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Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains?
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I am new to using a power meter and I recently purchased a Power2Max Type S Gossamer. I have been using it for a few weeks on Trainerroad and wanted to ride with it outdoors on Saturday for my workout. I set up my Garmin and calibrated the PM right before my ride. When I started the ride I wanted to stay within 65%-75% of my FTP (the one Trainerroad gave me), and it could not have gone worse. It was obvious from the get go that if I tried to ride with that power it would have been WAY to slow, like 12 MPH, and I could not come close to staying in that range.

So I decided I would do an outdoor FTP test since I was riding on a paved trail and I could do it with no interruptions. I did the test and my "outdoor" FTP was 40 points higher than my Trainerroad FTP. So then I tried to continue my ride with 65%-75% of my new FTP and again I could not stay in the range, my watch was always beeping at me that my power was too high or too low. I tried really hard on focusing on riding with the same force and efficiency and but I could not stay in that range.

So what do I do? Is this a growing pain of learning to ride with power? Should my outdoor FTP be that much different from my Trainerroad FTP? I will say I still get good workouts on trainerroad. Any help or suggestions appreciated.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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If I were going to guess, my hunch is that your initial TR FTP test was not good. Then, if you did an outdoor test and then tried to continue riding at 75% FTP, you were probably cooked. IME, my TR FTP tests have tied exactly with outdoor ride and race experiences. I bet if you do a new TR FTP test and perform well, your results will be pretty close (or higher) than your outdoor test.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [exxxviii] [ In reply to ]
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I was thinking that too. But I its not like I was getting easy workouts on Trainerroad, it was still making me work. But I think I am going to try another test.

Any help on keeping the wattage in a better range? Looking for tips or tricks on that too. I was good with using HR for the ranges last time I trained for an Ironman ('15) but the power thing has me perplexed.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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nocolonstlrolln wrote:
Any help on keeping the wattage in a better range? Looking for tips or tricks on that too. I was good with using HR for the ranges last time I trained for an Ironman ('15) but the power thing has me perplexed.
I am probably not the best to answer, because I have only been doing triathlons for <1 year and my PM is only about 9 months old. That said, I did some bike racing 30 years ago, so it is not totally foreign to me.

I try to focus on riding to a power number, rather than a % on the Garmin screen. I cannot maintain it precisely, but I can generally stay within ±5W most of the time. I use a combination of cadence and HR to help assist the stability. But, I find that once I am in the groove on a ride (takes about 5 miles), I can settle on a pretty stable power number. That said, my race experience consists of 1 HM with power and 1 sprint with power. And the sprint I pretty much went as hard as I could, only using power to keep me from totally blowing up.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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How's your fan setup? Could be that you're getting cooked indoors.




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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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What is your trainer setup?
Is it possible that you have a wheel on trainer and a lot of resistance to the tire?
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [bryce_d] [ In reply to ]
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bryce_d wrote:
How's your fan setup? Could be that you're getting cooked indoors.

Set the AC down to 72-74 and have a box fan tilted up towards me.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [Rumpled] [ In reply to ]
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Rumpled wrote:
What is your trainer setup?
Is it possible that you have a wheel on trainer and a lot of resistance to the tire?

I have the Kinetic fluid 2.0 and I crank the knob until it clicks twice. That's how TR told me to set it up.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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How is TR measuring power? Is it directly from your power meter, or is it using the virtual power feature?




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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [bryce_d] [ In reply to ]
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Direct from PM.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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You'll likely be getting lots of input on this but from my own experience and what I've read outdoor FTP is typically higher than indoor. I'm about 8% higher outside. I've heard of many reason for this; cooling, momentum outdoors, motivation etc. Training Peaks has an interesting article on the subject.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/adjusting-your-functional-threshold-power-for-indoor-riding/


Outdoors your power will jump all over the place and depends on what your averaging is set to. I have a 3 second power on my Garmin 510 and it jumps a lot, especially when it's windy or on bad roads. I also have a field for Lap NP and set my autolap to 1 mile, that seems to help me smooth out the entire ride a bit.
Last edited by: Burhed: Apr 17, 17 11:31
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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nocolonstlrolln wrote:
Direct from PM.

