By Levi Luder and Victor Luder, co-founders of CycloWatt · Published on Bikers.SG · Updated 1 November 2026 · 12-minute read
Power is the only cycling metric that tells you exactly how hard you are working, whatever the heat, humidity, wind or how you feel that day. This guide explains how power training works, what to look for in a power meter, and where CycloWatt, a cleat-based power meter from a Swiss startup in the ETH Zurich ecosystem, fits in.
Quick answer
A power meter is the most useful upgrade for a cyclist who wants to train seriously, because it measures your actual output in watts rather than your body's reaction to it. Most systems are fixed to one bike and cost a lot. CycloWatt takes a different route: the sensor sits inside your cleat, installs in about 30 seconds and moves with your shoes from bike to bike. It is in its final development phase, gets its pre-launch at the Tour de France EFGH Singapore Criterium on 7–8 November 2026, and is planned to go on sale in March 2027 at a planned price of S$350 (before local taxes and duties). Bikers.SG is CycloWatt's regional partner and distributor in Southeast Asia. We'll share further updates on launch timing and availability as details are confirmed.
Key takeaways
- Speed is skewed by wind and terrain, and heart rate drifts with heat, sleep and caffeine. Power in watts measures the work you actually did.
- Power meters measure at the crank, spider, pedal or, with CycloWatt, the cleat. The cleat is the only one that belongs to the rider rather than the bike.
- CycloWatt is single-sided, targets ±2% accuracy, fits Shimano SPD-SL and Look Kéo pedals, and is planned at S$350.
- Training with power starts with your FTP, seven training zones and roughly 80% of riding time at easy intensity.
- In tropical Southeast Asia, power is even more useful than in cooler climates, because heat makes heart rate unreliable.
Why speed and heart rate are not enough
If you want to know whether your ride was actually strong, and how it compared with the last one, power is the only measure that gives a straight answer. To follow a training plan, ride proper intervals, or prove to your riding group how strong you are, power is the metric that matters.
Speed misleads. A tailwind, a wheel to sit behind or a slight downhill all flatter your numbers without you working harder. Ride the same loop on a still day and your average speed collapses, even though your legs did the same job.
Heart rate is more honest, but it measures the wrong thing. Power is what you produce. Heart rate is what producing it costs you, and that cost moves constantly. Sleep debt, stress, heat, hydration, illness, altitude and caffeine all shift your heart rate at the same workload. As fitness improves, the same power gradually produces a lower heart rate, so 150 bpm in March and 150 bpm in September are not the same effort, and neither number tells you whether you got faster.
Power has none of these problems. A watt is a watt. It responds instantly, it is unaffected by temperature, dehydration, caffeine or sleep, and it lets you compare a session today with one six months ago on equal terms. That is why professional teams, and more and more serious amateurs, train and race on power.
The short version: heart rate tells you what a ride cost you. Power tells you what you actually did.
What makes a good power meter?
Once you decide you need one, the choice comes down to five things:
- Accuracy and consistency. Headline accuracy figures range from ±1% to ±3%. For training, consistency matters more than absolute accuracy: a meter that reads 2% low on every ride still tracks your progress perfectly.
- Where it measures. Crank, spider, pedal or now cleat. Each has trade-offs in cost, transferability and what it can tell you.
- Transferability. Can you move it between your road bike, your second bike and your indoor trainer, or do you need one per bike?
- Practical ownership. Battery life, charging, and resistance to water and dirt.
- Price. The main reason most amateurs still ride without one. Established systems start at around S$600 and go past S$1,200 for dual-sided setups.
Where do power meters measure power?
Every power meter does the same job: it measures force, combines it with rotational speed and outputs watts. What differs is where that happens.
| Type | How it works | Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|
| Crank arm | Strain gauges bonded to one crank arm | A proven method, but permanently tied to one bike, and installation is usually a shop job. |
| Spider | Gauges between the crank and the chainrings | Reference-grade total power, but the most bike-specific option: it needs a crankset swap, gives no left/right data and has the highest entry price. |
| Pedal | Sensors inside the pedal body or spindle | Accurate, with dual-sided options, but locks you into one pedal system. Movable between bikes with a wrench and a torque spec. |
| Cleat | Force sensors inside the cleat, attached to the shoe | Simplest to install, moves between bikes with no tools, and has the lowest price potential. Stack height may increase. Not yet on the market. |
The cleat is an interesting place to measure. It is the last point before your effort becomes forward motion, and it is the only component on this list that belongs to you rather than to a particular bike. That makes it worth a closer look.
What is CycloWatt?
CycloWatt is a cleat-integrated, single-sided cycling power meter developed by CycloWatt AG, a Swiss startup with its roots at ETH Zurich. The concept is backed by peer-reviewed research (CycloWatt: An Affordable, TinyML-Enhanced IoT Device Revolutionizing Cycling Power Metrics, presented at IEEE I2MTC 2024), the company has been supported by ETH Zurich's start-up programme and Venture Kick, and its engineering team is in the final development phase of the system.
Instead of bolting hardware to a crank or buying instrumented pedals, you screw the CycloWatt cleat onto your existing road shoe using the standard three-bolt pattern and clip in as normal. A plain matching cleat goes on the other shoe.
