Problem with 'power zones', Strava, Garmin, and Stages

Equipment
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Rundown: Did an away ride, and something happened to my L/R Stages causing the last third of the first of 4 rides to show super human power. So it showed I had an FTP of ~667 after that ride, and burned over 1,200 calories. It was WAY over my normal 227 FTP.

Garmin Connect said (before I knew what was going on) that I had a new ‘Power Zone Record’, did I want to accept it. I said ‘Yes’. BIG mistake that became evident later.

Next day’s ride: the Stages wouldn’t respond to a zero reset, so I just dropped whatever did respond from my Edge, and rode on. Later I tracked down some batteries and swapped them, got both sides to come up, and verified linkage and that I could zero them, everything looked good.

Rode the same route, and the power showed up (Yippee), Happy days… Did the same route the next day, and felt great. Got in one more the next morning as I prepared to leave. I thought everything was roses… Got home, and started looking at the rides and felt good, until I got to the bottom of the data: Almost the entire power data from those rides was in the recovery zone. Oops… Strava accepted the warped data from Connect, and that looked horrific too. I created a ticket with Stages for insight on what happened with the power meters, and then contacted Garmin Support to see if I could fix it. They weren’t exceedingly helpful. I found the ‘new record’, and deleted it. Then I downloaded, deleted, and re-uploaded the rides (Garmin droid said that ‘might work’), and they were charting good (except for that first one). Strava was handled the same way. All was looking good.

A couple of days later, I rode outdoors here, and the data was back to all in recovery again with an FTP of 667. Yikes. Contacted Garmin again and got a document back that said I had to adjust the Power Zones (on the Edge) in Connect, and the new ones would feed to the Edge, and all would be good. EXCEPT the Power Zones I found were perfect, spot on normal. I relayed that to the Garmin Support droid who then told me that the Power Zones must be coming from my power meter. I can’t find anything showing where the Stages are loading anything related to power zones. AND all of the rides were set back to Monster FTP!!

I looked at the records in Connect, and I did get a power zone record again, but it was nowhere near Monster FTP, and actually lower than my current 227. I accepted the new much lower record, and things just seem to be going off a cliff. And I opened another ticket with Stages, and tried to call them, and the bot said their office was closed. Is Stages still in business?!?!

So, being my first power meter, what happened? If a battery dies, the manual says it just continues with whichever side is still working, but that is certainly not what happened. Garmin not knowing what happened and getting snippy over my continuing to have issues isn’t helping. I did export the ‘bad’ ride and edited the TCX file to lower the power, and it looks more realistic at least but where did Monster FTP come from yet again?

So far it appears that the Edge is working correctly. It appeared that the Stages were working correctly, until something happened and it all hit the wall. I was able to ‘recover’ normality, for a brief moment. Garmin has no constructive opinion and shrugged when I suggested a hard reset of the Edge. And Stages is just nonexistent. And the rides are again showing a really high FTP.

Hoping someone here has a clue what happened, and if Garmin is full of it. (And where the hell Stages is)

Thanks, sorry it’s so long. What a crazy thing to happen… The Stages are up to date, the Edge is up to date, I’m up to date. (Connect showed all of the data properly, BTW, except the super human power output. No other data appeared to be altered, which was odd I’m thinking. If one of them went mental, why would the other data look good?) And anything through the Edge is Monster FTP again, even though Connect shows normalcy.

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Have you tried deleting the ride with the whacky power and just never uploading it again?

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Yes, but after I edited the one file, everything seemed to be good, until the first outdoor ride, and then things seemed to have gone sideways, again. The Ride still shows the edits I did, so that’s helping me to wonder where Monster FTP is coming from. (I even thought of just cutting and pasting the last third of a good ride after I thought I fixed everything and leave it, but then it happened again. Yeah, I may just drop it and move on, but still hope to make my goal for the year. :man_shrugging:

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The power meter just sends power readings, not zones. It’s nothing to do with Stages. Garmin will sort the data into zones, depending on the set FTP. (Did you reset the FTP, or just delete the power record?) That could happen both on the Edge, and in Garmin Connect. (They should sync and have the same data, but check). Strava probably also does its own sorting into zones, so check the FTP that is set in Strava.

