Agreed - rather not discover my FTP has been 20-30 watts lower than I’ve thought the last 3 years!
When you say preferences, do you mean in the TrainerRoad app or Wattbike Hub app? Can’t find that option in the Wattbike app
If you go into known wattbikes in the hub, click on your atom, preferences then there is a reset option in there.
Same place as you switch between 11/22 gear options.
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The perceived difficulty could also be position, Q factor and cadence driven?
I do feel a difference between my 165mm cranks and the wattbike 170mm.
I’ve got 170mm cranks on both Atom and the Quarq, so it’s not that. I did play about with the position a bit, reset in preferences, and a few other bits, but I’m still convinced it’s at least 15w harder on the Atom, jumping from bike to bike. The difference is more pronounced the higher the wattage.
Sadly, it looks like a ramp test for me tomorrow to ascertain my ‘indoor on the Atom’ FTP, which will look like I’ve suddenly stopped doping. Unless Wattbike come up with something when they reply to my support ticket.
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After sending my ride files over to them, wattbike have said they want to take the bike in to do a factory check and calibration and will come and get it as soon as they can pending the covid situation here (UK)
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Did this ever happen? What was the verdict?
It hasn’t happened yet but I contacted wattbike last week and they assured me that it would, they are just dealing with a long backlog due to the covid lockdown and are taking them in order, apparantly it’s a one in, one out, operation when bikes go back to the factory for calibrations.
Best of luck on your ramp test!
Remember to mentally push yourself a couple of seconds more if you have a ramp step goal in mind. I found that because the Atom’s addition of resistance is slower, I found that it steps up to the wattage target about 10 seconds after the notification on the screen. So a 400w 1m best power would be 10 seconds into 420w step (if that makes sense)
At least you don’t immediately hit a 20W wall and immediately go into cadence grinding death…
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Bumping up an old thread here… I’ve just taken delivery of a next gen Atom and it seems to be outputing far higher power than my previous trainer (Elite direto). Previously I was around 4.3wkg max, now jumped to over 5.0wkg on races… very suspicious! Anyone else had this issue on a next gen Atom? I don’t have any power meter pedals etc to check output. Any other way of checking? Or any advice appreciated! I’ve emailed WB support but they are often slow to respond…
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I’d recommend trying to borrow some power meter pedals from somebody - only way to be sure.
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I think in general, its important to remember the context of the readings. So its not 200W, its 200W_Atom, or 160W_Powertap. There is a conversion factor required in going between these devices. As I understand with the Wattbikes, you can tinker with the calibration yourself. However, you probably want to do a FTP test directly after the new calibration. So really, you are not looking at 200W_Atom, but 200W_Atom_20201129. So the reading depends on the calibration (obviously).
Provided you have a FTP ramp test on a calibrated Wattbike, and dont muck around with the calibration, then Trainerroad should dovetail into place.
Obviously, throughout this process of calibration, your actual FTP is remaining the same.
There’s a reset option within the settings, worth tapping that and checking.
Few people have stated that after having had service it can over / under read till it is reset.
Thanks, yes in the advance settings option, the ‘set zero state’ button seems not to do anything on the wattbike hub app, it’s a red button that just goes grey but no conformation anything has been done. All a bit odd, especially as wattbike state ‘configured for life’
I’ll report back for any others that get this issue, or just to say power meter pedals match the Wattbike output (5.0wkg would be nice!)
Did they get back to you and what was the result. I myself have an old wattbike atom and an assioma uno and found the same reading 10% low on the assiomas compared to the wattbike. What was the end result
Yes. They agreed that it needed taking in for a calibration and we’re going to collect it…then the V2 Atom was a announced and people who’d ordered within an overlap timeframe of the V2 being announced we offered an upgrade to the V2 at £150 (Vs the £300 extra it costs) sooooo, I rang them and argued the case that when I logged the fault with them was within my return period/the same timeframe others were offered the upgrade and that I should be offered it also…especially as they were coming to collect my faulty V1 to fix it anyway!
Anyhow, after some back and forth they agreed to let me upgrade and also keep my V1 until the new bike arrived which I was very happy with.
Anyhow, my V2 power matches almost spot on with my powertap P1’s.
I can’t fault the service (even thought I had to be quite insistent) and now with some software updates the is starting to perform pretty well. Overall I’m very happy
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I’m also seeing some large variations on my gen1 Atom compared to my stages, dura ace & quarq power meters.
After borrowing a friend powertap pedals, the difference was up to 60w lower but avg around 43w, which is super frustrating when racing on Zwift.
The response from wattbike support was pretty poor to be honest, saying that the file info I sent them looked fine and that the other power meters read differently so basically bad luck.
So pretty annoyed with that response and have recently written back saying can you please do something to fix it.
We’ll see what that say.
Bumping this. Tried out an AtomX at the gym today and it was at least 30W under. Could not figure out how to calibrate it. I had to downgrade a workout by 80% in order to finish. I have so much power data from other meters that I know this was super off.
You brought your power meter pedals to the gym?
I don’t think so, his last sentence seem to imply he is using his experience with other meters and related RPE to estimate the power delta on the AtomX.
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I have done various ramp and FTP tests and have a big difference:
Wattbike FTP: 320
Stages left hand power crank (road bike) 290w
Stages left hand power crank (TT bike) 270w
Interesting.
My experience has been the other way around.
Wattbike reads low compared to my outdoor bike (Stages LH PM).
Also reads low compared to my mates bike I’ve used (PM pedals).
Also reads low compared to rental bike I used in Majorca in April (dual sided PM but forget the make).
Essentially 300w indicated indoors feels like 320 does outdoors on said PMs.
I expect if actually it’s not that far off and in fact the actual issue is I struggle to put out as much power indoors for the same level of ‘effort’ I perceive - for the long list of reasons repeated multiple times in many threads on this forum ?