power meter question

drops

I got my new power meter and i noticed when riding on hills my power varies allot even though my RPE and HR are pretty steady my power reading could jump 10 -30 watts in either direction. I tired riding at a set power on a hill of say 240 watts but found it very hard as the power kept going above or below. Is this normal or would it be that i have not calibrated my PM properly or is this all part of learning to use power


cheers

morana

drops wrote: »

I got my new power meter and i noticed when riding on hills my power varies allot even though my RPE and HR are pretty steady my power reading could jump 10 -30 watts in either direction. I tired riding at a set power on a hill of say 240 watts but found it very hard as the power kept going above or below. Is this normal or would it be that i have not calibrated my PM properly or is this all part of learning to use power


cheers

very normal. That is probably one of the drawbacks of cycling with a pm the jumpiness. you could try the inbuilt smoothing in the head unit (avg over 5s) some headunits will give you the avg for an interval which is useful while you are doing it.

try it on the turbo and you will see it fairly steady.

Beasty

Don't worry about it - power will vary during the course of each pedal revolution. I tend to use a 3 second rolling average on the computer, but even then there tends to be quite a bit of variation

If your calibration is wrong you that would not affect the "variability" of the readings

What PM and computer do you have, and are you using "per second" recording?

chakattack

It seems funny at first - but that's the beauty of it - you can tell what you're really doing one pedal stroke at a time. I average it over 3s as 1s is too jumpy.

Very interesting to see what you're really doing in a group or on a descent while you're heart rate is still catching up.

canhascheez

morana wrote: »

That is probably one of the drawbacks of cycling with a pm the jumpiness.

That is the biggest advantage of riding with a PM, instant feedback... unlike HR which lags.

morana

canhascheez wrote: »

That is the biggest advantage of riding with a PM, instant feedback... unlike HR which lags.

instant feedback is a great advantage but if you want to do 200w for x mins thats a difficult task dont you think? But not on the turbo. At the start it is a little off putting and you will still probably refer back to HR but persist wiith it and it will all fall into place.

I went the whole hog got the pm and ditched the chest strap...

canhascheez

morana wrote: »

instant feedback is a great advantage but if you want to do 200w for x mins thats a difficult task dont you think? But not on the turbo. At the start it is a little off putting and you will still probably refer back to HR but persist wiith it and it will all fall into place.

I went the whole hog got the pm and ditched the chest strap...

I found it quite tough to pace intervals to begin with alright. I swapped to a 5s avg on my display (record at a 1s interval tho). You get used to targetting power and it jumpy nature.

drops

cheers for the replies, i think i need to move to the 3 or 10 sec average. I am using a power2max with a garmin 500. I find it really good so far, i just did not expect power to vary so much when going at a relatively steady pace - bit of an eye opener.

Diarmuid

drops wrote: »

i just did not expect power to vary so much when going at a relatively steady pace - bit of an eye opener.

It's covered in the very first chapters of Coggans book. It doesn't make sense investing in a piece of equipment costing €700+ and not buying and reading the bible on power training.

drops

Diarmuid wrote: »

It's covered in the very first chapters of Coggans book. It doesn't make sense investing in a piece of equipment costing €700+ and not buying and reading the bible on power training.

Ouch - My PM arrived on Friday and unfortunately id left Coggans book on my desk in work. Id already read some of the book but don't recall the part about average wattage readings.

Diarmuid

drops wrote: »

Ouch - My PM arrived on Friday and unfortunately id left Coggans book on my desk in work. Id already read some of the book but don't recall the part about average wattage readings.

Sorry, didn't intend it to come across so blunt