Garmin announces Rally power meter pedals
New cleat options and even conversion kits. A true successor to Vector.
Garmin just announced their new range of power meter pedals with the Vector line being replaced: Garmin Rally. Garmin Rally is more than just a Vector 4 or Vector 3+. And while you will still be able to buy the Vector 3 and 3s for a while it might be interesting to have a look at the Rally line. As the Rally really is a ‘line’ of pedals, like Forerunner is a line of watches and Edge is a line of cycling computers. The Rally line doesn’t use numbers as on the inside they’re all the same. It’s the outside that distinguishes them from cleat compatibility.
So rather than just the Vector 4 and 4s, there are now three flavours:
- XC (Shimano SPD/Offroad/MTB)
- RS (Shimano SPD-SL, Road)
- RK (Look KEO, road, like Vector series).
Then you have the 200 or 100 version. 200 is dual sided. 100 is single sided. So the XC100 is an SPD pedal with a single sensor.
Then you ALSO have a pedal conversion kit, more about that later.
What’s New?
Well, the official battery recommendation is now a singel CR1 and the battery cap is the latest version. And I’ll dive in the smaller differences later, but the main change is the ability to swap pedals using the same power meter.
No more ‘s’
The Garmin Rally line also stops using the ‘s’ distinction for a single sided power meter. As I’ve said above, the numbers 100 and 200 are now used to indicate that. Which makes me wonder what the naming strategy is for over two years (RS300/RS400?). So the real successor of the Vector 3s is the Rally RK100. There is a big benefit from getting the 200 version as it will provide you with way more data on your cycling though Garmin’s Cycling Dynamics.
Conversion Kits
Using the conversion kit you can add a pedal type to your spectrum. Say you have a road bike (which you probably have..) and you have a mountainbike. Then you no longer have to buy two different power meters. By buying the RS200 and an XC conversion kit ($249) you can then swap the pedal over the power meter and save about $750. No news if you can later buy an RK or RS conversion kit if you start with the XC set. You can also use a conversion kit on your Vector 3 set. The kit comes with the new Rally style battery caps which I recommend using.
The process to change your pedals over is maybe a 15 minute job when you have your tools al set up, and you can technically do this as often as you want. But if you do it every week you can obviously expect some issues at some point. Changing four times a year for the season should give you no issues.
Last note: your Garmin Connect will still pick up a Vector 3 set as Vector 3 after conversion.
Prices
Nothing surprising here. The new Rally line is a tad more expensive than the Vector 3 (MSRP $999 or $890 on Amazon) and Vector 3s (MRSP $599 or $499 on Amazon).
RS | RK | XC | |
200 | $1,099 | $1,099 | $1,199 |
100 | $649 on Amazon | $649 on Amazon | $699 |
Conversion kit | $199 | $199 | $249 |
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