Hey,
Just did my first session using a 4iiii power meter on my bike and kickr core trainer, with power match and erg mode both on… is this fairly normal?
Previously whilst using just the Kickr the power has shown as perfectly smooth… I know the kickr smoothens the real power or at least displays it to be smoother but this looks fairly extreme!?
Looks about right to me. Check your stats: 44 TSS, .66 IF, you nailed the workout. You might get a smoother profile at a higher cadence. My profiles spike more when I do lower cadence work.
totally normal - and as @kurt.braeckel says, you totally nailed it, so power match was working as intended 
The kickr smooths the power output by a huge margin - the kickr is basically showing you the power that TR is telling it to be set out, so it’s bound to be smooth, almost by definition.
fwiw I’ve found powermatch to be of limited usefulness - you lose some of that smoothness, which might be more realistic but seems to increase the intensity a bit. Try powermatch on very short intervals…didn’t work for me at all as the smoothing that TR has to do in a powermatch kills the intervals. You won’t see the problems on a workout as steady as bald knob.
I live with the fact the power/ftp on outside rides don’t necessarily EXACTLY match my inside rides but there are so many variables outside that I don’t find RPE is the same at the same power anyway. This way the TR experience is much better
Eh, the “delay” in interval response is overblown IME. Even on shorter intervals in erg, maybe you lose a second of work. Junction +1/Spanish Needle in erg went fine for me in PM with a Kickr Core. Thing is, while the interval start will lag, so does the interval finish, so you end up with almost exactly the right amount of time/work. And anything you’re missing is on the order of a fraction of a second. To me it’s far more valuable to have the same power data indoors and outdoors because correction factors between PM and trainer aren’t consistent day-to-day or even between power levels.
I’ve also noticed that ANT+ generally gives me spikier graphs than BLE, so it’s possible @tommyexmoor was connecting via ANT as well.
Thanks for the replies, reassuring to know this is normal. Think I’ll give powermsatch a proper try as it would be great to know its accurate and the same as outdoors
be interested to get your feedback - @kurt.braeckel’s experience is obviously different to mine. There are lots of posts on TR about it, both positive and negative. Much seems to depend on the trainer/powermeter combination - what gearing - what cadence - what workout etc etc.
Why not do a test recording on a garmin from your power meter and TR from the trainer in normal ERG mode - you can see how close the power is over each interval ? I did that a few times and I found that my power meter was pretty close to my trainer power most of the time, close enough to be usable and the difference wasn’t worth, what I considered to be, the reduced TR experience.
Ultimately, for training purposes, repeatably is arguably more useful than 100% accuracy. How these indoor ramp, 8minute, 20minute tests relate to what you might do outdoors is also very rider specific (IMO!) . RPE is so very different for me between indoor/outdoor. If you had to ride TT or Tri at an exact percentage of your (indoor?) FTP then you might be more inclined to use powermatch.
I also like to kid myself that my trainer reads low and I’m more powerful in the real world
as always YMMV
I’ll toss in my opinion:
I’ll be brutally honest - the Kickr is lying about power output with the default setting of Erg Mode Power Smoothing = on. It is a display setting and doesn’t impact anything.
Psychologically it made me feel like a hero on the first couple of Kickr workouts, and after comparing to outside efforts I didn’t believe it and called Wahoo support. They told me about the Erg Mode Power Smoothing and I disabled it.
Power in the real world is not smooth. I’d prefer to train the way it feels like when I’m pedaling in the real world. Some people prefer to hit precise targets. My viewpoint - except when doing over/unders with accurate FTP setting, your body doesn’t respond to precise zones so why kid yourself? Fun to debate over a beer, not as much fun debating on a forum 
Kickr 2017 and wheel off, with Stages power meter. Works fine for me. If it didn’t I would disable Erg mode and switch to Level or Resistance mode. With my trainer setup, short sprint efforts are better outside and that’s where I do 'em.
I can definitely generate more power sprinting outside, but I think you still get value from the indoor sprints too. Even though you might be putting out 800 or 900W indoors instead of 1200W outdoors, you get the additional muscle recruitment benefits. Unless I really want to work max power, which I almost never do (but probably should given my power profile!), I don’t worry too much about it.
I stay seated inside, and do about 500-600W on the 5-sec jobbers. Outside when doing structured work / repeatability, I’ll do an initial standing kick and then sit back down - its more like 800 or 900W.
