spectastic

good job

wrong thread though

mattm

ha.

a true sign i'm a masters-age racer lol..

ancker

How does everyone deal with the discrepancy between indoor and outdoor power in terms of tracking LTS/TSS/etc?
My indoor FTP is about 25w lower than my outdoor FTP. This is enough to create a decent delta in TSS between rides for the same RPE.

Do you just ignore the difference, add a few TSS to indoor rides to compensate, or what?

Wylde06

Some people aim for slightly lower numbers. I just use what I have as my ftp and aim for those numbers in my workouts..but this year I have tested indoors so maybe my indoor workouts better match up vs outdoors.

furiousferret

I just don't ride indoors. Its hard because sometimes it dips down into the 50's but we tread on.

The few times I just go off rpe and guess.

bbbean 

My experience matches yours. a little over a year's use, the only issue I ever had was when carrying the bike on the rack a few hundred miles a week was causing the PM to come on and run the battery down. Firmware update fixed that problem. I've ridden a couple of hundred miles in the rain, and easily a thousand on wet roads - no water problems.

Updated to the new version the day it came out, numbers remained in the same ball park, calibration numbers / offset have remained consistent at 899 +/- 5 since I've owned it.

I wouldn't avoid updating the day before a race, but if it was working fine before, I'd probably wait till afterwards just to be safe.

BB

Hermes

Installed Vector pedals on track bike. Prior to installation, I checked Garmin for updates. There is a new version 3.6 for the pedals and an update for Garmin 810 head unit. The transient response of the head unit and power pedals appears better. Instantaneous power changes seem to occur within one second versus 3 seconds. We will see what, if any, changes there are in power profiles.

grolby

Grumble. Having problems with my Stages dropping out. It was fine, then I came back from a week-long vacation where my bike was just sitting in the basement waiting for me, and now it basically doesn't work. From experimenting, it seems that the problem is that the battery door isn't holding the battery in tight enough. Which seems crazy, because it isn't damaged, the O-ring is intact, all that. The battery did have a rust spot, so it seems there might have been a sealing problem all along. Grr.

25W sounds like a lot, though I guess it depends on your FTP. I don't have a problem hitting my targets indoors, but I do very few long intervals over Z3 when I'm on the trainer. Having a lower FTP inside is normal. TSS is not a measure of RPE over time, so adding a few points to make a chart that makes you feel like more of BAMF seems a little misguided to me. But I barely use the TSS and CTL and such stuff, so probably not the guy to give advice on it.

echappist

rollers, ginormous fan, and any other way of cooling would obviate the need for any sort of correction. i hit my outdoor watts indoors, and sometimes it's easier indoors as i live in a very windy area, and it's much harder pushing into a headwind than it is doing something steady on rollers

furiousferret

The new version has more bells and whistles but eats Edge battery power faster. For a track bike that's not a concern but I'm not sure mine would last 6 hours +

TheKillerPenguin

I've never ridden rollers, but on a trainer it's impossible for me to hit the same numbers indoors, it just doesn't happen even with my windows open on a 10º day with a box fan blowing directly at me.
@ancker, I don't tweak TSS because TSS is a measure of the work done and just because it feels harder doesn't mean you're doing more work. It's important to keep your metrics honest so you have a good reflection of your actual long-term fitness in your charts. Other's might have a different opinion on the matter but that's my 2 shekels.

Hermes

[QUOTE=grolby;17804391]Grumble. Having problems with my Stages dropping out. It was fine, then I came back from a week-long vacation where my bike was just sitting in the basement waiting for me, and now it basically doesn't work. From experimenting, it seems that the problem is that the battery door isn't holding the battery in tight enough. Which seems crazy, because it isn't damaged, the O-ring is intact, all that. The battery did have a rust spot, so it seems there might have been a sealing problem all along. Grr.



