Stages Cycling

Campagnolo Record 12 L Gen 3 Power Meter Crank Arm

Given the prevalence of the Record name in the heritage of cycling, Italy, and Italian cycling, you'd be forgiven for assuming that "Record" was Italian for cycling. It's not. Well, not literally. But it's centrality to cycling's halcyon past does mean that it may as well be. With the Campagnolo Record Single Leg Power Meter Crank Arm, Stages Cycling ushers this icon of cycling heritage into the contemporary realm of power meters, data mining, and smart training.

The Record crankset is a marvel to behold with its lightweight hollow carbon crank arms, smooth shifting rings, and silky spinning USB ceramic bearings. In fact, the only way to upstage this crankset would be to move to the appropriately named Super Record, which incorporates even smoother CULT ceramic bearings, but if we actually had to choose between running Super Record sans power meter, or standard Record with this Stages device, we'd take this version every day. The addition of the power sensing pod on the inside of the arm can do so much more to transform your training and racing than the marginally smoother and slightly lighter weight Super Record ever could.

Inside that pod are strain gauges and an updated Gen 3 accelerometer that measures force and rotations and delivers that power data to your head unit through stronger Bluetooth LE and ANT+ radios with a claimed accuracy of +/-1.5%, which is very much in-line with the other quality power meters on the market. As with all of its other meters, this one also incorporates Stages' Active Temperature Compensation (ATC), which adjusts for the natural expansion and contraction of the strain gauges by adjusting the readings depending on the fluctuating temperatures without having to zero out the system. Overall, the power meter adds less than 15 grams to the standard crank, which is a small price to pay for the ability to find limits, train smarter, and monitoring efforts on both hard and easy days.