Garmin Cycling Dynamics worth upgrading to two-sided pedals

Equipment
1

I currently use a Single-sided Garmin XC-100. Does adding the right-side pedal, and thereby enable cycling Dynamics add important details/insights?? Platform Center Offset insights sounds most promising to me, but i am not sure if they provide actionable insights.

Adding a right-side pedal would cost about $500 (when on sale), so the opportunity cost is real for me

A little background: I am mid-fifties. Indoor I use TR do guide me with structured training and am planning to do this for the rest of my active life (following Friel’s approach he detailed in ‘Fast over 50’).
Outdoor riding is primarily long distance riding (up to 400K brevets) as well as social coffee rides (up to 3 hours). I have no plans to race.

2

Total power is the primary upgrade.

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3

Food for thought, if you do upgrade and want to use CD to analyze your indoor TR workouts, you need to dual record since TR does not capture or pass through that data.

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4

I understand that a single-sided pedal estimates total power and that dual-sided be more accurate.

Question is whether dual-sided power values will differ a lot from single-sided (estimated) power values?

5

Depends. If one leg is stronger than the other, then total power is more accurate.

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6

I haven’t looked at my cycling dynamics data for years. I even decided not to add it to my P2M even if it is just Euro 50.

Unless you have a suspicion that something is wrong (f.ex. getting injuries or specific pain when riding) I simply don’t see it as actionable or useful information.

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7

As a Rally 200 owner I can say it not worth it at all for Cycling Dynamics, you’ll probably look at them for a week and then never again. Never has it impacted any training choices for me. It could be useful for dual sided power recording, but only if you are not 50/50 (I’m 48/52 indoors, 50/50 outdooors).

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8

The only thing I look at these days is after setting up new cleats if the offset changes.

I found the data super cool to look at but very hard to take action on that wasn’t already doing the usual things to improve a pedal stroke.

The time spent looking at the graphs is almost entirely better served by doing a minute of stretches or making better food decisions.

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9

Can someone explain how you know that dual sided power meters are reading the same? I mean what if one side reads 5 watts down then you end up with a built in imbalance. What if the pedals are in-spec but one reads +1% and the other reads -1%?

People go on and on about how horrible single sided power meters are but can never explain how you get two power meters to agree. I’d think that crank based would be the most accurate and reliable.

From a practical point of view, I don’t think it matters. You measure your power duration curve with whatever you got and train relative to that that.

10

No one on this thread is saying that single sided is horrible.

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11

Agreed but in almost every thread of single vs dual, someone will eventually come along and tell us how horrible single sided power is.

12

:man_shrugging:

Precognition? Time to watch Minority Report :thinking:

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13

I went from single to dual and honestly it doesn’t make that big of a difference. The only difference was my ftp dropping 10 watts by switching to dual sided. My left leg is usually stronger in the endurance zone but once I go above tempo my right leg starts to do more of the work. It’s kind of confusing and I wouldn’t have known without switching. That doesn’t mean it was worth it
I had some money and wanted to splurge on myself. All you need is an accurate number to base workout zones off of.
FYI: I use garmin rally pedals, went from 100-200.

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