Power discrepancy power meter vs trainer

Bugs and Issues
1

Hey guys, this is something I have noticed recently. Regardless of using power from my Quark, or the trainer (Kickr), when the app is controlling the trainer I am getting extra 20w of resistance. Consistently.

I have tested this by connecting the trainer to the app, and my Quark to my Garmin watch, the Quark is showing 20w higher power which is consistent to my experience from riding outside, as well as using a different powermeter outside (Garmin Vector 3 pedals). All powermeters are L + R. When I set up powermatch, the inconsistency is still there, it’s like it’s not using the Quark power, and always using Kickr power.

Is this a known issue? What would be the best way for me to test this out or fix it altogether?

I haven’t used the trainer for a while, but have trained on it very consistently for years using TrainerRoad, and I don’t remember this happening.

My solution so far is to just set my FTP 20w lower, but that skewes all my other numbers and irks me to know that the data is simply not correct.

2

I have quarq and kickr. Not sure I understand. You need power match on in settings if you want the two to match.

fyi mine are only 3-5w difference which you can see when power match is on but it does not mean anything wrong with yours.

3

Yeah, it’s kind of convoluted. I am under the impression that whenever a phone is involved in controlling the trainer, I am getting an inaccurate reading.

In in ideal world I would like the Kickr to get the power reading from Quark. But I’m not sure how to check that and make sure it’s actually the case.

4

How it works is we send a target to the trainer, say it 100w. That is 100w according to the kickr’s power meter and it will hold the power to that and do adjustments. With Power match, if your quarq says that is really only 80w, we add 20 and tell the kickr to do 120w which is 100w on your quark. It takes about 20 seconds for it to adjust but generally it works reasonably well.

1 Like