I rode with my Quarq/Garmin at the same time for several weeks when I first got the Kickr and never found it to differ by more than 5 watts at any point that I noticed and AP always came in within a couple watts at the end of the workout. Eventually I stopped pairing up the Garmin.

I figure my outdoor FTP is prob slightly different anyway so I'll train all winter with whatever the Kickr is telling me from indoor testing/riding and then deal with translating that to racing outside in the summer.

I believe the Kickr to be very accurate. I've used my Kickr with Vectors and my Quarq. My Vectors were consistently 10-15% below the Kickr. My Quarq was right on target or within 1-2 watts of my Kickr.

I'm happy that I sold my Vectors and will be sticking with my Quarq.

Perform a spin down calibration using the Wahoo app after a good warm up (15+ minutes). I had the same problem at first, but since I calibrated the KICKR, all my workouts have been within a watt or two of my Quarq.

After calibration KICKR stays within +/- 5W during steady site at 200W average and can deviate +/- 15-20W during hard sprints. That was checked against Powertap. 5 at 200 gives you about +/-2.5%. I think it is good enough.

And frankly all those accuracy claims must be taking with some caution. The only way to really check would be industrial grade calibrated dyno you'd have to sell your house for ;)

I actually find that there's a greater disparity at lower intensity efforts and it also appears that the power disparity gets worse the longer I ride.

I actually just had an athlete, fellow engineer, send me a basic spreadsheet with some average comparisons. And, I'll add my $0.02 about one of our computrainers.

Her file showed that her quarq compared to the kickr/wahoo fitness was about 5% different with the kikr being higher. This was about 200 watts.

We've got one computrainer that, once warmed up and calibrated, is 5-10% lower reading that my quarq. The other one is quite a bit different.I don't have an actual %age.

The main thing, if you are using the trainer (kikr, compuT, etc.) is that it is consistent for workout purposes. And, if you are using a powermeter like a quarq in combination with your indoor trainer, that you focus more on the powermeter number than the trainer number so that you know those when you are outside. That's a simplification.

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I'm not quite sure the Quarq's/Vectors numbers on the trainer translate well to the outdoors. The same effort (HR based) outdoors produces considerable higher wattage. I generally view indoor training as a separate activity with different FTP's. It may be unreasonable for me to think the power readings should be more similar, but I've been know to be a little unreasonable at times. I suppose the biggest reason for wanting them to read more closely to one another is to have a better sense of what my actual FTP is... I guess I'll just go with the highest # :-)

As a fellow engineer... .there is something bad happening here she should sort out.

I would start by going through the quarq... cal + chain ring bolts to make sure there is a good starting place.

Alan

p.s. I have about a 10 watt offset between quarq and kickr

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Makes sense. Greater cooling outdoors will require a greater effort to achieve the same HR, not to mention levels of fatigue, hydration, blahblahblah.

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If you perform the spin down and don't change gears, it usually is within 4-8% of my SRM. If you start changing gears or don't calibrate the Kickr, it can be all over the place. I've never seen it off my 30% under those circumstance though; 15%, however, is pretty common. But I just ignore the power reading from the Kickr and use the SRM so it doesn't really bother me. Half the time I don't even bother to calibrate it after taking the bike off.

I have performed numerous calibration and never change gears. I've checked with Wahoo and the calibration is right where it should be. I usually record the data from my Quarq, but with such a significant and not always consistent reading, it doesn't regulate the Kickr properly in erg mode.

Exactly. I can use the Kickr in other modes, but with the 30-watt variance I have seen, I can't use it in erg mode. I just received my Kickr within the last 2 weeks, so perhaps I just need to get through a "break-in" period. I have been calibrating before each session, but the variances have been considerable against my Quarq. (I need to perform some methodical testing to get a handle on this, have not done that yet).

I am thinking about some of the posts I read above and perhaps I may be able to adopt an approach of seeing the two systems as independent, rather than tying them together. If I switched cleanly from road-riding to trainer riding I could definitely see that. But since I will certainly move back and forth between road and trainer due to weather and scheduling conflicts, I need to (hopefully) find a consistent variance pattern so that I can ensure training goals are met, no matter what mode I am in.

The kickr in erg mode tracks pretty well with my Quarq. Every few sessions, I'll calibrate the kickr when I notice the numbers diverging significantly. However, I'll calibrate the kickr after 15 to 20 min of riding and not at the very start of the workout. I read somewhere that temp may impact the calibration. Anyway, I get better syncing between the kickr and quarq when I do the spindown after 15 - 20 min.

