Top Gear: Quarq Riken And Elsa Cranks

Quarq have released the Riken 10R, their first power measuring crank under $2,000, and the Elsa 10R, both boasting new features for Quarq units in 2013. Both units have their ANT+ ID visible for easy pairing with your compatible head unit. They also use Omnical; an improvement that allows you to swap chainrings and maintain accurate power readings without the need to have the unit recalibrated. The Riken shares 170, 172.5 and 175mm length cranks with Elsa, though she has new, shorter 162.5 and 165mm crank options and goes out to a long 177.5mm as well. Elsa also features Power Balance, a system that uses speed and cadence to calculate your right-side power from the left-side torque measurements. Elsa also uses SRAM’s Exogram hollow carbon crank arms, bringing their improved stiffness for better shifting. 

Quarq claim power measurement accuracy of both cranksets is within +/- 1.5%. 

Price:

Riken GXP: $1,899

Riken BB30: $1,959

Elsa GXP: $2,369

Elsa BB30: $2,429

Distributed by: Echelon Sports P/L www.echelonsports.com.au