Got a wahoo kickr at the beginning of May and have been cycling exclusively on it since I got it. My cycling training is way more intense now that anything I was able to do before I got it. My last ride outdoors was in April and was 41.88 miles in 2 hours and 18 min (monitored using the cateye on my bike and info correctly entered in it) -average about 18 mph. I have been mostly doing some interval training that last about an hour using different workouts on the iMobileintervals app. It was a week of using the kickr before I could even complete one of the workouts because they were kicking my butt. Today I decided to forgo the iMobileintervals and ERG mode. I put Band of Brothers on the TV and adjusted my own resistance using the bike gears and rode for 2 hours. I had the wahoo fitness app running on my phone so I could monitor my speed and distance and watts. My FTP is 219 and at the end of the workout the summery said my average FTP on the ride was 165 (75% of my FTP) and my average speed was only 14.8 mph. I did a brick run afterward and only went 2 miles because my legs were pretty spent (it was also hot outside). It seemed weird that before using the kickr I did a 2 hour ride averaging 18 mph and now after a month of doing much more intense workouts my average speed for essentially the same time was much less. I have only been using ERG mode previously with the kickr. I don't really plan on doing many rides outside anymore. My town doesn't have a great set-up for riding outside very safely. What have other peoples experiences been between correlation of speed using the the wahoo fitness app and their actual outdoor speed. When I'm in ERG mode it typically says I'm 20-24 mph but I know not to trust the speed in ERG mode.
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Re: wahoo kickr speed vs outdoor speed [kaywould]
[ In reply to ]
How fast you go at a certain power output depends significantly on your aero drag and rolling resistance, so it will be tough to correlate your power numbers to outdoor speed, unless and until you do some outdoor rides to try and quantify any improvement. Also, bike trainer speed is generally completely unrelated to outdoor speed unless you can program your Kickr (or any other ergometer) to have a speed/power curve that mimics the drag curve of you and your bike.
But... if you went 2 hours at what the Kickr says is 75% of your FTP and then could only run 2 miles afterward, then I would suggest that your FTP may not be as high as you think it is...
Less is more.
But... if you went 2 hours at what the Kickr says is 75% of your FTP and then could only run 2 miles afterward, then I would suggest that your FTP may not be as high as you think it is...
Less is more.
Re: wahoo kickr speed vs outdoor speed [kaywould]
[ In reply to ]
I'd say the Kicker is correct, your FTP is set much too high and your cateye is not set properly. If you can jump on a bike and in 4 months ride 42 miles in 2.25 hours you should start road racing.
Re: wahoo kickr speed vs outdoor speed [kaywould]
[ In reply to ]
kaywould wrote:
I know not to trust the speed in ERG mode.Don't trust the speed in any mode for any reason. As far as I know the "speed" on the KICKR is simply the speed at which the flywheel is turning (edit to add for the pedantic - I am not saying that the flywheel is turning at exactly 24mph, but that the rotational speed of the flywheel is correlated to some arbitrary speed value). This is a product of your cadence and your gearing, nothing else. To validate just put the KICKR at "level 1" or whatever it is and hold a specific cadence, keep changing the "level" while maintaining the same cadence and gearing (yes it will require more power with each level change). You should see your "speed" stay the same despite the fact you are producing more power at each level of resistance. If that is the case you can discard speed altogether.
I almost exclusively use erg mode on the KICKR and have just set the bike in a gear where my typical average cadence gives me an average "speed" of about what I ride outside so my logs don't look ridiculous.
Re: wahoo kickr speed vs outdoor speed [kaywould]
[ In reply to ]
You are basically my identical twin. I picked up a KICKR a few weeks ago and have only ridden indoors in ERG mode. Very first ride on the KICKR I did a 20min FTP test which came out to 217. I also feel my rides are WAY more intense with the KICKR, but I am worried that it isn't going to translate to the pavement. I never pay attention the MPH on the KICKR though. I have a sprint duathlon tommorow and hoping my fitness hasn't dropped since going 100% indoors.
coyote39 wrote:
I also feel my rides are WAY more intense with the KICKR, but I am worried that it isn't going to translate to the pavement. I never pay attention the MPH on the KICKR though. I have a sprint duathlon tommorow and hoping my fitness hasn't dropped since going 100% indoors.I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with improved performance. Just be careful to control you initial effort heading out on the bike. One downside of not running a power meter outdoors is the tendency to not realize just how hard you're going when completely adrenalized and others who are poor at pacing go flying by right out of T-1.
Have fun.
Hugh
Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.