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high power readings on brand new Garmin Vector 2S

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high power readings on brand new Garmin Vector 2S

Old 07-25-15, 10:20 PM
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petermk
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high power readings on brand new Garmin Vector 2S

Hi all,

I just installed Garmin Vector 2S power meter pedals and saw pretty high power numbers when tried it on my Kinetic Road Machine 2 trainer. I am a casual weekend rider and my estimated power on Strava is usually 130-150 watts. When I tried the Vector, my power never went below 300 watts and I was doing only around 70 rpm and 16-17 mph. The Vector has the latest firmware (v3.50), I set the installation angles and calibrated without any problems, my head unit is Edge 810. What could be wrong?

Thanks
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Old 07-25-15, 10:56 PM
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gregf83 
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Did you tighten the pedals with a torque wrench to the recommended values?
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Old 07-25-15, 11:02 PM
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Crank length is set correctly, and not just the angles?
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Old 07-25-15, 11:38 PM
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I used a regular pedal wrench, as Garmin says that overtightening a bit is fine. Undertightening might result in lower power numbers but it's not the case here.

The crank length is manually set in the Edge to 172.5, which is what I have.
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Old 07-26-15, 12:30 AM
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I have had garmin pedals for a couple of years, and recently purchased the Vector-S. Proper torque is crucial. Twice in the installation page of the owners manual Garmin repeats: Garmin recommends torque of 25-30lbf-ft (34-40 n-M). And every power reading issue I have had has been due to improper torque.

Last edited by kingfishr; 07-26-15 at 10:17 AM.
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Old 07-26-15, 08:27 AM
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Originally Posted by petermk
What could be wrong?
Well this is one area you can improve on...

Originally Posted by petermk
... my estimated power on Strava ...
Online power calculators are rarely (ever?) accurate. Don't compare anything with them.

Also, proper torque, as said.
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Old 07-26-15, 08:45 AM
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Originally Posted by petermk
I just installed Garmin Vector 2S power meter pedals and saw pretty high power numbers when tried it on my Kinetic Road Machine 2 trainer. [...] What could be wrong?
Presumably you bought one-sided pedals because you believed that accuracy doesn't matter. So there doesn't appear to be anything wrong.
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Old 07-26-15, 10:17 AM
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I reset the installation angles this morning while on the road, recalibrated twice and everything seems to be normal now. Thanks, everyone.
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