How long have you had the PM? You said you got it recently.
A good thing to ask is whether your TR FTP was based off of potentially inaccurate trainer-based numbers or your new P2M PM. If the former, then get some hard intervals in on the trainer and see how that effects your previously set FTP. If the latter, maybe you are indeed just way stronger on the road.

Another way to test this is to use TR to display your trainer-derived power and another device hooked to your P2M. They should be similar. If not, does this offset make sense for what you see inside/outside?
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [dfroelich] [ In reply to ]
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I think you make a good point. Tomorrow for my ride I will ride with my watch and the TR app and see if there is a difference.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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If you are new to structured training and you tanked your first FTP test, it would not be unheard of to be 40w better in a few weeks.

Assuming you got closer to your true FTP after your mid ride reset, you need to still keep in mind that one of the main benefits of a power meter is making you go easy when you are supposed to be going easy. It actually takes some discipline to ride at 65%, especially until you start to build up a little fatigue which at that level can take a while. 65%-75% rides are usually measured in hours and at least for me, the first hour can feel boringly slow, the middle hour feels good and then in the third hour, while not exactly torturous, is where you start to see what the point of that target is.

You did not say how long your intervals were but even if you were riding at a true 65% for 15-20 minutes, it probably would feel super easy, especially on a nice spring day with a new power meter to play with ;-)
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [STP] [ In reply to ]
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I was probably 20 mins into the ride when I decided to go ahead and do a new FTP test. But the wattage would go from 176 to 215, to 134 to 159 to 220. There just was no rhyme or reason.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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Outdoor power is much more variable than indoor power for a whole host of reasons like wind, slight road slope changes, and the general inability of folks to hold super steady power. The 10% range between 65% and 75% is not that many watts so it is super easy to bump over then under the limits every several seconds. And, somewhat counterintuatively, it can actually be harder to be steady at lower power levels. Personally, if I am trying to hold 380w, it does not jump around too much because, well, I got no place to jump higher to and I probably have about 100% focus on my effort level ;-) On the other hand, at 200w, my power can easily swing 50w every few seconds if I am not paying attention. That just does not happen on the trainer. Partly because the conditions do not change (wind, road grade, etc) but also because I tend to focus on power more closely on the trainer. (And if you have a smart trainer, you need to realize that that nice straight power line you see is not real. It is being smoothed out for you).

The jumps you are describing are very typical, especially if you are new to riding outside with a power meter. You'll get better at holding a tighter range but your instant power number is never going to be rock steady. That is why you are getting some recommendations to look at 3 second power.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [STP] [ In reply to ]
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STP wrote:
Outdoor power is much more variable than indoor power for a whole host of reasons like wind, slight road slope changes, and the general inability of folks to hold super steady power. The 10% range between 65% and 75% is not that many watts so it is super easy to bump over then under the limits every several seconds. And, somewhat counterintuatively, it can actually be harder to be steady at lower power levels. Personally, if I am trying to hold 380w, it does not jump around too much because, well, I got no place to jump higher to and I probably have about 100% focus on my effort level ;-) On the other hand, at 200w, my power can easily swing 50w every few seconds if I am not paying attention. That just does not happen on the trainer. Partly because the conditions do not change (wind, road grade, etc) but also because I tend to focus on power more closely on the trainer. (And if you have a smart trainer, you need to realize that that nice straight power line you see is not real. It is being smoothed out for you).

The jumps you are describing are very typical, especially if you are new to riding outside with a power meter. You'll get better at holding a tighter range but your instant power number is never going to be rock steady. That is why you are getting some recommendations to look at 3 second power.

Huge help, and that is what I was thinking, maybe I will get better with time. Thanks for the help.
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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Can anyone help on getting a Garmin 310 to not read every second and instead reading every 3 seconds?
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Re: Power meter/ Trainerroad growing pains? [nocolonstlrolln] [ In reply to ]
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Looking at the user manual it looks like you cant change that. I think you still want it to read every 1s.

What you probably are looking for is for it to display the 3s average power to smooth out the power number reported on the screen. Unfortunately I dont see that option for the 310 in the manual either.
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