25W sounds like a lot, though I guess it depends on your FTP. I don't have a problem hitting my targets indoors, but I do very few long intervals over Z3 when I'm on the trainer. Having a lower FTP inside is normal. TSS is not a measure of RPE over time, so adding a few points to make a chart that makes you feel like more of BAMF seems a little misguided to me. But I barely use the TSS and CTL and such stuff, so probably not the guy to give advice on it.[/QUOTE]

I do not have a Stages but from posts from other users, it may be the internal contact point for the battery. Connecting batteries to a circuit is not a trivial matter if the goal is reliability and low resistance of the connection to assure proper voltage for the electronics. And the battery compartments of Vector and Quarq, which I own, are poor to fair. Atmospheric conditions can cause oxidation and corrosion to occur between the battery and the connector. I suggest removing the battery and cleaning with alcohol. Then inspect the battery contact springs and carefully adjust for better contact, if necessary.

SRM solves this problem by soldering the batteries into the circuit thus eliminating the spring fatigue and corrosion problems.

grolby

Thanks Hermes, I'll give that a try.

Edit: preliminary results not promising. Damn.

echappist

i also can't hit my outdoor watts on my very basic trainer, and i find it exceedingly hard to even hit 90% of my outside numbers. Nonetheless i use a trainer for warm ups as it's sort of a moot point.

the resistance of rollers make it a lot easier to hold higher watts

shovelhd

Call Stages and request the new battery door and seal. They will send it to you at no charge. The original door was made of a brittle plastic that was strong but had a tendency to shear the locking tabs. The new door is much improved. They may ask you to send them pictures of the crankarm with the door off. If there are pieces of the locking tabs stuck in the pod case, they will swap out the whole crankarm at no charge.

grolby

Update, from Stages support: apparently some battery door covers manufactured in late 2014 were slightly oversized and could cause the kind of issues I'm having. Sounds like I have all the symptoms - difficulty installing or removing, and pulls the battery out when you remove it. I just assumed that happened because it was supposed to. So I'm guessing that a replacement battery door will soon be on its way.

ancker

I find it easier to maintain outdoor watts on rollers. I typically do my indoor tempo work on rollers.
I like to do my power work on the trainer (Kurt Kinetic) because it's harder.

TheKillerPenguin If the work was exactly the same, I should be able to do the same watts. When HR is higher and RPE definitely feels harder, I find it difficult to accept that I'm just not working as hard on the trainer when compared to the same wattage outside.

TheKillerPenguin

Just because it feels harder does not mean you get to increase the TSS, perceived effort is different than actual work performed. Your FTP is your FTP even if you can't hit the numbers indoors that you can do outdoors, and kilojoules are kilojoules and without ego tell you how much work you're actually doing. Decreased TSS is just a part of being forced to train indoors sometimes it sucks but it's how it is.

echappist

Get a resistance unit for your gollers; problem solved

As for latter, it doesnt matter what you wish to believe, fact is you arent getting the same training stimuli

Ditto fof workouts in 80 F heat. Your hr is jacked, yet you can't hit your numbers. Your body is working harder to dissipate heat, but lower watt is lower watt. Now, you may get some acclimization, but that doesnt mean the training stimuli is the same. Ditto for elevation, humidity, etc

grolby

Sorry, but as already explained, that's not how it works. Your power is lower because you are unable to work as hard.

Wylde06

So my quarq is in the midst of a freakout. -2500 to -3000 over the weekend after racing in the rain. 263 today, which is ~120 higher than normal. I do have an email/phone call chain in progress...

What I'm wondering, and I know some one here will know, does it calibrating high mean the power reading was low in tonight's tt? At -3000 I was doing 2500 watts no problem. Typically it has been between 135 and 150 with very little variation pre/during/post ride. Tonight I averaged 280 at 94rpm with the high calibration...Im just wondering around where would that be had it been a normal calibration..

shovelhd

It's really hard to say. However they usually work after they dry out.

beatlebee 

Dude!

Wylde06

I mostly disappointed that it freaked out in the rain. Ive ridden and raced in the rain plenty of times and had zero issues..depending on what they end up doing, I wonder if putting an extra o-ring or something behind the battery compartment would help seal it a little better. They had me check to see if that was tight, which it was..but I didn't realize (and I probably should have but I guess ive never thought about it) that that spot could be a potential spot for water to get in

Wylde06

lol..how I wish I could even come close to the numbers it was spitting out at me