Got a new trainer and now I'm depressed

Training
1

Got a new trainer. Went from a Hammer H3 to a Wahoo Kickr Core.

It’s so much harder. Can’t hold any of my normal intervals. I’ve been working so hard for the last 2 years to get my FTP up to 300 and now it feels fake. Was my old trainer that off? What do I do?

2

I should say I calibrated the new trainer but never calibrated my old one, not sure if I needed to or not.

3

I will never change power meters for the same fear!

I see it as a training number these days but there’s still pride attached to it even though my 40k TT is the real measure I care about.

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4

I feel the pain a bit, although not to that extreme. I hooked my new bike up to my wahoo kickr today and the power meter on my crank was connected to my garmin 1040, while TrainerRoad was connected to my trainer. My garmin consistently showed around 6-10 watts more. At the end of the 90 minute ride my garmin showed a 6 watt higher average than TrainerRoad. Not sure if this is due to differences in calibration, or drivetrain loss from my crank to the trainer. It sure felt a little harder to put down power than my old bike. I made it through a very hard interval session still.

I suppose if I really care enough I can take my garmin power pedals off my old bike and put them on my new bike, and check power from all 3 sources against each other.

5

That is your problem. You weren’t getting accurate numbers….they may have been consistent, but not accurate.

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6

The conclusion here is you set a goal to increase your ftp by a certain number. You achieved it.
Now for the next goal.

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7

Saris instructions are 1-2x per month for H1, H2, and H3.

8
  1. Calibration was always recommended and useful for every trainer until the most recent ones that do it automatically, so lacking that with your old one brings up legit questions as to the accuracy.
  2. ANYTIME you make a change to your power measurement device, you likely need to consider a new FTP test. Despite the maker claims, there are NO guarantees that their data is “accurate”, even when you calibrate (or get it via auto).
  3. When you swap trainers, there can be real differences in the functional inertia between the mass of the flywheel and even the drive belt ratio deltas. This is a notable example as the Core has a lower inertia than the Hammer series, that are widely regarded for their excellent “road feel” from that setup.

All that above makes it likely that that your “FTP” is now different at least in terms of reported values (even though you are physically unchanged), which means a new test may be appropriate. Or you can swag a guess as to how much to manually adjust your new one.

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9

The solution is to use your bike’s power meter for all training, indoors and out. If you don’t have that then test your FTP on the new trainer and move on. It’s just a number. One of your trainers is off or even both are off.

My first power meter was a Tacx Vortex. It read up to 75 watts higher than the first bike power meter I bought. Talk about an ego blow. My Kickr reads 20 watts under across the board.

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10

This :point_up:

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11

One thing I’d add to the replies above is that nothing about your fitness has actually changed and all the hard work still counts. Easy to get sucked into chasing a number, been there plenty of times myself, but I know plenty of people with inflated FTP numbers online that I can run rings around outdoors. Not great if your only goal is zwift racing or similar but chase down that 300W FTP on the new setup and you will be faster outdoors.

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12

Agree with that, in fact if you’re into round numbers it’s done you a favour as trying to hit 400 as the next target would have been a stretch!

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Go back old bike? :rofl:

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14

Yeah. I have Garmin pedals which my kicked core uses for power and they self calibrate. It is nice.

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15

What really matters is how you feel in races and hard sessions. It’s just a number for you to help training on…dont look at this when you race

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16

Ive had two kicker cores and both needed a factory spin down from the gun to get accurate power. Id give that a try. My current one was off 5% at 300w, after the factory spindown it was within 1% of favero pedals

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17

I recently purchased the SNAP from WAHOO, and I have experienced the same thing. I have given my grievance to support and they give the same canned answer but I have had a computrainer and a Kinetic trainer. The power ratio were pretty even between the two but the SNAP is way off! I could have a HR at Z4 but my power is at Z1. I think it’s total BS. They continue to blame the environment for the differences but this way off!

18

I experienced the same issue when I put a Stages PM on my bike after using a KICKR CORE for a few years. The Stages was reading something like 20+ watts lower than the KICKR.

I’ve since had other power meters and have found that my best PRs have been set outside regardless of the discrepancy between the PM and smart trainer.

It’s almost impossible to say which is correct though without a third PM to serve as the tie-breaker, so I wouldn’t stress too much. :man_shrugging:

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19

LOL, A guy i used to Zwift ride with a few years ago got a new trainer, upgrading from a really cheap one. He suddenly “lost” about 30W and was no longer any use to race with :rofl:

20

I’m still going through tons of little metrics to compare my new bike to old bike (riding same routes at same power, average pace, etc. etc.) Old bike had aero bars and 45’s and new bike does not have aero bars (but is lighter and slightly more aero) and 48’s.

Back to my power meter topic in more detail.
Last weeks ride on new bike’s SRAM Red Power Meter: 210 watt average
Same ride with Wahoo V6: 204 watt average

2 week ago ride with Garmin Power Pedals: 154 watt average
Same ride with Wahoo V6: 151 watt average

Overall prettty close and everything is probably within 1-2% on either side of 100% accurate calibration.

Although both the SRAM Red and Garmin Pedals were set to show readings of power at 3s averages, the SRAM seems way more “jumpy” on the trainer than the Garmin pedals. Not sure why.

I think the realistic fix here is probably just going to be turning off my Garmin head unit and only going with the trainer road values, which are connected to the Wahoo. I had a hard ride last Sunday and was pleased with how my level of effort compared to the power being shown by the SRAM power meter. I am still slightly unsure if I may be losing a bit of wattage in the bottom bracket, as it doesn’t seem quite as “free spinning” as it should.