Shimano Dura-Ace R9100P Power Meter – First Ride & Thoughts

I’ve had a couple of rides with the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100P  Power Meter and this is now on my 2020 climbing bike. There will be more to follow on the whole bike, perhaps I will write a detailed post on that over the Christmas break, but for now here are my first thoughts on the power meter ahead of, perhaps, a review in 2020.

Any such review will probably, unfortunately, coincide with the release of the R9200P. if, indeed, such a product is even planned by Shimano (IDK) who could, instead, quite plausibly release an Ultegra version of the 9100p.

Back to the Dura-Ace R9100P

The installation was relatively straightforward and most of the bits seemed to intuitively fit where you’d expect. As I’m sure others have pointed out, sticking the magnet onto the chainstay seems a bit 2017 and I also found the charging port cover more difficult to open than I’d like. Perhaps it’s just because it was new, I had to double-check the manual to make sure I was opening it the right way! Still, now it’s all juiced up I won’t have to go there again for another 300 hours more of ride time.

After the installation, the 9100P paired up like most sensors pair up these days…ie easily. Well, it did pair well with head units but I can’t for the life of me get ANYTHING to pair with my Android smartphone to the point where I’ve had enough of Android. I believe someone is being very nice to me and buying me an iPhone at Christmas, so I’m going to look at Shimano’s firmware via the E-Tube app once Santa has left the room. Having said that my understanding is that there have been no firmware updates for a while so I’m not sure what insights the E-tube app will bring. Edit after some perseverance, the Andoird app turned out to be more reliable!

I love the Dura-Ace as cranks both in terms of aesthetics and feel. But the power meter? Well, you’d hardly notice it. As you can see in the image above there is only a small part of it visible once installed on the bike.

I’ve scanned through some quick numbers when comparing to a power meter pedal but I have not yet looked in any great detail at the stats. Superficially when compared to my pedals, the tracks match very well, yet despite the curves LOOKING THE SAME, there seems to be a 1% discrepancy – albeit a fairly consistent one. I’ll have to stick it on the Kickr to get a view as to which one is right. (9100P has stated accuracy of +/-2%)

There seem to also be some overly-low cadence troughs in places yet, on the ride I’m thinking of, the Favero Assioma had cadence troughs at other points, neither of which particularly perturb me.

You can get an R9100P for around £1100 now at discounted prices (Wiggle UK & Competitive Cyclist USA, link below) which compare not too unreasonably with other-branded power meters that have been stuck onto Dura-Ace cranksets.