Crank power meter, shows an average of 20w vs Elite Suite T

Equipment
1

Hi guys,

I am using TrainerRoad with Elite Suite T trainer. My initial FTP has been set with the RAMP test, and now I use AI detection. Recently, I bought a crank power meter, which shows an average of 20w more than the trainer.
Right now, I don’t know what to do; Powermatch can help when indoors, but if I go outside, Powermatch is of no use. Should I do another RAMP test when I switch to the outside, or is there another solution?

2

Work out how much more the power meter shows at FTP (eg, ride at FTP for 10 minutes, take average). Do this without power match - set trainer to old FTP, record PM on another device. Then just enter that new FTP into TR and turn powermatch on for all indoor rides. Outside, just go with the PM.

3

Its a rabbit hole. If you are using your crank indoors I’d suggest ignoring the suito and using the crank PM as the one source of truth. Indoors TR will default to Powermatch and use the PM reading and outdoors you’ll use the PM reading too. I ignored my Suito years ago it similarly read IIRC a bit lower than my PM and it was less stable too. With regards to your FTP, AI FTP D should eventually be biased purely by your PM and powermatch but if thats taking a bit long and workouts feel about 20w too easy you may want to use the ‘alternates’ function to select something harder. I wouldn’t opt for a ramp test myself as the system will ramp up soon enough.

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4

  1. Bike & Power Meter + Inside Trainer + PowerMatch = Power data from your bike’s power meter

  2. Bike & Power Meter + Outside = Power data from your bike’s power meter (same as above)

No problem there in use if you do that, because you keep the same data source in both use cases.

  • Your issue right now is that you just changed your “tape measure” and they apparently differ a bit (which is more common that people expect or would like to be the case).

  • The general recommendation when someone swaps a power data device like you did is to redo your FTP test of preference. Even if your actual fitness is identical, the tool used to measure it will now report different data. As such, you need to “redo” your test to get the proper baseline using that new power meter.

5

I had a Suito and the same happened to me when I bought my Favero pedals. Suito is about 20w lower.

As suggested, use your crank PM consistently inside and outside. Use Powermatch for your TR workouts. I also would suggest you not use ERG mode. You’ll see that there’s a considerable lag in loop. Suito tries to adjust up, then it’s too much, adjust down, too much again… I didn’t like it. Probably Suito’s fault.

2 Likes
6

If you contact elite, they can send a protocol to update the resistance/power curve.

I had same issue with mine, once my 4iiii died on trainer bike, so I got the elite Suito meter matched to assiomas on outdoor bike and has worked well since

7

Do you have a zwift account as well? Or can sign up for a free trial? Zwiftpower has a dual power analysis tool that is supposed to be pretty good (I haven’t used it but friends with a similar issue to you have). Should enable you to dive a bit deeper into that 20W and see whether it’s consistent at different intensities, cadence, etc. If it’s always 20W then that’s much easier to compensate for than if it’s variable!

Details here How To Use ZwiftPower’s Dual Recording Power Analysis Tool | Zwift Insider