I think with ERG it’s all about getting used to a smooth cadence and then being disciplined. In my personal experience, I noticed that shifting around on the saddle, reaching for a bottle etc, can cause changes in cadence which cause mini power spikes. So you need to stay focused and steady.
With time you can learn to minimize disruption and keep things smooth. Even on my rest intervals, if I get out of the saddle for a few seconds, I can usually do it with hardly any disruption to my cadence and power.
Below are a couple of screen grabs from Carson (5&6min SST with cadence changes) and Wright Peak (30mins SST). This is with kickr (power smoothing off) and assioma duos on power match.
In spite of pretty smooth cadence (even if I do day so myself) there’s still some ‘spikiness’, but it’s nothing to worry about.
Thanks all, I’ve been in conversations with trainer support lines as well and they’ve asked me to send over some test power files, so I’m awaiting the response.
@jhow Want smooth line? Yes, but it’s the sudden massive increase in resistance that’s the reason for this post
@cleanneon98 Cadence not consistent enough? Okay it could be me, but I think the resistance is changing while I am maintaining cadence, which I then struggle to maintain/claw back, giving the wobbly graph.
Basically, @chad.mcneese (not throwing you under a bus here!) and others said that Erg mode was great, fire and forget, made training easier. So far it’s made it impossible…so I must be doing something wrong, or the trainer is
Although, now I’m wondering why I’d have it enabled…if the pedals are giving the power to TR…and TR is controlling the trainer…the trainer needs to be matched otherwise it would send data based on the pedals, which might be out of sync with the trainer…if that’s how it works?
Your cadence appears to wander a bit even during the recovery valleys, which is why I said I don’t think you’re holding a consistent cadence. I would try to use ERG in the small ring to minimize spikes anyway, and personally I always use Bluetooth connection and never have issues. I’m not trying to shame you or make you feel bad, that’s just my assumption. Otherwise if you feel like Power is increasing then you may be getting tired due to a high FTP or not being used to holding an exact target power for a defined interval. Let’s face it, it’s easier to back off for a few seconds here and there when doing intervals outside of erg, so not having those breaks takes getting used to.
As mentioned, I’d try some testing with trainer only data. No power meter and no power match.
Minimize the number of variables in the system. See if you notice a difference. Power match can and does impact the feedback and adjustment time.
So cut that big chunk out and try some steady intervals at Endurance and Sweet Spot power. Really nail the cadence. May want to use a dedicated cadence sensor or the cadence from the power meter (but no power data, “cadence only” is a setting in the devices).
Then share results of the workout so we can review.
I focussed entirely on cadence today, Zwift with pedals on power, trainer on controller, so that’s powermatched and in a workout with erg mode, then I thought about the cadence…automatically it selected the trainer…but how would the trainer determine cadence if it doesn’t know what gear you’re in? From the rhythm? so I selected the pedals.
I also (change one thing at a time ) updated the pedal firmware and set the crank length to 165mm (I use short cranks on my tri bike) so those plus I don’t know if getting cadence from the pedals made a difference or if my focus on cadence made the difference…but long and short I didn’t experience the same problem.
I’m going to try the same in TR on Wednesday, but I can’t recall seeing that you can set which device it receives cadence from?
Essentially, TR app will default to choosing the “best” device whenever you have more than one device paired that reports a value.
For Cadence: (from best to worst in terms of “accuracy” of data)
Dedicated Cadence Sensor > Power Meter Cadence > Trainer Cadence
In your case, you can tell TR to ignore power from the pedals, and only use them for cadence. This should be better cadence data than you are getting from your trainer
Okay, I did Pettit with Pedals and Zumo powermatched and Erg mode and it seems to be okay now.
Pettit is very different to Threshold intervals, so I’m not entirely convinced it’s done until I do a similar workout, but definitely none of the issues I had originally.
So what was the problem?
I think it’s me, and it’s the cadence/erg death spiral thing. I’ve been using a dumb trainer for years, and I can only think that although I have stared at cadence when I’ve been training to hold an interval, I have always changed cadence and gearing after hard intervals. Simply not doing that - holding the cadence/effort until the erg gets the right resistance - is simply going to take time to learn.
It’s not the devices, it’s me:
Although the power reads 15W or so different on the device these snapshots show the cadence is pretty much the same:
I recored half of Pettit on Zwift for comparison. I played with some settings; power smoothing, erg mode and unpaired the “controllable” and held some higher power numbers to see if it made a difference to training. Not much in my opinion, except that powersmoothing seems to exaggerate the difference between power readings between devices. No powersmoothing in TR or Zwift seems best.
@mcneese.chad I have Stages PM and a separate cadence sensor. Is it possible to use Stages just for power and the separate cadence sensor. I’ve only seen the setting you posted about telling the system to use the PM for cadence only, but I don’t see a setting that tells the PM to be used only for power and the cadence sensor for cadence. Just curious.
You are my hero, I was using ERG with big ring in the front, and a really small ring in the back. and my power was all over the place. I read this just before a session and moved up to a bigger ring, and it had made a ton of difference.
In theory, TR should be using the Cadence device (assuming you have it paired) as the Cadence value. They place a priority on using the ‘best’ device if 2 or more report a value.
There is not a way to force this or shut off the power meter cadence. You could contact support@trainerroad.com to see if they can confirm the point above or give you another option.
I found powermatch incredibly difficult with my power pedals. They seemed to jump difficulty all the time, resulting in even an easy.workout constantly putting me in a spiral trying to keep up with ever increasing pedal resistance.
Having paired my smart trainer to TR, and my pedals to Zwift, I see why. If I have an interval at 250 watts, if I keep a constant cadence, TR will show a pretty tight band.
But in instant power on zwift, I’ll see over a 30 second span 255-255-265-190-150-165-0-200-265-260-200.
If I’m on the small ring, same thing, but it tends to read way over on the top end, and closer to what TR is showing on the bottom.
So my recommendation is turn off powermatch and just use the smart trainer.
) updated the pedal firmware and set the crank length to 165mm (I use short cranks on my tri bike) so those plus I don’t know if getting cadence from the pedals made a difference or if my focus on cadence made the difference…but long and short I didn’t experience the same problem.
