I have been running a Stages with Garmin 910 for the last several months, but have not done much with calibration. I understood that calibrating was not needed for the stages, but just now learned that it is recommended to conduct a tare like function on the garmin itself. My bad.
Results thus far have been consistent, but I am curious to what I should expect after I start zero’ing out? I understand that results may vary, but thought someone may have some insight into this…
I calibrate mine maybe twice/month? Haven’t noticed any issues or strange readings. Probably not so helpful, but I’m also not doing aero field testing or super precise power-targeted intervals on the trainer.
I just ride with my left leg until it gets tired. Then I go home. No point in pedaling with the right if you’re not measuring the power from it.
How do you know the results have been consistent?
Without knowing what power really was how do people claim to know? It takes pretty in depth data analysis to guess at that without a reference.
Anyway given that the Stages has temperate compensation the consequences of not calibrating are probably minor unless large temperature swings have occurred. But it is good to get in the habit of re-zeroing any time you are stopped for a while.
What sort of auto-calibrating does stages do if any?
but just now learned that it is recommended to conduct a tare like function on the garmin itself. My bad.
Where did you learn this?
It is my understanding that as the Stages PM measures stress on the crank it is necessary to ‘Zero’ the head unit with the crank arm in the relevant position whenever this stress might have changed. This is why they recommend you zero once it is installed, I guess because they feel the crank stress will be affected by how tight someone installed the crank. Unless you change, tighten or loosen the crank (or do something that has some other affect on crank stress) there should be no need to zero.
All power reading that are to high - it must be working properly.
All power reading that are to Lo - must be off and need calibrate.
Same goes for heart rate.
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No… If power is too high, you callibrate, if power is too low, you work harder.
How do you know the results have been consistent?
Fair question. My assumption of consistent numbers had more to do with a body of work over time than specific wattage. My data has show a steady grade of improvement over a 4 month period without any unusual variation. I was just a little nervous that the improvement line is flatter than I had originally thought!
@Jaymz - I heard several people in various circles say that the Stages needed to be zero’d out so I decided to look into it. It was only today that I read about this zero out thing on the Garmin.
What Jack said.
n=1… I hadn’t calibrated mine since the week after I got it. Still tracking 6-14 watts below my Power Pilot. Then I moved the D/A cranks to the TT bike and put Ultegras on the trainer/crit bike. Put the Stages arm on it. It read 30-50 watts low - I had forgotten to calibrate. Calibrated and now it’s back to “normal”.
So, as long as there are no big changes, I suspect not calibrating often isn’t a big deal.
you are only dealing with one leg power so why worry about calibrating/zeroing? 
you are only dealing with one leg power so why worry about calibrating/zeroing?
Yeah… start using your leg left more, the curve will change.