Re: Cycle Computers: Bikefanclub.com

I found measuring wattage a great indicator of how I was doing from day to day. I really liked it. In the end, I had so much trouble with the power unit itself, I decided to bag it.

The unit requires the watch to be strapped onto the handlebar base and two tiny pins on the base line up and make contact with 2 tiny holes on the back of the 725.

This was pretty easy to do, but I found that even with the watch strapped in as tight as possible, the connection was was pretty flaky - meaning it would show your power, speed, cadence for 15 minutes then wouldn't for 3 minutes, then it would work, then not again. Very spotty and that was on my trainer. When I took it on the road, the performance got even worse and forget about it on any rough surface like chip seal roads.

I sent the power unit and watch to polar service dept twice and both times they said it needed new batteries and shipped it back to me. I talked to Polar support quite a bit, which is why I value a friendly and helpful Customer Service so much.

After each call to Polar, I found myself making excuses for their attitudes ("maybe it was just that one rep who is a jerk" or "maybe this guy was just having a bad day" or "maybe that gal is just sick of her job" etc). After talking to so many different reps and getting the same crap, I figured either I'm the one who is a jerk or the attitude must be dictated from the corporate level. They may support local rides as well as the pros, but my experience with the company has soured me on their products. Especially at those prices.

Anyway, I had the power unit setup correctly but for whatever reason it was just really flaky. My LBS seemed to think it was a flawed design. I sold the power unit (but kept the 725) and used that to fund the Garmin 305 which can be bought new for well below MSRP online.

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