Dcamm94

Not sure if this is a big deal or not, but I recently installed Assioma duos on my road bike - first power meters. As the title suggests, I’m running these with Strava and connecting to a Garmin 830. The issue I have is in my ride summary, it says that I’m riding standing all the time. I VERY rarely get out of the saddle because of some knee issues (no cartilage left), so this is in error. I’m a Clydesdale, and I have very strong legs, so I’m not sure if the fact that I even ride all the hills in the saddle is the cause, or if it’s possibly that since I don’t get up, the pedals don’t sense the change in weight/power transfer. Is this normal? Is there a way to correct it?

This is my first post after searching the forum over the years and finding what I need, generally, but I can’t find an answer to this. If I missed it somewhere I apologize.

Deck

unterhausen

never heard of that sort of judgement being made. My guess is that they are looking at what percentage of your output is coming at certain parts of the pedal stroke and your normal pedal stroke looks a lot like most people's when they are standing. At least they didn't tell you that you were mashing

I wouldn't worry about it. It probably indicates that you could have a bit more output higher in the pedal stroke though, so it might be worth looking at that

Dcamm94

Thanks. I’ll pay attention to that when I can ride again.

August West

I have Assioma pedals and use them with an Edge 830 although I don't do Strava anymore. But I upload all my rides to Garmin Connect and all of the Cycling Dynamics are recorded perfectly there. I too ride all the hills almost exclusively in the saddle and just do a couple of sprints on the way back home but the Assiomas are always spot on. I wonder if it is just that Strava doesn't support Cycling Dynamics.

Dcamm94

Could be the case. In any event, it'll be awhile before I can check it out, because I tore my rotator cuff and need surgery. I'll update in 3 or 4 months if I can get the problem solved. Til then I'm on the stationary and walking. Thanks for the replies.

unterhausen

I was riding on the trainer and thought about this a little. You can import your data into Golden Cheetah and do pedal stroke analysis. Might be interesting.

There are drills to even out your pedal stroke. One legged drills are a brute force approach. You can just lay off pushing hard with one leg at a time. Also helpful is to emphasize pedaling over the top, one leg at a time. Probably less useful to most of us is emphasizing dragging through on the bottom of the stroke. Those are difficult if you don't have clipless pedals

jadocs

I also have never heard of a PM making a determination of whether you are standing or not. Sounds like it might be making this conclusion based on your cadence. Do you have a very low cadence?

Dcamm94

Not super low, but not super high. I usually live in the mid-80s.

jadocs

Well that's not abnormally low. I have no idea...could it be a Garmin glitch? I'm not familiar with Garmin products but does it give you that type of analysis?

Seattle Forrest

Vectors do this. I've always assumed it used the strain gauge. More weight on the pedals means the spindle deforms more. I never even considered it could be looking at cadence.

It's pretty good but not perfect.

unterhausen

do they know how much you weigh? Absent weight, I don't see how you could make this determiniation. And even then, maybe the OP is just really strong

Dcamm94

Strava knows my weight. I'm reluctant to say that I'm "really strong," but I used to do Olympic-style weight-lifting, as well as power lifting, so even in the mid-80s for cadence, I'm rolling around 18mph and averaging about 220-250W in power over that span to locomote my 240# self, so maybe that has something to do with it. Probably, likely, also,poor technique has something to do with it. Like I said previously, I'll try to get out of the saddle some on my next ride (whenever that is-after surgery recovery), and see if it recognizes the difference. Thanks for all of the replies--I'm a relative novice to cycling (only 15 years, but few group rides, etc., and no formal training), so everything has been really helpful.

jadocs

That would be my guess as well, but then it would need to know how much power equates to standing?

jadocs

Yeah, I don't know how it would determine you were standing at that cadence and at that power.

Seattle Forrest

I must be misunderstanding some how. Power = torque vector * angular velocity. So you can put out, say, 300 w with a lot of pressure on the pedals or with just a light touch and spinning very quickly. So it's not like there's any particular power that equals standing. People don't really push very hard on the pedals compared to doing leg presses at the gym. I don't think people push into the pedals hard enough to lift their own weight. Also, when you stand you typically weight both pedals at the same time, when you pedal you're only applying downward force on one at a time, so maybe that's the signal it looks for?

unterhausen

in the case of a bicycle power meter, power is determined by some kind of averaging because the torque varies through the pedal cycle. I think they determined the OP was standing because his peak power through a pedal stroke was much higher than his average power.

It's not uncommon for people to push down on the rising pedal, so maybe they are looking at that.

jadocs

Could be... I can't seem to find anything using my Google-Fu.