SRAM Red DZero BB30 Crank

Quarq has been challenging themselves to improve their products ever since they started. Their latest power meter iteration, the DZero improves on its predecessor, the Elsa. Here, the DZero spider is paired with SRAM’s Red carbon-fiber crankarms. The arms are the standard Red Exogram design, with graphics that match the rest of the Red group. The left is the same Red arm you’ll find with all Red cranks. The right arm is missing the spider. That’s where the DZero comes in. The arrangement of the arms is such that it matches perfectly with the hidden fifth-arm design that Red chainrings work off of. As a result, the shifting meshes perfectly with the rest of the drivetrain and feels no different than any other Red chainring set. It’s still impressively light at 578g for the heavier, bigger 130mm BCD version. But the spider is different. Quarq found about 150 ways to improve their design, and employed them all in the spider. The big ways are the easiest to explain. In terms of use, they’ve added a Bluetooth Low energy signal (BTLE) to the ANT+ signal, so now it’s sending out both signals simultaneously. This means both your phone and on-board bike computer can read the signal at the same time, or a Qollector. The red LED that used to tell you that the meter was on has been replaced by one that is green or red, and it will tell you not only if the battery life is good, bad, or on life support, but also whether or not zeroing has worked or failed, and when the firmware is updating. Yes, you can upgrade the firmware, and do it for free, with the free Qalvin app, which you can download onto most phones. The battery, a standard, user replaceable 2032 coin cell, even with the dual signals being sent, still works for a lengthy 200 hours, or longer. What you can’t seem, and won’t necessarily notice, the fact that the circuitry is revised and the strain gauges follow a new pattern: you should be happy they’ve done it. These features help with things like battery life and consistency. Yes, they still rate the accuracy as +/- 1.5%, it still measures both legs, it still has the 10k temperature compensation to take temperature variations out of the mix, and still doesn’t need a magnet affixed to the bike to turn on. You can still swap chainrings without needing to recalibrate-this is less about swapping rings for different terrain, though that’s still something you can do, and more about chainring replacement. There are essentially four models. All four have crankarm lengths as short as 162.5mm and as long as 177.5mm. There are two basic variations, the 110mm BCD and 130mm BCD spiders. The shorter is for inner rings as small as 34t and outer rings as large as 52t. The taller is for 38t minimum inner and no max on the outer. Then, there are the GXP and BB30 versions. GXP works with GXP bottom brackets as well as BB86, and any bottom bracket that fits a 24mm thru-axle. BB30 works with BB30, PF30, BBright, BB386EVO, BB30A, and PF30A. The SRAM Red DZero crank comes as a chassis only. You need to supply the bottom bracket, chainring bolts (steel, please), and the spider. The rings you put on will work with 10- and 11-speed drivetrains. Remember that you’ll get the best shifting when using chainrings that have the Hidden Bolt (HB) pattern.