Went out the other day on a normal ride and obtained a breakthrough of about four Watts, very normal for me every so often. Went out today and smashed a PR and KOM attempt, achieved this massive breakthrough, should I be locking this out of my progression? It just doesn’t seem like it’s something I would normally be able to sustain or should train against.
I flag any abrupt stop BT where I didn’t fail naturally, and the signature bump is unexpected.
I can always validate my current signature by riding the standard BT fitness test indoors in Slope mode or a similar effort outdoors as part of a ride.
Even if no BT and can tell quickly whether my sig is in the right ballpark for training purposes.
That brings up another question I have lately, when leaving my indoor trainer set to the same TP as I’ve been obtaining outside, I’m finding that I can’t finish some of the workouts. It could be just mental boredom or other things like that but was wondering if I should ratchet down the TP by 5 or 10% as some suggest for indoor differences. Wish there was a way to track two signatures, indoors and out if it makes a difference.
Have you compared the power readings from your trainer and the power meter? The trainer will typically read a bit lower because of the drive train loss (but apparently Wahoo Kickr will add a few watts to account for this).
Also, lack of cooling can have a big impact for longer workouts indoors.
I use a Kickr Bike indoors and Garmin pedals on my outdoor bike. I’ve read there could be a 20% discrepancy between the two so maybe I should put those pedals on the wahoo so I can train consistently.
At least test it at one workout to check that they line up. Also make sure you adjust the crank length when testing.
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So interesting, I put my pedals on my kickr bike, and my pedals are reading 8 to 9% lower than the kickr. Now I’m thoroughly confused as I was going to lower the effort on the kickr because I felt like it was too hard. Sounds like I might need to just get a set of pedals for the indoor bike so I’m training apples to apples.
Make sure you set the correct crank length on your Garmin Edge and on the power meter itself.
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It is set correctly.
I came up with a personal rule after having similar experiences with unrealistic Breakthroughs that pushed my TP and LTP way too high. If I’m not completely wiped out after the effort that triggered the BT, I flag the workout.
That said, it rarely happens anymore that I get a BT without being totally exhausted afterwards. I know this might not be the exact original idea behind outdoor BTs in Xert, but this approach just gives me more reliable numbers.
Otherwise, I had cases where a single sprint would push TP and LTP to absurd levels. That’s not happening anymore.
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Did you dual record and use an online tool to determine 8-9% is the difference between pedals and trainer?
Do you trust the pedals or the trainer to be the most accurate?
If trainer, do the Garmin pedals allow you to configure power scaling?
I didn’t dual record, will do. Is the DCR tool the best for this?
Not sure which to trust, indoors for sure feels harder.
Dual recording and verifying results with DCR Analyzer or Compare the Watts is the way to go for an accurate delta % and whether that difference exists across the full range of watts or not.
At this point I just compared the two readings I was seeing from time to time on the screen and head unit. The Garmin pedals definitely allow scaling but I don’t know if that makes sense to do. I will do a full workout and upload into the DCR tool and see what it shows.
Did a compare - Wahoo Kickr Bike showing 13w higher on avg over the hour. About a 7.5% difference. No idea which one to trust, the graph for the indoor bike is super smooth (light blue line) while the pedals are very choppy - I can do an offset in the pedals, No idea if I should be bothering with any of this.
For a more accurate assessment you want to disable power smoothing on your Wahoo trainer and dual record again.
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ok, ty
Basically the same - 10w (~6%) difference, pedals being the lower of the two.
If the Kickr Bike is showing higher numbers, indoor workouts should be easier, no? That means, you may be want to investigate more in other direction as you already mentioned. Entertainment, cooling, etc.
If you want to get your numbers right, here are my 2 cents.
I dont know if you have single sided power pedals or dual side power pedals. But you went through the complete process as I did 2 years ago. And finally I was at the exact same point as you are now, with 6% difference. (The other way around. Pedals read higher, hence my indoor workouts were actually too hard.)
For me it was the following:
I only had one sided power pedals and out of curiosity i bought the uprade. It turned out that my left leg was at 52,5% and my right leg at 47,5%. Since on single side power pedals, the watts are doubled from the left pedal, this is a 5% error in reading. I guess the miss 1 % was technical tolerance.
Although many users in the internet report, that they reget buying dual sided, since for many it is unnecessary, I just wanted to mention, that disbalance in legs is a real thing, that can happen.
Thanks! Yes, I have dual sided pedals and I have a big discrepancy (55/45) between sides so it would make a difference. I was actually quite surprised to find that the pedals were reading lower as I was having some issue with finishing harder indoor workouts, especially after an outdoor breakthrough. There’s definitely heat and motivation issues but I was wondering if there was something else also. The only thing I have not tried yet based on the research I’ve done is change the batteries in my pedals and check the torque but I really doubt it’s going to yield much of a difference.