CycloWatt specifications
| Specification | As stated by CycloWatt |
|---|---|
| Sides measured | Single-sided |
| Target accuracy | ±2% |
| Pedal compatibility | Shimano SPD-SL and Look Kéo; road only at launch |
| Installation | About 30 seconds |
| Battery | Up to about 48 hours per charge; about 1 hour to charge via a magnetic connector |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth to your cycling computer; works with training platforms such as Garmin, Zwift and Strava |
| Stack height | Likely higher than a standard cleat (final figure to be confirmed) |
| Wear parts | Modular: replace the worn cleat body and keep the electronics module |
| Planned price | S$350 before local taxes and duties |
| Availability | Pre-launch in Singapore on 7–8 November 2026; market launch planned for March 2027 |
CycloWatt vs pedal, crank and spider power meters
| CycloWatt (cleat) | Pedal-based | Crank arm (single-sided) | Spider-based | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stated accuracy | ±2% (target) | ±1% | ±1–2% | ±1% |
| Moves between bikes | Yes, in seconds | Yes, with tools | No | No |
| Sides | Single | Single or dual | Single | Total only |
| Indicative price | S$350 planned, before local taxes and duties | S$600–1,200+ | S$500–800 | S$900+ |
| Availability | Pre-launch | Available now | Available now | Available now |
The honest read: if you need laboratory-grade precision for racing, pedal and spider systems remain the reference. CycloWatt is aimed at a different rider: the hobby cyclist who wants real insight into their riding but has always found power meters too expensive and too much hassle. If you need a meter today, browse the power meters available now at Bikers.SG.
See CycloWatt first at the Tour de France Singapore Criterium (7–8 November 2026)
CycloWatt is pre-launching its cleat power meter in Singapore at the Tour de France EFGH Singapore Criterium, held over the weekend of 7 and 8 November 2026. Now in its fifth edition, the Singapore Criterium is the only Tour de France event in Southeast Asia, with the professional race on Sunday 8 November on a city circuit around Marina Bay and the Padang. It is the first chance for riders in the region to see the CycloWatt cleat in person and talk to the team behind it.
Event details and tickets: singaporecriterium.com.
CycloWatt in Southeast Asia: Bikers.SG as regional partner and distributor
Bikers.SG is CycloWatt's regional partner and distributor in Southeast Asia. We'll share further updates on launch timing and availability as details are confirmed. Riders in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and the rest of the region can follow Bikers.SG for these updates and hands-on coverage as pre-production units become available for testing.
How to train with power
Raw power data is interesting, but on its own it does little for your training. Pairing it with your FTP is what makes you a better cyclist. The value comes from a handful of methods that have been standard in endurance coaching for two decades.
1. Establish your FTP
Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is roughly the highest power you can hold for about an hour. It is the anchor for everything else. Two common tests:
- 20-minute test: warm up thoroughly, ride 20 minutes as hard as you can hold evenly, then multiply your average power by 0.95.
- Ramp test: power rises steadily until you cannot continue, and FTP is estimated from your final minute. Shorter and less painful, but slightly less precise.
Retest every six to eight weeks. In tropical conditions, test in the coolest part of the day, because heat pushes the number down and will distort your zones.
2. Set your training zones
Zones are expressed as percentages of FTP. The widely used seven-zone model:
| Zone | Name | % of FTP | Purpose and typical duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Active recovery | <55% | Recovery rides, between intervals |
| 2 | Endurance | 56–75% | Aerobic base; the bulk of your hours |
| 3 | Tempo | 76–90% | Sustained moderate work; easy to overuse |
| 4 | Threshold | 91–105% | Raises FTP directly; 8–30 minute efforts |
| 5 | VO2 max | 106–120% | Raises your aerobic ceiling; 3–8 minute efforts |
| 6 | Anaerobic | 121–150% | 30 seconds to 3 minutes; repeatability under fatigue |
| 7 | Neuromuscular | >150% | Sprints of 5–15 seconds; raw peak power |
3. Get the intensity distribution right
The most common amateur mistake is riding everything at a moderately hard middle intensity: too hard to recover from, too easy to drive adaptation. Most successful programmes are polarised or pyramidal, with roughly 80% of time in Zone 2 or below and 20% genuinely hard. A power meter makes this enforceable, because Zone 2 discipline is nearly impossible on feel alone.
4. Sessions worth building a week around
- Endurance: 2–4 hours steady in Zone 2, with no surges up the climbs.
- Sweet spot: 3 × 12 minutes at 88–93% of FTP. High training benefit for the fatigue it costs.
- Threshold: 2 × 20 minutes at 95–100% of FTP, with 10 minutes easy in between.
- VO2 max: 5 × 3 minutes at 110–120% of FTP, with equal recovery. Brutal, and effective.
- Neuromuscular: 10 × 15 seconds all-out with full recovery, for sprint power and top-end recruitment.
