exact same thing.  In a couple years, you might be singing a different tune.

Either way, it's a good purchase and best of luck!

So it appears that look/polar will be the first to the market with a pedal based powermeter. Bad news is MSRP is a little under 2400.00 USD