ERG mode overshooting power targets

When doing intervals in erg mode my trainer (elite suito) overshoots the power target by up to 20W, and takes 15-20 seconds to reduce the resistance to match target power.

I try to keep my cadence constant during the ramp up to the interval. If I decrease my cadence to reduce power it feels like I’m grinding it out below 80rpm.

I use a spider based power meter on my bike and have power match turned on.

Any suggestions to help reduce the duration/power of these overshoots?

Our power match is not optimum for short duration higher intensity changes. TrainerRoad had the same problem for about 8 years until they improved theirs. It’s complicated to do. The simple solution would be for us to just provide an offset (in addition to) rather than a new power match. This would likely mostly fix the problem. I would not be perfect but it would be better for bigger interval changes like these. Sorry I have no better suggestion at this point. You could turn off power match and press + or -. This is basically what offset would do but the problem is without an offset feature your power would always be at a different level than the target or the graph, so it looks worse.

I really appreciate the honesty in this response and the other communications I’ve read about TrainerDay.

This morning I did one of the free interval workouts so I could decide whether to upgrade to Premium (60-Minute VO2Max - Classic HIIT). Using Speedplay’s dual sided power meters and a KICKR ROLLR, the interval from 100W to 316W was overshooting by as much as 30% (410W or so) in the 3s power reading and would reach goal watts after about 10 seconds. The 100W to 270W was overshooting by 15% (324W or so) and would settle after about 10 seconds. That amount of overshoot adds a massive amount of extra stimulus.

Is there any chance that I could send the workout to my Garmin Edge 840 (after upgrading to Premium) and have the workout use Garmin’s ERG mode to force a tighter watt tolerance?

That or… can the calculation be set to undershoot by 10% or so and then settle into the interval’s watts?

Yes you can send to your Garmin with upgrade. Garmin’s ERG mode should not be any different than ours. I don’t believe they have a power match feature. These users say the same. So while they might display the watts different they will have the same problem.

For many people doing short intervals, they prefer slope mode to manually hit the target watts with slope, cadence and gears. You can edit our workouts to manually add slope mode intervals to automatically change the workout, but if you decide to do that you might want to ask me for some help in designing those workouts.

FYI - One user told me in the past slope mode did not work very well with his Wahoo Rollr and our app. I don’t know if that is still the case.

The other thing to do is just change your FTP in our app, or press the + - buttons to adjust the intervals right before you hit them. I guess you know this, but ultimately it does not matter what you see on the screen from a training perspective, it just matters what hits your legs… But I realize getting accurate your data for analysis can be important. As long as you are recording from your pedals (our app records single sided only) then the accuracy should be fine.

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