I am new to power meters. I purchased a Favero BePro model (just the left pedal) and have been using it, in part, in connection with TrainerRoad.

Perhaps my perceptions are skewed, but it appears that my watts go down when I shift up to harder gears. If my cadence remains comparable, shouldn't my power be going up given that I'm having to push down harder on the pedals? My speed goes up, but my power declines. It also seems strange that when I shift down to easier gears my power shoots up--sometimes dramatically--with little effort and easy pedaling. It just doesn't seem like my watts coincide with my effort.

Does this sound normal, or should I check with the vendor to get this looked at?

Thanks for your feedback.

power is proportional to cadence * force (torque). So if your cadence remains the same and force goes up, then you should have more power. You might want to look at the data on something like Golden Cheetah to see if your perceptions match reality. If you are pedaling easier, but faster, then power could go up depending on the force

If you're using a fluid trainer (i.e. one without manually or automatically variable resistance), then your power should track your wheel speed fairly closely, not a linear relation, but still, if you're going a certain speed, your power should be pretty similar, at least in a single ride. Assuming you have that data, that will give you a way of double checking how sensible the power meter numbers are.

Thank you both. I'll do the comparisons you recommend and see if perhaps my perceptions are the problem.