After a year of using the Wattbike monitor and software we had, by the end of November, come up with a short wishlist of changes for the monitor and software. The most exciting of these is the development of the polar view. Previously it had been a very simple radial force plot showing the force that you applied throughout the pedal cycle – this is what it used to look like:

Old version of the expert software - polar view

What has been added is a measure of efficiency – given as a percent, and the addition of the angle of attack for both legs. We have also added some more arrows to better explain how the polar graph correlates to the pedaling on the bike (left foot starts at the top, right at the bottom and the as you push down the the left foot the graph starts going anti-clockwise from the top).

New Polar View

The graphical representation is better and more helpful and the efficiency percentage should also allow users to become familiar with the benefits of cycling efficiently and not simply standing on the pedals. When we have run taster sessions on the Wattbike at the World Championships and World Cup we have been surprised by how even reasonably good club cyclists have been very inefficient! It was also always possible to assess how good someon was, i.e.  when any of the top track cyclists have had a go they have – even using toe-clips produced a very efficient power plot, and even though at the time we did not recognise him when Jan Bos (Theo’s brother and former member of the Dutch Olympic Cycling team) came to have a go his power plot immediately gave away the calibre of cyclist he had been.