SRAM quietly stops selling PowerTap power meters
Existing PowerTap owners will still be supported, but no new products will be sold.
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During the first week of February, SRAM removed all PowerTap power meters for sale from its website without fanfare. While this comes as no surprise — Quarq power meters are owned by SRAM — it does mean the end of the road for a brand that was nearly synonymous with inexpensively and accurately measuring power on the bike, for the past two decades.
“The PowerTap G3 Hub and P2 Pedals are now discontinued. While we are no longer accepting new orders, we are fulfilling existing orders and honoring the full warranty period,” says Michael Zellmann, senior corporate public relations manager at SRAM. “Going forward, we have decided to focus on further developing the next generation of power meter technologies.”
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Those who have recently ordered new PowerTap products will not be left orphaned, and SRAM will fill orders placed before PowerTap products were removed for sale from the SRAM website. Support will still be available for PowerTap products, however SRAM has not indicated for how long.
PowerTap arrived on the market in 1998 with a hub-based power meter that was a fraction of the cost of the few competitors at the time.
PowerTap was acquired by Saris in 2001 and enjoyed enough success over the next decade to afford it a research and development budget. In 2015, Saris launched the PowerTap P1 pedal-based power meter, and the C1 spider-based power meter. These two new products slotted in alongside the PowerTap G3 hub based power meter as affordable and reliable options, but never found the same wide adoption that that other crank-, spider-, or pedal-based power meters enjoyed.
SRAM acquired PowerTap in April of 2019, adding the G3 and P1 power meters as options available alongside the Quarq power meter lineup; the C1 spider-based power meter was discontinued at this time. But it was clear that while PowerTap had more experience in the power meter market, and was price-competitive, it took a back seat to Quarq.