Velocomp last week announced the latest addition to their iBike Newton line, the Newton Powerstroke+. For the first time a cyclist will be able to measure their pedaling style on an outdoor bike ride. Powerstroke technology identifies wobble - and quantifies the wasted movement, wasted power, and wasted time caused by excessive wobble.

"When cyclists ride there is always wobbling movement between the bike and rider," says Velocomp CEO John Hamann. "Some amount of wobbling is natural but excessive wobbling equates to wasted motion and that means wasted power and wasted time."

"What Powerstroke does is upgrade the newton computer head to record data at sixteen times a second, which is at least 10x faster than any other competitive product. That high-speed data is then analyzed in Isaac software to get all these amazing measurements of dynamic motion, wasted motion, watts, and everything else," explains Hamann. "To put this into context, cycling performance is aided by certain measurements, heart rate measurements were 20 years ago, power measurements came about 10 years ago, and now what we're doing in the PowerStroke is quantifying this dynamic motion, this motion of the bicycle which is wobbling all around underneath the rider. What we're doing is actually measuring, quantifying, and helping cyclist understand and then improve their dynamic motion and weight as we call it on the bicycle."

[youtube width="600" height="361"]httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjl-WpPLUUs

By taking advantage of the high-speed data bus design of the iBike Newton power meter, and the accelerometer and pressure sensors used in the Newton, the Isaac desktop software is able to determine how a cyclist turns the bike crank and wobble of the handlebars. The visual indicator shows if the amount of wobble is within reasonable tolerances or if it's excessive and leads to wasted energy. This is the first time that this has been measured out on real world cycling conditions. The data will visually show where a cyclist can improve their pedaling style to gain the most efficiency in pedaling power. With the help of a bike fitter or cycling coach that is, there is "No special pill" that will improve your pedal stroke over night says John Hamann.

"In the real world, your bicycle is not glued to the floor; it's not fastened with steel posts to an indoor bicycle trainer, or stiffly attached inside of a wind tunnel. In the real world, your bicycle wobbles around. This real world motion of being out on the road, where you see sprints at the end of bike races where the riders are going crazy or you see them in the peloton doing surges and so on. The bikes are not glued to the pavement, they're wiggling all around, and the fact is, there is no one in the world who has ever measured this stuff prior to us, not out on the road, not out in the real world."

The Powerstoke+ will retail for $699, and comes with all necessary attachments. Current iBike Newton owners can upgrade their current units to Powerstroke+ with a $199 firmware upgrade. Worth noting is that the iBike is the only power meter on the market to not require a special crank, machined crank-arm, pedal, or special hub and wheels to record data.