The Cycleops PowerTap SL 2.4 Disc hub represents a new era in mountain biking -- training with power. Training with power allows you to measure data that isn’t affected by internal or external forces. Power is power. And being able to measure it allows one to produce data that identifies strengths, weaknesses, good workouts and bad workouts. From there, its up to you to fine tune your training. With the rare exception of the few of us who purchased SRM mountain cranksets, mountain bikers looking to train to their full potential have been forced to rely largely on their heartrate monitors up until now.

The Cycleops PowerTap SL 2.4 Disc hub is a wireless system. The motivation had little to do with functionality, and rather has everything to do with simplicity: Think of the 2.4 as a Power Tap SL, but amazingly it has no wires and no transmitter. All you'll see is a Power Tap hub in your rear wheel, and a computer on your handlebar. The signal transmits directly from the inside of the hub to the computer. It's supremely clean in appearance and it has all the other functionality and accuracy of the SL system. For those of us who detest seeing wires splayed over an otherwise pro-looking bike, it's a godsend since training with power (or just riding with power for that matter) makes cycling a whole lot more fun unless you're just pedaling to the grocery store -- in which case foregoing power data is acceptable(!)

Considering it includes a proprietary disc brake rotor, the Cycleops PowerTap SL 2.4 Disc hub comes in at a respectable 680g, along with the same advanced electronics package within the hub that gives Cycleops' lightest hub their best protection from contamination by rain, mud and trail grit. And like the SL you get a boatload of functionality: Power, Heart Rate, Cadence, Speed, Energy, Distance, Ride Time, and Odometer functions. You still have a completely customizable display so you can simultaneously show any 3 sets of variables on your computer at once. You get up to 7 hours of memory when recording a 1-second intervals, and you can still use it as a standard cycling computer when you aren't using your SL 2.4 Disc hub.

The Cycleops PowerTap SL 2.4 Disc hub is available with a 32 hole drilling. Each system comes complete with PowerAgent Software which is Mac and PC compatible, computer head and harness and the USB interface so you can download the data from your handlebar-mounted cpu to your desktop.

Nothing is more convincing as you consider purchasing a PowerTap as an understanding of the virtues of training with power. We've done our best to provide this with our article Power: The Ultimate Training Metric. Reading it will be a worthwhile investment of your time, and please feel free to contact us if we can elaborate on any of the topics brought up there.