awesomeame

So I've done about 1500 Zwift kms on my Smart Control Kurt Kinetic. Avg about 2.9-3.5 w/kg, and about 55km/ride. Then I ran through the calibration sequence on my Kinetic app for the first time. Now the resistance feels double, I'm having a hard time maintaining 2.0w/kg, and I was pooped after 25kms. Is this normal for a calibration? Or is there something else going on here?

Matt

grdnable

If you have an external power meter, how does your outdoor FTP compare to your Zwift FTP? Have you tried calibrating before? AFAIK, wheel-on trainers require calibration 10 minutes into every ride, as the tire pressure and roller tension will change, so if you never calibrated before, your prior rides probably didn't have accurate power.

anotherbrian

A friend has a Kurt smart trainer (the rock n roll version) and it was nowhere close to accurate out of the box. I took my Powertap pedals over to show him that he shouldn’t be able to easily ride at > 4W/kg all day long. 😳. After calibrating it through the Android app it was close enough.

As long as I keep my Wahoo SNAP bike with consistent air pressure in the tire and don’t remove the bike from the trainer (leave the knob alone) it doesn’t need to be calibrated regularly. A few weeks ago I enabled my old Powertap wheel to feed the SNAP accurate power so I don’t think I’ll need to calibrate the trainer ever again (though have been doing the usual PT calibration when my Garmin finds it).

MinnMan

Interesting thread. I've just started with Zwift, using the inRide power sensor on my Kurt Kinetic (dumb) road machine. Before going on Zwift, I calibrated the sensor with the Kurt Kinetic App, and then with the Zwift FTP test I found my FTP to be around 2.9-3 W/kg. I do wonder how accurate it is, but I suspect that it is ballpark correct because that's a pretty good description of how I ride compared to local racers (e.g., the Cat4s kick my a$$ and I can stay with most of the cat 5s or the serious roadies who aren't quite racers).

See the spreadsheet-like chart here https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blo...he-power-curve and look under the "FT" column (FT= Full Threshold Power, which should be the power you can hold or average over an hour)

Sooo, what kind of rider are you? If you can really maintain 2.9-3.5 W/kg for an hour, then outdoors you should be riding with the fast roadies. 3.5 W/kg and you're maybe up there with the Cat 3s. OTOH, if you are really at 2 W/kg, then I'd expect you are maybe similar to the B riders in the local club.