ANT+Sport.  What is this?  I'm glad you asked (go on, you've been dying to ask for years, right?).

It's a standard.  On your bike, you have many standard bits and pieces - this is a Good Thing. It means you can put on any tyre you want (clincher, 700c standard, MTB clincher, 26" standard and so on), use any groupset, mostly, and any pedals (standard thread in cranks).  Mostly we have standards for most bits and pieces, so you have a choice about handlebars, stems, saddles, seatposts etc etc - you get the point and I'm labouring it.

So, along comes your new bike computer, but you have an existing wiring set - will it work?  NO!  Will your new heartrate monitor work with your old HRM, or the speed sender, or the funky wireless cadence sender you bought (and it wasn't cheap, was it?). If your bike computer has a power recording feature (eg Polar S72x) will it work with a PowerTap, or SRM crank?  No. A wireless cadence sensor from VDO?  Nope ...

Until now.

Or, to be precise, until a year ago or so when ANT+Sport started cropping up.  The few of us who have Powertap or Garmin computers may have noticed there's a logo on the HRM strap that says ANT+Sport.  You didn't notice?  Shame!  That's what it means, so now you know.

The new Polar CS600 uses ANT+Sport, I think, the new Garmin 705 GPS bike computer not only uses it for the HRM, but also can work with suitable power sensors, including the (unreleased, this is vapour at this time) new SRM cranks and the quarq power meter.  Maybe the Polar CS600 (wild guess-o-meter when it comes to wattage, but that's not the point of this) will work with the quarq sensor or the Powertap SL 2.4 (so you -can- get accurate power readings from a Polar!).

What does this mean to you?  It means you can buy a computer that has ANT+Sport (eg the Garmin, or the quarq 'Qranium' or maybe the CS600) and be reasonably confident that you'll be able to get sensors for it in future that will work with it.  You should be able to mix and match - say you like the way a particular manufacturer's cadence sensor works with your bike, you should be able to get it to work with your other manufacturer's computer.  The big bonus is for those of us using power meters.  We should be able to use different computers with different power meters - say for example you were me (stop screaming, this is only temporary) and you have a Saris PowerTap SL 2.4 on your road wheelset.  You can then use the new SRM cranks or the (hopefully they do their sensor for track cranks, they plan to, according to emails I had with them today) quarq power meter on your track bike, but use the same computer for both - this simplifies uploading training data to your copy of CyclingPeaks WKS+, for example.  You also know by now that the Powertap computer is a bit sucky, but the Qranium has much nicer features, but you want a hub as the power meter, not your cranks - no worries! It'll work with a Powertap hub. Say you have the new Garmin 705, you'll be able to use the Garmin with both your track and road bikes with other branded sensors, and for a reasonable definition of forever, be able to replace bits as they break without having to throw the lot away.

This will probably only happen at the high end of town, K-mart bike computers won't support this standard (the cheapies are generally not wireless anyway ...) but I expect that in a year or so the smart manufacturers will all do ANT+Sport for their wireless stuff, which gives us choices to mix and match.  Good! I'm a little excited.  Now if there was a standard for wired computer wiring mounts ... don't hold your breath ... break a wire, chances are you can't get the right wiring kit anymore, you have to throw it away. A pox on that.

My Truvative Omnium cranks should arrive in a day or two, so I can ditch the old and bent Bontrager (Truvative) 'track' cranks on the T1 at last. I'm hoping that the quarq sender will work with these cranks when it ships, that would solve my power meter on track bike problem without having to get the hacked PowerTap Pro from wheelbuilder.com or forking out $fartoomuch for SRM cranks.

I missed DISC tonight, had to replace a hard drive at my real job.  Next week ...