I thought you could disable the auto calibration altogether.

I forgot to calibrate my "inferior" Stages at Steelhead. I ended up accidentally fat fingering "yes" when riding jsut outside T1... and was forced to zero it while moving (unclip 1 foot with crank at 6-oclock, wait 3 seconds). I think the numbers were about 5 Watts off.... or I'm even more aero than I thought... hard to say for sure.

I thought you could answer "NO". So you might just avoid calibrating altogether the morning of the race to prevent stress and issues.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

I had something sort of similar that went on with my Garmin 500 / Quarq setup. My problem ended up being with the Quarq not the Garmin. Have you tried replacing the battery on the Quarq? Resetting it? Making sure the battery is secure in the little pod? If you have a plastic cap on the battery pod, is it cracked?

Maybe a call or email to the Quarq folks would get you started in the right direction.

[Edit]

Sorry, My first answer misunderstood the question. I thought you didn't actually have a power meter...

Perhaps you could just choose "No" -- not to calibrate when it asks. Does it work then

Brand new battery. Only happens when around other bikes.

I have not tried this.

I was wondering if it has to do with the pairing. It would seem that if the power meter is the same one each time the garmin, it would not need to
"detect" it every single time I turn it on. I had a joule before and it could store like 5 power meters, it was quite nice.

During the REV3 race after I was riding already and having problems any power numbers I did chose the option of "do not calibrate" but it still did not work.

This also happened to a friend of mine at IMMT, same setup with garmin and quarq.

I will have to get a few friends with power meters to together and try to see if I can duplicate the problem when I initially turn it on and chose not to calibrate.

Im sure there were a few hundred quarq and gamin combo there so it must be something on my end.

Even after pairing it will "detect" the power meter. Detecting is different from pairing. Detecting is just its way of telling you that the power meter you have previously paired it with is present and responding. When it is just asking you if you want to calibrate it (read: zero it). That's usually a good idea but isn't strictly necessary.

That pairing setting is saved on a per-bike basis. So if you pair "BIke 1" with Power MEter A and "Bike 2" with Power Meter B, then when you turn it on with Bike 1 active it will only look for (and detect) "A". Even if "B" is present It will not attempt to detect any others unless you try to pair it again.

The only time you should ever need to be far away from other bikes is when you are pairing. That should be a very rare thing

Thanks JoeO, so if it pairs bike 1 with power meter, why do you think it messes up around other bikes, but not when im on the trainer or not near other bikes. Could the quarq be the problem?

If it really has problems around other bikes, I'd guess that it really wasn't paired properly.

Here is a quick way to check. Bring your garmin head unit only to some place around a bunch of other bikes. Leave the bike far away. Then turn it on. Does it "detect" other power meters? If it is properly paired, it won't.

Next go get your bike in a place far away from other bikes and pair it with your quarq. Afterwards, spin the crank a few times to be sure it's reading. Then turn it off and repeat the first step. Make sure once again that it detects no power meters.

If it still does, something would have to be wrong with the Garmin.

As others have noted you've probably somehow gotten your power meter unpaired or you set up a new profile and never properly paired the sensor(s) in the first place.
To check the pairing, turn on the Edge, then navigate on the menu to Settings | Bike Settings | Bike x (where x denotes the bike profile you've got issues with) | ANT+ Power | Sensor Details. For Sensor Status it may show Connected or Not Connected; but for the Sensor ID, it should show a number that is non-zero. If it shows zero, then your Edge does not have properly stored pairing information for your power meter. This is actually the default situation when you first enable a sensor... it will tell you that a sensor has been found, but unless you go back and hit the 'search' button and let it properly find the sensor, it will not store the ID of your sensor. This also applies to the HRM and/or bike speed/cadence sensors.

So if the sensor ID does show zero, wake up your power meter (spin the cranks or whatever), then go back to the "ANT+ Power" menu and select 'Search'. It should find your power meter; when it does, then back all the way out of the menus and shut down the Edge so that you can be sure that the Edge has left search mode. Now turn it back on, go back to the Sensor Details menu, and you should see the stored ID in the display. To subsequently find the sensor, all you need to do is to wake up the sensor, assuming your Edge is still set to the same bike profile. If you press 'search' again, you will lose the stored pairing information and you will need to repeat the search procedure when you and your bike are far away from any other ANT+ power meters.

If your Quarq has its ANT ID printed on it then you can also hand-enter this information in the Sensor ID field. If you are in a situation where you can't do a search because other bikes are in the proximity, then this is a guaranteed way to get the right power meter paired with your Edge.

Before doing any of this: Make sure your Edge is at least at software version 3.00. The latest version is 3.30.

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Less is more.

Thanks guys for all the info, i will look at it tiday

One thing I noticed when I recently did a master reset on mine last week...
During the initial setup, it asked me if I had a HRM or Speed/cadence or power. I answered: Yes, Yes, no. The next time I got to my bike, those two 'auto-paired' and I was off and riding, no problem. I rode with some other guys, a couple had garmins, but I didn't notice if they had any ANT+ bits. In any case, when I turned mine on in my garage, everything was fine. In the settings, it has those sensor ID's stored.
I wonder, could you redo the initial setup and say: No, No, No to those questions, then do manual pairing (when far away from other bikes) to your sensors. Maybe that would override whatever is in the 500's mind which may cause it to search around on startup. That is how I set mine up when new, and never had troubles during group spins.

Good luck, and post up if you figure anything out!

Hello again, the sensor that is stored in my garmin reads 29735. The power meter stamp is 22723.
When I manually enter that power meter number is does not read power and says not connected.
When I ask to search for power meter, it find a meter and the 29735 sensor on the senor ID screen.
Again it works fine in my basement, but I do not think I solved the problem.
The software is v3.30

When i check my stages stamp its 4075, it reads the same as what my search details brings up on my garmin 500 when i check for sensor details (4075). I assume i wont have issues then amongst a crowd of power meters since mine is paired?
Also, why is it when you calibrate you get a whole host of different numbers? is that normal? what do they represent? Cheers

Figured out the problem......the spider iis taking in water. I spoke with quarq and they asked me about rain and both nights in transition it was wet.
I hosed off the power meter and 30 minutes later same problems.
Thanks for the suggestions but time to get a new power meter, i was going to need one anyway, going to shorter cranks!!