5. Pace by numbers, not by ego
Power's most immediate benefit is pacing. On a long climb or a gran fondo, setting a ceiling (say 90% of FTP) and refusing to exceed it in the first third is the difference between finishing strong and blowing up. Two useful derived metrics: Normalized Power, which weights surges to better reflect the physiological cost of a ride, and Intensity Factor (Normalized Power divided by FTP), a single number for how hard a ride really was.
Power training in tropical heat
For riders in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, power is arguably more valuable than in temperate climates, precisely because heart rate is so unreliable here. A few practical points:
- Expect lower power in the heat. Sustainable output commonly drops several percent in high heat and humidity. That is physiology, not lost fitness.
- Do not chase cool-morning numbers on a hot afternoon. Adjust your targets down, or move hard sessions to early morning.
- Pair power with hydration discipline. Watts fall as sodium and fluid losses build up, and a power meter shows you that decline in real time, so manage your fluids as carefully as your pacing.
Quick recommendations by rider type
- Getting tired too early on long rides? Learning to pace with a simple system like CycloWatt may solve it.
- Starting to train with data? CycloWatt and other power meters give you the same core insight at different prices.
- Two or more bikes, or a road bike plus a trainer bike? Pedal-based power meters can do the job but need tools to swap. A cleat-based system removes that step.
- Racing and chasing marginal gains? Dual-sided pedals or a spider-based meter are likely the better choice.
Frequently asked questions
Is CycloWatt available to buy?
Not yet. CycloWatt is in its final development phase and is planned to launch in March 2027. It will be shown at a pre-launch at the Tour de France EFGH Singapore Criterium on 7–8 November 2026, and you can sign up for launch notifications at cyclowatt.ch.
Where can I buy CycloWatt in Southeast Asia?
Bikers.SG is CycloWatt's regional partner and distributor in Southeast Asia. We'll share further updates on launch timing and availability as details are confirmed.
How much will CycloWatt cost?
CycloWatt's planned price is S$350 before local taxes and duties, well below the S$600–1,200+ typical of established pedal-based systems.
How accurate is CycloWatt?
CycloWatt states a target accuracy of ±2% in real-world riding, which is adequate for training. Independent reviews will verify the final figures once production units ship.
Do I need special pedals for CycloWatt?
No. CycloWatt comes in Shimano SPD-SL and Look Kéo cleat formats, so it works with road pedals you already own in those standards. Mountain bike (SPD) pedals are not supported at launch.
How does a cleat-based power meter work?
A cleat-based power meter places force sensors inside the cleat on your shoe. CycloWatt combines force measurements with motion data and on-device machine learning to calculate your power in watts, then sends it to your cycling computer.
Can I move CycloWatt between bikes?
Yes. Because the power meter is on your shoe rather than the bike, it moves with you to any bike with compatible road pedals, including an indoor trainer setup, with no tools needed.
Do I need a power meter?
You can ride without one. Power data helps you avoid fatigue on long rides through better pacing, follow structured training, and track progress over time, with numbers you can share and compare with your riding buddies.
How much does power training improve performance?
Riders moving from unstructured riding to zone-based training commonly see meaningful FTP gains over a first eight-to-twelve-week block. The gain comes from the structure; the power meter makes that structure possible to follow.
Final thoughts: the barrier was never the data
Cyclists have understood the value of power for twenty years. What kept most amateurs out was not scepticism. It was price, installation complexity, and the fact that a power meter belonged to a bike rather than a rider. Every one of those barriers is about placement and cost, not physics.
That is what makes the cleat interesting. Move the sensor to the shoe and it becomes yours, portable, and cheaper to build. CycloWatt is an innovative power meter concept, and its launch could change how everyday riders train.
Want to know when CycloWatt launches?
CycloWatt is not yet available to order. If the concept fits how you ride (more than one bike, and no interest in paying four figures), get on the notification list and watch for independent reviews as production units ship.
- Register for launch notifications at cyclowatt.ch
- Meet the team at the Tour de France EFGH Singapore Criterium, 7–8 November 2026
- Follow Bikers.SG, CycloWatt's regional partner and distributor in Southeast Asia, for updates on launch timing and availability as details are confirmed, plus hands-on coverage
About the authors
Levi Luder
Co-founder, CycloWatt AG · LinkedIn
Levi Luder co-founded CycloWatt with Victor Luder and brings the entrepreneurial drive behind the company. A passionate amateur cyclist with a background in economics, he took CycloWatt through ETH Zurich's UPortunity start-up accelerator and Venture Kick, the Swiss programme that awarded CycloWatt CHF 150,000 in 2026 to bring its low-cost power meter to market. He is also an alumnus of the Impulse Network.
Victor Luder
Co-founder, CycloWatt AG · LinkedIn
Victor Luder co-founded CycloWatt and brings the technical expertise behind it. An engineer and ETH Zürich alumnus based in Zurich, he is the lead author of the research paper behind CycloWatt, presented at the 2024 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC). The work showed how force sensors, motion data and on-device machine learning can measure cycling power accurately in a low-cost, energy-efficient device, and it forms the basis of the CycloWatt cleat.
This article was written by CycloWatt's founders and published by Bikers.SG, part of the WAAHA group. Specifications, price and dates are as stated by CycloWatt at the time of publishing and may change before launch.
