I’ve got an indoor smart bike with Garmin Vector pedals on it. A few nights ago after a few weeks of hearing the odd crunch, the bottom bracket on it finally made it’s way to bike heaven. I can’t complain with nearly 3000 miles clocked up on it and replacement bearings costing £12
So keen to keep my training on track I borrowed an Elite Elastigel trainer from a mate and fitted my Defy to it with the same Garmin pedals from the smart bike.
I decided to do a rare sweetspot workout, and found it really really tough.
So inspected my HR from Garmin and thought there’s something not right here, i’m far too much in the red for sweetspot surely?
The next day I realised that my crank lengths are different on my smart bike and the Defy, (170 v 172.5mm), and after a quick google came to the conclusion my pedals were under reporting by a small percentage, and as I had completed a decent VO2 max a few day’s before the sweetspot ^, i’m maybe fatigued also. All seems well.
Last night I though I better ease off and just do an Endurance ride, so quickly (without putting my glasses on), I adjusted the crank lengths to what I thought was 172.5mm.
Eager to get going, I just hit hit calibrate not really looking whilst getting shoes on etc jumped on bike and after 10-15mins I gave up, My HR was far higher than normal for 150W etc, and my legs were toast and I was good for nothing.
Lying in bed last night I’ve all sorts of bad thoughts going through my head, I’m getting ill, trying to do too much, i’m finished! lol etc etc
Today, my mate asked me to go a run outdoors. He’s recovering from Covid so I though yeah I’ll go and we’ll have a really easy day and a catch up etc, and I’ll take the Defy with the Garmin pedals on it.
Setting up to go and calibrating the pedals with my glasses on with a little more time, I noticed that I’ve set the cranks up at 112.5mm last night , resulting in the pedals under reporting by about 35%!
The relief!
It won’t happen again