As some people prefer not to use erg for long intervals?
Some people prefer not to use erg for sprint workouts?
People’s own personal preference…
Bit of an odd question to ask really…
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Sorry, why is that an odd question?
Other than when doing a 8 or 20 min RFP test, I do every single workout in trainerroad in ERG mode. Never in resistance mode or whatever you would call it and never have I considered not doing the workouts in ERG mode. The question was asked with that background.
What is the benefit?
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Yes I would. I use trainerroad mostly and love my Atom.
Just realised you were asking someone else but my answers still the same
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There is a workaround.
If you get the 4iiii heart rate monitor it converts ant+ signals to Bluetooth. What this means is it will take the Atoms ant+ signal and your wattbike will then show up as another Bluetooth in whatever device you’re using. What’s good about this is that it’s read only Bluetooth so it won’t allow the trainer to read any erg mode commands sent to it.
This automatically lets you use the gears as normal when doing TR workouts.
It also has the bonus of letting you connect the wattbike to 2 different apps via Bluetooth eg TR and Zwift.
I’ve used it for a while now and it’s been great
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Does the Cable thingy do the same thing?
Yes but I think it allows control both ways so i’m not sure if it can be turned off/allow the gears to work in the same way. It will definitely allow use of 2 X BT apps though
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Its subjective but Resistance mode doesn’t hold you to a target so you can exceed it on a good day or put you into a potentially injuring spiral of death on a bad day. But ERG always forces you to perform which can be good too. The quality of my trainer is probably why I find resistance more beneficial over ERG.
I also like to use virtual roads (independent of both TR Resistance and ERG) and I think the slightly more random variation in virtual course resistance better sets me up for the real world.
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Could you not just increase the workout intensity to above 100% on the good day or reduce on a bad day. Would that not give the same. Eg if I really struggle with a interval, I sometime take it down to say 95% and that is normally sufficient to get through.
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The problem with the Suito (my trainer) and probably my lack of watts is that’s too late and you’re already getting dragged into the spiral of death and if you are long sighted with age and short sighted by birth it’s easier to see/feel physical buttons 
I tried ERG for a bit, it just didn’t work for me but I can see the advantages for others 
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So have seen that Wattbike have released a new FW (Next generation Wattbike Atom stable firmware is updated to v.1.3.42) have any current TR users found if this helps the ERG issue? Its not mentioned in the Wattbike FW Release notes but just curious to see if they are getting closer to a resolution.
Erg on the atom has been stable for a while already now prior to this uodate
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Yeah I think it’s been pretty stable for a while now. I got mine around March and within a month or so it seemed ok.
Saying that, I was doing some sprint intervals today and it still takes about five seconds to get upto the required watts (on ERG mode).
Just recently got an Atom and I am quite disappointed with it. On a work out tonight (see photo) it just wouldn’t settle down. Is this similar to what you have experienced?
How long is the example shown above? It looks like just a few minutes zoomed in and the power line looks quite normal to me.
Nothing sticks to an exact wattage, there will always be fluctuation unless you’re a robot.
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From the time stamps on the crops, that is about 4 minutes shown. As you said, I think that is actually pretty decent power data for that timeframe.
Depending on what he is expecting or has seen with prior power data devices, he may be expecting overly smooth lines that are present from things like the Wahoo trainers with ERG Mode Power Smoothing on, or others like the Tacx Vortex, that all show very unrealistic power data.
Should it be that varied though? I’ve been using TR for two years now but this is the first time using ERG, I was able to produce a smoother liner without ERG on my bike with my dumb turbo.
The Variation on this example is +66 watts and -29 watts. At this point I actually had my eye closed to try and eliminate any potential bias due my own input to correct the fluxuations. During these big changes I am doing a relative consistent cadence of between 95-99
I’ve invluded the full interval to show the surge at the beginning where again it can be seen to overshoot +87watts then under perform to -129 watts then bouncing back again and down again. At that high above my threshold I am unable to recover from those two surges.
Input about the normality of this would be appreciated and any advice as to how to try and smooth it would be great.
I thought similar when I started on ERG mode, see my thread “ERG mode beginner problems” or something like that. Generally:
- Don’t chase the power
- keep your cadence as smooth as possible.
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Thanks Bob, just having a look now and there are some really useful bits on there. Slightly annoying on one of the intervals I was trying to ignore the power and that was the worst one!
If you look at the average for the interval I am sure it will be on target or within 1 watt unless you are doing 30s or shorter intervals.
There is always a spike at the beginning as it ramps up too hard and then has to adjust.
Normally on a 4 minute interval at threshold I might see power numbers +/- about 15 watts but it quickly readjusts.
Well, ERG mode has stopped working on my next Gen Atom. I am using the latest firmware.
ERG does not engage on Zwift, Watt Bike Hub or Trainer Road, I have tried all three apps on my ipad and S20+.
Gear mode works fine however, I will contact Watt Bike tomorrow and see what they suggest. Lets hope its a quick simple fix!