I’ll do a few more rides and see how it feels
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So did a 30:15s set tonight.
Same workout as Wednesday using PerfPro.
No problems linking the Kickr to the software.
Found that the software kept me at the power set with no leeway compared to the Computrainer, as in if I pushed on the CT it would go over a bit and then the resistance would catch up.
No with the Kickr
This carried over to the rest intervals.
On the CT if I was ruined, if I stopped pedalling then when I was ready to go, I start pedalling and then have a few seconds of getting up to speed.
The Kickr was like a brick wall
Even if it was only 160W there were a few times I couldn’t get the pedals turning.
Waited 10 more seconds and then it allowed me to get going.
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The dreaded spiral of death!
So my trusty Kurt Kinetic Rock n Roll trainer finally died last week after 7 years of constant use and abuse. I’ve been delaying the inevitable moment when I had to shell out for a new smart trainer for the last 4 years but couldn’t put it off any longer. So yesterday my Wahoo Kickr turned up.
I’m about 5 years late to the party but I’m going to finally give Zwift a go and see how it compares to my experience of Trainer Road which I’ve been using up until now. I’ve found Trainer Road very useful but my guess is that Zwift might make it harder for me to rein myself in and will increase the risk of me burying myself too often. We’ll see.
One very unwelcome change is in my FTP. I did briefly have a kickr for about 2 days 3 years back so I knew to expect this. Until now I’ve been using my dumb trainer paired with my Stages one sided PM. I can (and do) swap this between all of my bikes so all of my numbers are consistent. However, the Kickr reads considerably lower and I’m assuming (please tell me if I’m wrong!) that the Kickr is going to the more accurate of the two.
So along with the excitement of a new purchase I’m also having to swallow a pretty massive drop in FTP from 337 to 313 overnight. It’s funny – I know that I’m no slower than I was yesterday but seeing different numbers and having a lower W/kg figures was pretty demoralising especially as it puts be back almost exactly to where was when I first got the stages and started working on increasing my FTP. 7 years of work erased in 1 day and I had to pay handsomely for the privilege. First world problems eh!?
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Counter balance it on Zwift with a @Poet crash diet 
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That’s only about 7% and the Stages is measuring right at the start of the drivetrain with the Kickr at the end so a couple of percent or more may be in that. Your left/right balance may not be exactly 50/50 so could be another couple of percent too. So from an accuracy perspective they may not be that far apart.
Although Stages isn’t perfect I’d be tempted to stick with that for consistency between indoor & outdoor rides, and from your historic data. You can set up the Kickr to use the Stages figures to alter resistance in Zwift.
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Just ignore the Kickr numbers and pair your stages meter to whatever platform you choose to use - be that trainer road / Zwift or your cycling computer!
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Don’t forget to jump onto the Zwift thread, we have a few times when we race together, and Matt & Daz are usually recruiting people for their team.
Practice your sandbagging though 
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You saw that 
My turbo power MASSIVELY underreads now and I’ve sent my pedals off for a service, so I had to drop some weight to keep pace, otherwise I’m doing 12kmh for a pretty steady effort
gosh no, i don’t study stuff like that. I was just teasing from your previous exploits.
But that is funny!!
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So…my trainer stopped being made in 2013 (!) and it’s pretty lucky it’s made it this far.
Bkool have offered me a Zycle Smart Pro for a massive discount, but if I was going to spend that sort of money, I’d hunt down a direct drive from eBay (TriSportsResort, or similar)
I am now stuck with ridiculously low power numbers on the turbo.
Looks like 53kg gives me realistic RPE to Speed on Zwift, so I’m now uber light!
Or @JibberJim could give me his code, so I can run that through SimulAnt 
Usual warm up is 135-150W, which the turbo reads about 100W.
Then a steady effort of about 235W, for which the turbo is giving me 140W.
There’s a definite curve, the harder I try, the less watts it gives me, but I need to find it…or just cheat and have the right speed and low power!
So is your current one power profile, or just speed profile now with a wrong curve, 'cos it’s reporting wrong speeds? Different code needed for those two, if it’s not just a simple multiplier too then you need to write some…
My pedals should be used on my outside bikes.
I’m confident they’re accurate (enough)
My BKool Classic Turbo also has wheel on power.
It’s FE-C, too, so can be controlled.
However, it’s goosed.
I can be going all out full gas and it’s barely up to 200W, when my pedals are saying >500W.
I don’t know what the curve is, but it’s wrong.
I just need to figure out the multiplier, which will probably be best done by dual recording an FTP ramp test, yeah?
okay, then I don’t already have code for that, as I never bothered hooking it up as I only care about the other way,
it’s pretty much FortiusAnt with my changes to control a FE-C, but also getting the power from the FE-C device, I’ve done some of it, I think it’s just a change around here to actually do something with rather than print the value, to get it back into the FE-C broadcast so you can use it as the power source.
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Cheers!
Will have a look when I back at work 
@funkster - following my own switch to a Kickr I’m picking your brain about your experience again.
I remember you saying that it felt different when you switched form your CT to the Kickr Core – have you got used to this change yet?
I’ve managed to powermatch the Kickr with my stages so I’m now theoretically riding at exactly the same power as I used to on the Kurt Kinetic. However, it ‘feels’ considerably harder. Looking at my hr data this matches almost exactly to the levels I’d be at when riding intervals at the same power on the Kurt Kinetic so just interested to see if this ‘feeling’ of it being harder is something that you get used to or which diminishes with time. Guess it’s got something to do with the change in inertia / flywheel size. Perhaps also something to do with the inability to take micro breaks when riding intervals in erg mode as I suspect I may have been doing unconsciously in the past.
Had a similar ‘feeling’ when I went to the pool for the first time last night. In that case however it’s more than just a feeling and was also matched with a significant drop in speed!
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If anything, a Kickr should feel easier as it’s very high inertia. I’ve only used a computrainer a couple of times, but my experience of a Kickr was that it was way way easier to hold power because of the high inertia than a dumb trainer, despite the KK trainers being well regarded.
What are you using to control your training sessions?
When you talk of micro breaks in the past, how do you mean? Do your historic power data feeds show recurring periods where you were completely off the power for a few seconds at a time? If so, then yes, I imagine that would be a noticeable impact. I would often equate the time spent riding indoors to be equivalent to 1.5-2x the amount of outdoor time, due to the relentless nature of it, and erg mode do accentuate that, as you can’t back off at all otherwise you’ll get into the spiral of doom. On a dumb trainer, you do have more flexibility in that regard.
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@Mr-me Not really felt any real difference.
However if you’re talking about ERG mode, then I know what you mean about micro breaks.
I tried doing a 30:15 set a few weeks back.
If I let the trainer wind down in the 15s you might get a brick wall of resistance as I try to ramp back up.
Spiral of death is the common term
Thanks @stenard and @funkster for the feedback. I’d also expected it to feel easier on account of the larger flywheel.
However, I’m notorious for finding any kind of change difficult (wasn’t there a thread on here some time back exploring the link between us lot and ASD symptoms?) so I expect it’s mainly psychological and will settle down with time
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Not really smart trainers as such but Peleton (and potentially other treadmills) related:
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