Hi guys! it has been a few weeks that ive been trying to connect my Garmin 910xt with my cycleops power beam pro trainers but no luck. good thing i have a joule to see my training but i really wanted to connect it with the watch but seems not to work, it can see the search the power meter but then when i press calibrate nothing happens… my cycleops powerbeam is a 2014 model. can anyone pls help me?
another is a question about the trainers power reading accuracy… how accurate is it in terms of power reading? my coach said it seems to read abit high…
(This is assuming the Powerbeam is ANT+ as it’s connecting with your Joule)
“Calibrate” isn’t how you would connect your 910 to the Powerbeam. After the Powerbeam has been plugged in to the wall and spun so that the blue lights turn on, it will be able to be read as a power meter by your 910. All the 910 is doing is reading the signal coming from the Powerbeam as a power meter. It’s been some time since I played with a 910, but you should be able to manually enter the ANT+ ID into the 910 as well. If the Powerbeam is on, it’s sending a signal that can be read by any ANT+ device that can read signals from ANT+ power meters. It’s just like connecting a speed/cadence sensor.
Powerbeams are made by Powertap. I see no reason to doubt they would be anything less than awesome. They might read a couple percent lower compared to pedal or crank based power meters due to drivetrain efficiency. What does your coach have to compare them to?
he said that the power im putting is high for my fitness level. ive been out of proper training for almost a year but still does cycle teice a day but more of casual riding. he said that the power im lutting is for well trained athletes. i was able to maintain 250watts for 30minutes at 250watts resistance on the power beam trainer. he said its too high for me.
about the calibration. my 910 doesget in contact with the trainer cause it can see the ANT+ Id but when calibration started it just hangs ob there and nothing happens. thanks
I don’t know you, your fitness, your size or your coach so I can’t comment on the first part.
Have you ever had your 910 connected to a power meter before? I’m not sure what the disconnect is. When you’re in the 910, choose a bike profile and you are searching for a sensor (power meter in this case) like you would for a speed/cadence sensor. If there are other power meters ‘on’ and in range that could cause issues. Connecting your 910 to the Powerbeam would be the same as connecting it to a Power2Max, Stages, Quarq, etc.
The 910 doesn’t really calibrate the Powerbeam Pro and certainly can’t control it. The calibrate is akin to pressing “tare” on a scale. To actually calibrate the Powerbeam, you would do the roll down test with the Joule or on a program like PerfPro or TrainerRoad. It’s possible rolldowns can be done with a 910, but I don’t know for sure either way. I would guess not as I haven’t seen it on the 510.
yes ice been doing rolldown calibration with my joule. do you think i have to do it also on my 910? weird that when there are only 2options its either (search) or (calibrate)
The rolldown is for the PowerBeam itself. It has nothing to do with Joule, 910 or any other head unit I know of. Being able to initiate that rolldown is unique to the Joule and I don’t believe is an option with the 910, 510, etc. If you are using TrainerRoad or PerfPro, you can click a button to tell the trainer to begin that rolldown calibration process. It’s all contained within the Powerbeam so it knows how many watts to broadcast when you are connected to it as a power meter.
There’s two ways to connect to the Powerbeam ant+. One is as a controllable trainer (like you would do with the Joule or TrainerRoad/PerfPro/Zwift) and the other is connected to it as a power meter where your head unit doesn’t tell it anything, it’s only reading the watts it broadcasts and then recording it. When you’re trying to connect your 910 to it, you’re connecting to it as a power meter for the simple task of recording how many watts it’s doing. The Joule is able to connect to it as a controllable trainer and thus their relationship is a little more complicated.