…most of all, don’t stress too much about it. The training takes effect in your body, not Garmin or Strava.

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It happens sometimes with faulty data… but if you just set your FTP in strava and garmin connect it should put you in the correct zone for your next rides.

Accepting it obviously is what messed you up, but manually changing your FTP should fix it i’d imagine. It will still mess up your power records though, so sometimes I delete those rides.

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So Garmin droid’s comment was odd. I’d be surprised if the power meter sent ‘zones’.

Maybe they get to many people complaining about their ‘small FTP’ after riding up hill both ways on a 100 mile ride. :smile:

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Yeah, I realized that, too late…

The problem with Garmin is that lately I’ve noticed that if I add ‘devices’ to a ride they don’t seem to stick. It’s like Garmin either has multiple areas they store that addition, or their various apps and web front ends don’t store anything. So then to have the Monster FTP show up yet again, I’m just wondering what the heck is up with their apps/services. :man_shrugging:

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i get you… garmin has some weird stuff going on at times. Wish i was more help!

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I was just frustrated and reaching out in case someone had any experience with this weirdness.

Yeah, accepting the record was a mistake, but it seems that deleting the bad data isn’t a done deal, it appears to come back. I edited the ride with the huge power, and yet it seems that it never goes away. :flushed: :roll_eyes:

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Yeah. I’d just delete the whole ride and if you want the stats for the year just put in a manual ride and plug in the stats you want like time, distance, etc.

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Oh, stellar idea!! But I need to sift through now and see what rides were adulterated, and delete them, and fix the FTP crap, and re-import them, and maybe it will stick. ALWAYS READ THE TEXT OF POPUP MESSAGES IN GARMIN CONNECT! (Well, and other places as well. Reading… :roll_eyes: Something I need to do more of apparently :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming:)

Thanks…

I had thought of splicing an earlier ride over the bad part of that ride, but that doesn’t make sense, and poking the XML gods can bring their wrath. :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain: :zap: :fire: :volcano:

((I crashed the iTunes database THREE TIMES, editing it. Supposedly it’s gotten ‘better’. :laughing: :laughing:) Part of the iTunes database system is a huge XML file. Yeah, I lost huge amounts of music, and had to reload every CD I own, three times)

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If you want to keep the file @robcow you could strip the power data (untick the Power box) and export the tcx so you can upload it to GC Combine FIT, GPX, CSV or TCX files for Garmin or Strava. Merge Heart Rate Power and GPS

FitFilesTools.com is probably a nicer package but it only pushes to Strava and make it incompatible with GC.

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The TCX file is missing GPS data, right? It’s confusing what the difference is between them.

Thanks. I’ll look at what I have and might swap them again. (I did realize that I entered the minutes in the hours box when I entered them into Connect, so I’ll really have to redo them. Ouch. Getting practice at it…

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A tcx file has I think all the data of the modern fit file, including GPS. It is just Garmin et al. first stab at handling GPS data and is quite a bit bigger than the modern fit file.

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The FIT file was compressed, and the TCX is XML, from what I saw. I could edit the TCX, not the FIT. Edit with BBEdit anyway…

Still wondering where Stages is. Did they go under? Someone bought them (SRAM?) Were they beamed to space? Now I’m just curious, not furious. Hah!! 4 year old power meter circling the drain? Ouch…

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As far I Know Stages are still here, only just recently launching an Smart bike https://stagescycling.com/

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Stages had those models for quite some time. I had serious thought of dumping my Neo Smart Bike for an SB20. Now: Not so much.

I have really liked the dual Stages on my Ultegra crankset. Not having ANY response from them has been very disappointing. :disappointed:

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The only time I dealt with them was with the Stages Dash HRM and they were quite responsive. The Dash was a pile of junk though, I think it failed within a month and the warranty replacement within a month also. I gave up and bought a CooSpo which at least lasted a few years :neutral_face: