Does anyone know anything about Body Rocket aero testing?
There is no mention of price on their page but I’m guessing it will be high priced so when they say consumer they aren’t meaning an average rider so probably not selling high quantities.
I spotted them on a crowd funding site and was wondering if they were worth a punt. Gut feel says no but wondered what people thought.
There’s also these folks who’ve been around for awhile already, if you’re looking for something with a price already attached, and not an unreasonable one at least when compared to certain power meters. POWERPOD TECH – Velocomp LLC
Sounds like a fantastic way to make money out of middle aged men.
Not saying it’s a con. In fact, I’m pretty sure it works well in theory. How it works in real life will depend on a load of factors.
For the majority of the people that can afford this, more riding, strength training, yoga and ‘Elements of Style’ will probably have a greater effect.
I had the precursor to the power pod, their iBike product. It was nice being able to view wind speed and calculated power. Since I didn’t have a power meter at the time, I had no way to validate the calculations.
The cda was set in advance, so I’d select hoods, which meant the calcs would be off if I changed my position. Not sure if the power pod is more advanced.
MAKE WIND YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE!
I never feel like riding the day after a curry, but maybe I should!
I’ll have a look that them, it isn’t a product I would buy, I was wondering about the investment and whether it was the type of thing that would sell. Seeing as the reply wasn’t a flat “don’t touch it” I might have a further look when they release more details.
lol. I’m not vouching for the product though I know a couple people who got the PowerPod a few years ago.
I’ve got a single sided 4iiii power meter that does everything and more than I need it to. If I was ever to become truly competitive, I think I’d make more gains by paying better attention to the things Sir Erik mentions, plus diet.
I tried an earlier version of the PowerPod. It worked for a while, and then it did not. Customer service was almost non existent.
The curse of the early adopter.
Some people have asked, rightfully so, why I haven’t released an in-depth review of an aero sensor to date. And the single-sentence reason is relatively simple: I have very low confidence in the ability to do any meaningful data-backed review of such a device at this time.
The more complex answer: It’s really hard. Incredibly hard, to get consistent enough data on these devices that most consumers can use day-to-day. And, for about half of these companies – the goal is indeed day-to-day testing/monitoring of your aero properties. The other half of the companies are geared more towards coaching and analysis services, where an ‘aero professional’ will walk you through the test procedure in person and help you with fit or equipment-related changes.
This second category I have a relatively high level of confidence in. I’ve gone through some of these services in testing over the years, in both beta and production scenarios, and been relatively confident in the data concepts, and data backing. In fact, I’d argue that I was more confident in having the highly trained staff than the technology itself, because frankly the insight of the staff from various companies having done hundreds of tests is more valuable than one specific sensor reading. But doing it on my own out in the wild on real roads with real changes? That’s much messier.
From this dc rainmaker article on a similar product
Sounds like you’ll get lots of data from these sensors, but doing anything actionable with them is a different beast.
So a product to sell to coaches who need to then do work to understand the output and then translate it to client fit.
Hi everyone, I’m the founder of Body Rocket. Thanks for your interest! The Body Rocket system is quite a bit different to the others mentioned here. If you go back to the iBike and PowerPod/AeroPod they were first sold as ‘indirect force power meters’ before pivoting to being aero meters when they didn’t have success as power meters. You could characterize them, and every other aero meter to date, as indirect force aero meters. Body Rocket is directly measuring the drag forces, the same as a wind tunnel.
Just like power meters we’ll start at the top, and work our way out the broadest audience we can. Prices aren’t set yet but the first product will come at a premium. They will eventually drop down into the range of power meters though. It also functions as a power meter so it’s a great deal and we expect to sell similar volumes to other power meters (or better!).
I’ll keep my eye on Crowdcube or whatever platform it was and see what your offering is when it comes up.