  Bicycle Power Meters have become ubiquitous in professional and amateur
cycling. These devices claim high levels of accuracy, and this accuracy is
indeed essential if they are to serve their purpose as reliable training aids
and indicators of improvements in fitness. Power is generally obtained via the
independent estimation of torque and angular velocity. Designs vary in the way
in which they estimate angular velocity. Some power meters estimate angular
velocity many times a second, whereas other power meters compute an average
value for each pedal stroke. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether it
is necessary to rapidly sample angular velocity in order to obtain accurate
power values under conditions of dynamic equilibrium. Countering previous
research on the topic, this paper finds that average angular velocity alone is
usually sufficient for the purposes of computing power, although there may be
certain exceptional circumstances where consideration of harmonics may
appreciably improve fidelity.
