Why is there no shoe based powermeter? I routinely ride more than one bike and a powermeter platformed in or on a shoe seems to make great sense
Like a pedal based power meter?
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No. Not pedal based. Shoe based. I’m not certain why that isn’t possible ? But if I had a shoe based power meter it wouldn’t matter what bike I was riding
No one said it was not possible. It does not make sense from a time or financial investment perspective.
Ever heard of one size fits all?
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The are multiple issues that make shoe based power meter a non started…
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Placement. There are electronic parts that need to be placed somewhere. The cycling shoe doesn’t have enough space to accommodate what it need and the batteries to keep it powered
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Mass production. A shoe is very individual thing. There are many shoe brands and inside the shoe brand you have multiple models. People like what they like, and if they don’t like your power meter shoe, you are toasted. Fit would need to be perfect for everyone and that’s a hard to accomplish.
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Price. A top of the line bike shoe cost hundreds. Probably more than a single side power meter. If you add the cost of a power meter to the price of the shoe, it will put it out of reach from everyone, and with the current prices of pedals power meters it would be very hard to justify…
I see where it can be useful to have it on the shoe, sadly, there is not enough market
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All make sense. Thank you. I guess I’m either going to have to move pedals between bikes or decide on one bike I will use for training (least preferred option)
I had one of the Brim pre-release versions. They sent them to backers, as a consolation prize for going out of business.
It was worthless.
A shoe-based power meter would need to be modular in some form…either through the insole or through the cleat. If it is incorporated into the shoe itself, you have a MASSIVE sku issue and extraordinarily high inventory costs. (Every shoe needs to be a power meter acros all sizes).
If that shoe doesn’t fit someone’s foot, you have lost them as a potential customer.
And then once that shoe reaches the end of its lifespan, it is toast. So you have to buy a new pair / PM.
If you incorporate it into the insole or cleat, you have the same issue of wear, only faster. Not to mention the design / sealing challenges that come with those locations.
And once you have some degree of modularity designed, you basically have a pedal-based system that can be easily moved.
From an engineering point of view, you need predictable load directions to measure force reliably. The more directions of movement there are, the hard it becomes. But people move their feet inside their shoes, they might pedal heel up or down, in or out, and I’d think often there is some sort of rolling movement too. That’s all very hard to measure consistantly.
My bikes all have the same crankset/BB, so I can move my crank-based PM easily between bikes. It’s only one bolt, so I reckon its even easier than moving pedals.
Also - you might want to think about your budget. You could potentially get two single-sided PMs for the price of power pedals, and have them on two bikes.
That does make better sense. I run campag equipment on most - except SRAM on a gravel bike. So that might be an option. Thanks for adding this
Thanks I wasn’t suggesting a meter intrinsic to the shoe but one that is cleat based as you’ve said. I wasn’t clear.