I’m the proud owner of some brand new Assioma Duo pedals after years of having power on the trainer but none outside.
Wahoo ELEMNT defaults to 3 second power. I’m surprised by just how hard it is to hold steady/consistent power outside! I knew it would be much harder than the beautiful ERG mode trainer, but wow. It’s all over the place.
What do other people display on your head unit? 3 second? 5 second?
I know I need to actively practice consistency outside but I’m curious what other people look at while they’re riding.
Don’t overly stress about it…power is naturally stochastic. Just get used to it and don’t worry about being “on a number” the whole time.
I use both, depending on what device I am using and what the setting options are. Since you are new to it, I would recommend at least 5" until you get used to the stochastic nature of the numbers. You could maybe even consider a 10" average.
Wahoo trainers artificially smooth the data to make it appear you are holding a consistent wattage when you are not. It’s not that you’re less consistent over 3 seconds outdoors than you are indoors. It’s just that your Kickr makes it LOOK like you are. Humans aren’t machines. We can’t hold EXACTLY 250 watts. We pedal once and get 240, a second time and get 250, a third time and get 260, etc.
As for the field on my head unit, I personally use 3sec on the road and real time on the mtb, but there are arguments for everything from 1 sec to 60.
With practice you can definitely make steady power on flat roads. I forgot how Wahoo works, maybe try a screen with 3 or 4 power fields. Something like 60 sec, 30 sec, 10 sec, and 3 sec. Garmin has real-time power graphs, those really helped me along with 10 and 30 second average power fields. Experiment a bit and see what works for you.
I used to do power zone and it works really well. After doing the triathlon plans I find it’s easier just to do %FTP since that is how all the workout intervals are described.
On my Garmin, I have 3s power on the main screen for fun and a separate screen with 10s power that I use for pacing long climbs.
If you’re trying to do intervals, you should try to set up a display with 10s and lap average power. Start a new lap for each interval with the goal of keeping the average power close to the target power and using 10s to make sure that you’re not deviating too much.
I’m not using it to actually train or do intervals, I’m just using it for normal rides. I think 3sec zone is just the ticket. I can ride along at zone 3 and then switch to zone 4/5 for rollers, climbs, surges, etc.
Yip its 3 sec I use Creating a Custom Garmin Screen – TrainerRoad. Its a while since I have done a outside wo but I think the TR setup also displays the average power for an interval and the target range to keep it in.
I have a screen I used for power based intervals with:
Lap time
Lap average power
HR
3 second power
10 second power
I keep an eye on the last two but try to ride the interval to the lap average power. If I wanted to do the interval at 300 watts and the average was 290, I’d push a tiny bit harder.
And some intervals I do by HR and the power metrics are just for interest and analysis afterwards.
I swap HR for cadence and 10s for 30s. But same basic idea. For Time Trials and road races, if I don’t know the course well will sometimes swap in Lap Distance to help with situational awareness.
Doesn’t sound like real-time power graphing is on Wahoo, and I’d suggest filing a support request asking for an enhancement.
In this screenshot on my Garmin 530 the color coding is:
zone1 recovery is grey (0 to 152W)
zone2 endurance is blue (153 to 207W)
zone3 tempo is green (208 to 248W)
etc.
That screen is what I use when just free riding (no workout loaded). That really helped me smooth out power by seeing the last 2 minutes and all the power variations.
There are two related graphs that I use while following a workout. My brain really likes those real-time graphs, versus say a 10-sec average.
Definitely worth filing a support request with Wahoo and asking for real-time power graphs!
