More news from the SRAM testing session in San Romolo, Italy.

Word from Alan Milway, World Champion Danny Hart‘s Fitness Coach:

“I thought you might be interested to see these new BlackBox Quarq Power Meter cranks that have been fitted to Danny’s downhill bike that are currently being tested in Italy. I spend a lot of time testing and monitoring Danny’s power output and effort levels in the lab and also at the races- last season we had a GPS unit hidden on the bike to collect various data from his race runs. His heart rate trace from Champery World Champs is fascinating…says a lot about his how his fitness contributed to that run.
These cranks measure power output during a race run, which will help our understanding of his performance, effort, bike set-up and fitness, and will help us in training too. Although power meters are nothing new in road cycling or track cycling, they are new into downhill as far as I know and will really help us improve training and hopefully performance.”

Jon Cancellier, SRAM BlackBox Program Manager added, “The BlackBox Quarq Power Meter began as a conversation with Danny at Interbike last year. He and his coach were interested in using power to help him in his training and he asked if we could make one that could fit on his DH bike. After talking with the boys at Quarq, they were super excited to have the opportunity to work with the World Champ and bring power to DH. They were able to come up with a power meter that while based on a standard CinQo, is in fact a one-off design mated to a X0 DH crank arm. One of the exciting parts of working with the BlackBox athletes is being able to take special requests from the riders and make them a reality. Hopefully these cranks will bring a new level of training and information to DH racing.”

More in Dirt 122, out end of March.