Ok there are two different things happening and they’re both called “smoothing”, which is confusing:
If your power source (your trainer) has smoothing enabled, it’s doing its own smoothing and reporting smoothed power to TR. If your power line looks really flat and consistent in the TR graph, that’s because the power source is smoothing.
If the TR app has smoothing enabled, the digital live watts display in the upper left corner will be “smoothed”. TR smoothing does not impact the data points shown in the graph.
I’ve been trying to find a way to hit VO2 max intervals with a high cadence and I can’t seem to figure it out. I would opt for erg mode, but the goal is to go out hard and fade as the intervals go on. I tried resistance mode, but the power curve causes a pretty big drop in cadence with higher power. Has anyone found a way to hit highish power (400W) and then fade all the while with a cadence above 100?
Use resistance mode. Find a gear that gives you the right start power for your interval at the cadence you want. Ride at that until you can’t keep your cadence up anymore. Shift to an eAsier gear, and keep the cadence up.
You could program your ‘fade’ into erg mode with a ramp down, but imo it is hard to accurately predict how much, and when, you’d fade.
As the others have said, you absolutely have power smoothing enabled on your turbo trainer. Make sure you turn it off using the application for the trainer you’ll see many more similarities between the two curves, although the absolute power output may be different.
Wahoo for a while had the default settings on their trainers to transmit target power back to apps like TR, not actual power.
Dcrainmaker commented on this in one of his articles - he wasn’t too happy about it.
The smooth line you are seeing from your kickr is target power, not actual. Turn smoothing off.
Re your other comment about not being able to maintain power - yes, if your power is very spiky, you will not be able to hold the same average. So if you ride in a way where you cannot hold stable power, then you may notice this effect.
However, I’m not sure I’d blame fully erg mode for not being able to ride at a steady power level. There’s also RPE that should be informing your power output. Pay more attention to how you are feeling during a ride, and you’ll pretty quickly be able to tell if you are putting down steady power, or fluctuating.
In a sense i think we have been under training though. Whilst the averages are the same, its coming from what i’ve have learned is me increasing power then easing off, then increasing power and easing off etc etc. Rather than maintaining smooth steady watts.
When on a climb this method really doesn’t work and you cannot maintain that average power you thought you could whilst using erg mode.
Definitely. I was silly to just think what was on screen was what i could replicate in the real world. Will pay more attention to how i feel and the power pressure from my feet.
ERG Mode Power Smoothing they offer is beyond a lie, and has no real purpose to smooth as much as it does.
The fact that they also make it turned on by default is inexcusable, IMHO.
They are responsible for unnecessary tech questions and confusion when people try another trainer or power meter that has “real” power graphing in ERG.
It’s quite disheartening knowing all my peak power outputs on Training peaks are way too high.
Just looking at it now my 20 min power for this ride was 243 (what was needed for the interval on erg mode), but my power metre recorded an average high of 203 for the 20 minutes. This more accurately reflects what I could maintain when I pushed for it in resistance / zwift riding.
Ah well, time to turn it off. It’s all relative and I have improved - it’s just the ego that’s taken a hit
For doing ERG work, probably but don’t get too hung up on it. You don’t need to maintain an exact number doing your intervals. Stay within the “green” range on your TR wattage bar and you’ll be fine.
For Zwift racing, this is absolutely not the way to go…you need to have a wide cadence range. To some degree, power is of secondary concern when racing…you either make the split or you don’t. What power you are putting out isn’t really a factor. . There are times when you’ll need to maintain a high cadence and others when it may feel like you are grinding…will depend on the race situation, grade, etc.
I think the main difference between erg mode and no erg mode is that, without erg, you have to concentrate to keep your power up. In erg, you can daydream, and you’ll still do the same power. But on the road (or zwift), you have to focus, or you’ll easily drift to a more comfortable power. If you’re not used to that need to focus, it can make the effort harder.
I use erg mode on my Kickr snap and I race tt’s …I assume that the trainer is requiring you to ride @250W if it says that on the screen . Now I know from racing with a power meter that even in a flat tt my power varies so it does on the trainer but surely if your power drops to much you just get the death spiral so the average power you put out is the 250W it says even though it varies with your pedal stroke. I personally like erg mode especially for V02/ super threshold intervals - it forces me to ride at the interval wattage rather than allowing me to fade - but if you look at the data post ride my power is often lower than the interval power as it takes a few seconds even in erg mode to get up to north of 350W. I would agree it is artificial though…it’s great for tt training but when I go on group rides especially chain gangs it takes a few weeks to get use to the power surges…If I was a road racer I would use resistance mode all the time.
This! Especially if it’s a snap, the wheel-on trainer as there are a bunch of moving targets that effect power readings as you’re adding the tyre/roller interface into the equation on top of the drivetrain (is it 1st gen snap? With that optical sensor that is pure evil?) The two are measuring power in fundamentally different ways too. Be very careful with the following if you do perform a test:
Discard the first 10 minutes of data a la @GPLama, everything is warming up, don’t trust it.
Do a spindown calibration on your trainer.
Ensure that your power meter is correctly configured (crank length in the case of Powertap Pedals, nothing to do for crank-based) and zero/calibrate it in TR/head unit.
If your PM is single sided (did you say what your PM was? Sorry if I missed it), your left/right imbalance will be exaggerated, your Kickr will not see this imbalance. If your PM measures both legs but only transmits one (thanks again Powertap P1 over Bluetooth specifically) again you’ll get an exaggerated imbalance. If you have a double-sided power meter on a newer Shimano crankset the driveside will be telling you lies (again thanks @GPLama)
As Dave says above, do a comparison run to see how consistent the two measurements are. As long as you aren’t seeing something egregious like the two measurements drifting apart over time (after they’ve warmed up!) then pick the PM and stick with it.
Also the PM saying it’s 16.5% lower? That sounds a little worrying but it’s not completely crazy. The Kickr could be a couple of percent high, the PM a couple of percent low, you might have a normal left/right imbalance being inflated by a single sided measurement if it’s on the weaker leg, etc.
I train with ERG exclusively and can hold fairly steady power outside, I’m talking +/- 5% if I focus, you just need to form that muscle memory which takes time, maybe more than just a year of TR, it certainly takes working on outside as well. The real issue is your trainer giving you artificially smooth power lines, and you expecting a perfectly robotic power curve in the real world as a result of this deceit.
. There are times when you’ll need to maintain a high cadence and others when it may feel like you are grinding…will depend on the race situation, grade, etc.