I appreciate that the power smoothing only affects the number that is displayed, however mentally I find it preferable if that number increases/decreases more quickly in line with efforts/intervals.
I had my head unit paired to to the vector3s and the 3 second power was inline with that displayed on TR.
You are right, the difference between power match and the kickr using an external PM, is not massive, but to me it felt more stable when using the external PM as the power source.
Hi
I am using a stages left sided with wahoo kickr 18
Wahoo App V 5.13.0
ERG mode speed simulation = ON ( not that it makes a great difference IMO)
ERG mode power smoothing = ON
Control w/ANT+ = ON
Connected to Trainerroad via BLUETOOTH , KIckr mode=ERG, PowerMatch = Auto
For me the power match works fine , be sure to zero offset the stages at the start of every ride .
I am a bit confused. Had a Kickr Gen now now got a Kickr Gen 4. I use Powertap pedals as my PM
Devices picks up both Kickr and PM and they show wildly different numbers - previously the Gen 1 Kickr produced about 3% higher numbers than the PM.
However Powermatch does not seem to be working because I get no cadence which is only on the PM.
I therefore remove the PM and use only the Kickr but with no cadence being shown.
I had no such issue on my previous set up.
What am I doing wrong?
Kickr does not support cadence. You can tell TR to connect with PM and only use for cadence.
I have a Stage R powermeter and a KICKR '17. I let TrainerRoad connect to both, I turn off power match and in the Stages I have the ‘use cadence only’ box ticked. This means TrainerRoad will count cadence from my Stages but no power data. All power data comes from the KICKR.
Thanks @justinm.
I want to control the Kickr from the PM as I think that is more accurate. I seem to think that I need powermatch turned on.
I will experiment more.
The problem is that when I go into train I am always in a rush and don’t have time to experiment and after I have finished I am ready for a meal.
Yes, I believe you would turn on powermatch after “pairing” the PM.
Set powermatch to auto and then forget it.
Do not fixate on the less than flat power graph when analyzing as it will fluctuate.
Also - for ERG in general, and even more so with PowerMatch - don’t try to chase the power. Just pedal smoothly and at whatever cadence you are targeting. Let the trainer do the work of adjusting
When using PowerMatch, I think it would be nice to be able to see post ride the average percent difference between the trainer and the powermeter or be able to see the two power sources graphed on the same chart. I sometimes switch between using PowerMatch and not or I switch to a different bike without a PM. It would be nice to be able to estimate trainer FTP vs PM FTP in order to adjust workouts when not using PowerMatch.
I posted this on a different thread relating to the Tacx Flow and Powermatch but thought it might be of interest in this thread.
I set up a short workout with minute long intervals with varying step sizes so that I could see how small and large steps affected performance as well as how well power tracked at different percentages of FTP.
The first graph shows the power with Powermatch turned on (Trainer in purple, powermeter in Blue):
This shows the power readings from the power meter and the Vortex without Powermatch enabled (trainer in purple, powermeter in Blue):
Finally, a comparison of the two power meter files for comparison:
As you can see they are largely of the same shape with the same overshooting when making larger jumps.
I have to say that I find the way the trainer reports the power to be less taxing mentally than when I see the power jumping way too high for a few seconds even although there is very little difference in the power that you’re putting out when the jump is made.
It would be interesting if others could post up similar comparisons to see if similar things happen with more advanced trainers.
Mike
Kickr 2017
Stages single-side power meter
PowerMatch has generally worked well for me, however last week I had a single workout where there were some issues and then poof the issue was gone. In past experience where it feels like the trainer is fighting with itself, sometimes the Kickr is at fault (optical sensor interference), sometimes Stages is at fault (dropouts), and sometimes Zwift is at fault (I stopped using Zwift to fix this one).
The feeling that TR’s PowerMatch is fighting with Kickr has only happened once. But it got me to thinking…
Putting TR in between Kickr and Stages might not be the best approach, and so I reviewed my options:
Ran some experiments over last weekend and the results were inclusive. With power match disabled sometimes Stages was higher than Kickr and sometimes lower. And all three options above felt the same.
Regardless, I decided to remove TR from playing monkey in the middle and let Kickr use Stages for power measurement. In case someone wants to do the same, here is how:
In the Wahoo Fitness app on your mobile phone, Toggle “Control w/ ANT+ Power Meter” to on, and then enter ANT+ Power Device ID (my Stages ANT+ ID is 31536).
In Wahoo Fitness app, start a workout with your Kickr selected as power source. Click the symbol in upper left of screenshot above, and verify you see the “Control w/ ANT+” icon - its the “lightning bolt inside two circulating arrows.” In this screenshot, the “Control w/ ANT+” icon is to the left of the hammer/wrench icon.
Disable PowerMatch. Probably not required, but to be sure I disabled TR’s PM:
(Optional) Configure TrainerRoad app to use Stages PM as Cadence only.
Summary:
Stages PM is now my source of power and cadence both inside and outside. And now if there is ever a problem with this non-TR “power match” approach, then TR is not involved and its either an issue with Wahoo or Stages.
Thanks.
This is possible on an Android app as well? Also, if the Kickr is using your Stages to control the ERG mode, how does TR control the ERG mode? What does it send the instruction of target power to? I presume TR tells the Kickr, and the Kickr generates the power but uses the Stages to decide? Can’t quite wrap my head around that.
Also you did a calibration at 38C? Where do you live?
The Kickr receives a power target from TR app. It controls resistance by using the Stages PM for current power.
I live in Northern California and in the afternoon its roughly 25C in my garage where the Kickr is located. The spin down was done after a long warmup. That’s why you see 38C.
I really like this configuration as I was experiencing the same issues as you describe. I will try it out later today.
Do you still do a spindown calibration or is there any need now?
I follow Wahoo and Stages recommendations, and probably do a spin down once every week or two. Definitely do a spin down when temp changes e.g. riding outside and then returning to inside rides.
Sad to report it really didn’t work that much better for me. It averaged out quite well for longer intervals (5 min at sub 200W) but as soon as the shorter, higher intensity stuff the power was way over the target. I may have to resort to having an inside and an outside FTP.
I get weird results when I use PowerMatch. My laptop dies during Carson today so I did the last interval using Erg mode on my phone. It is still on PowerMatch on my phone for some reason.
I have no idea what that means! Did I do the interval as planned, or too hard?
Don´t you feel the difference between over and under FTP efforts?
The yellow line is your actual power, as measured by TrainerRoad, and the green line is called “actual” power, which is almost always equal to the top of the blue boxes. So, you over achieved on the power front.
but I was in erg mode, so I shouldn’t be able to over or under achieve the target wattage should I? That’s the problem!
As I see it, the yellow should be on the green line, but it isn’t. I think it has something to do with a bad powermatch.
