Quarq Riken 10R-130BCD Road Power Meter BB30

Quarq Riken 10R-130BCD Road Power Meter BB30

Incorporating nearly all of the features of the top end Elsa model, this Quarq Riken 10R-130BCD Road Power Meter for BB30 bottom brackets is a highly desirable power meter in a competitive market. All you lose between this and the Elsa, as seen in the professional peloton, is the ability to generate power readings for both crank arms separately, hardly an issue for the majority of us. This difference pales into insignificance when you realise that you are still getting the industry topping accuracy of +/- 1.5%. This is the biggest factor in ensuring you can replicate your training efforts come race day.

It would have been very easy for Quarq to put the usability of this high-tech piece of kit beyond the use of the majority of us with complicated setup and maintenance, as you might expect considering the complexity of the instrumentation. However, ease of use seems to be at the forefront of the design with the widely available CR2032 battery being replaceable without tools. Additionally, ANT+ wireless connectivity makes getting data to display on a cycle computer a breeze, especially with the LED indicator letting you know when your devices' have paired.

No extra cadence sensors are required, which is an appreciated money saving feature, as the AxCad accelerometer takes care of this.

These days, no cycle is complete until the photos and data collected are online, how else would anyone believe what you had done?! Fortunately, you can easily upload to Strava, Training Peaks and a variety of other data analysis platforms to enable your post ride analysis.

Already it is clear that Quarq has set out to tackle many of the issues that have plagued other other power meters. Things get even better though when you learn that there is no need for re-zeroing when temperatures fluctuate into the extremes as the 10K dynamic temperature compensation feature that automatically adjusts to effect minimal drift to keep you accurately informed no matter the weather.

Construction is another area where this Quarq Riken excels by keeping weight down and strength up by combining carbon fibre for the cranks and aluminium for the spider. It is the construction which also gives this power meter the huge bonus of being simple to swap between bikes with different chain rings thanks to the OmniCal power measurement technology that takes accurate measurements independently from the chainrings. If this was not enough, Quarq has gone slightly for overkill by producing it to a waterproof rating of IPX7, meaning it can be submerged in water up to one metre for 30 minutes, which seems a little extreme even for the British weather, but is nice for peace of mind.