I've had mine for two weeks now and have noticed this as well. What I have found is- performing a spin down after my warm-up (15 minutes or so) the KIckr becomes SPOT ON with my Quarq. Actually my Quarq's wattage is 5-10 watts higher than Kickr. During my warm-up, especially below 200 watts, the Kicker can read up to 30-40 watts less than Quarq.

D

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Try calibrating it after 15-20 minutes of riding. I find that it takes 2-3 minutes for the KCKR to "stabilize". Not sure why but suspect that it is the belt warming up.

Mine is very close to my Quarq but appear to have a different slope. At 350 watts by the KCKR it reads as about 360 watts on my Quarq. At 200 watts by the KCKR it is almost dead-on. At 150 watts on the KCKR my Quarq read about 140 watts.

What would be great is if TrainerRoad could read from Quarq (this part I know it can do) and then adjust Kickr resistance accordingly (this I doubt it can do); bypassing reading Kickr power. That would solve the problem of discrepancies. Must be something fundamental I am missing however, as I would imagine this would already have been done if it could be done.

Do at least a 10 minute warmup on the KICKR before calibrating, then it should be alright. Not always though: I bought my KICKR in March last year, but after getting my Vector pedals I noticed the KICKR was reading way higher (up to 25W for some harder efforts). Did a few tests with others and their PMs and we came to the conclusion the KICKR was off. Just had it replaced (support was great) and now they're within a few watts (~5W).

in ergo mine reads maybe 15w lower than my stages at around 300, even with repeated calibrations during the workout. The load seems to be steady and consistent, so i'm not going to worry about it and just use the kickr numbers as a repeatable indicator of work.

For some reason, I really struggle against the ergo, especially with the sufferfests. I have ridden on rollers for years and can hit much higher numbers on the rollers compared to ergo, maybe it's mental or being strapped into one position.

How do you know the Vectors were not reading right and your Quarq wrong?

Confucius say, "Man with power meter know power, man with 2 power meter never sure, man with 3 power meter up own bottom".

I just bought a set of vectors and I have a kickr as well, was unsure how to calibrate the vectors since I don't have a garmin head unit. I was just going to use my Galaxy S4 with wahoo fitness to connect to the vectors to display my power readings while cycling on the road.

Anyway being unsure how to calibrate the vectors and since the wahoo fitness app was unable to locate them I thought I would try and see if I could connect to the vectors using trainerRoad, which I could. Looking at the options I had in TrainerRoad, I saw a button that said Manual Zero under calibration, so I clicked on it and under result it said success.

I thought I would test it out by connecting my kickr to my phone using the wahoo fitness app and connect the vectors to my computer and have the vectors power reading show up on TrainerRoad. So I started pedalling and to my surprise the wattages from the kickr and the vectors were spot on, couldn't be any more identicle to be honest. Since I was controlling the kickr by the wahoo fitness app I increased the resistance to see if the power readings remained the same at a higher level of power, I stomped on the pedals and was producing 300w and the 2 readings couldn't have been any more identicle.

So am I correct in thinking my vectors have been calibrated to have the exact same readings as the kickr has? And isn't that what a lot of people are wanting, identical readings between the kickr and their vectors? As long as the kickr is calibrated and out putting the correct power readings then the vectors are also outputting the exact same correct power reading too? So I can now ride on the road and know that the power readings that I'm seeing are going to be exactly what they would be as if I was training on my kickr?

Seems all too easy, especially after so many people are really wanting their power readings to be as close as possible between their power meters?

Still need to figure out one thing, how to connect my vectors to wahoo fitness app on my Galaxy S4 which does supports Ant+ but the app can't find the vectors when searching for devices.

Hi I would like to know how to set up both the Quarq/Garmin Edge and Kickr/Wahoo Fitness app at the same time? When I try to do this my Edge unit goes crazy saying there is more than one power meter nearby! I would like to get the cadence measurement from the quarq in to the Wahoo Fitness app (or any other) and still see power on both the Edge (from the Quarq) and the app (from the Kickr). Any help will be appreciated.

unplug the kickr and pair with your garmin

Thanks! I thought of that but said to myself it couldn't be that simple!

This may be a stupide question but I am now expert on this thing so here goes.
Can you calibrate the Kickr any other way other than doing a spindown on Trainerroad.
I have read all the posts on here did the 15 minutes warm up then did a spindown on trainerroad in erg mode & mine is still 30-40 watts different to what the Garmin says I have a Quark which I calibrated when I started.
Tried the other way by adjusting the power thru my Ipad & I still had the 30-+40 watt discrepency doing it that way as well
Any ideas on what I could be doing wrong