Hida Yanra

Also, I seem to have been pretty specific about "get a crank based PM, used SRM V's are the best deal going right now"
Why you no listen sooner?

jsutkeepspining

no you do^ hahhahahahaha

rkwaki

Check your email.

I got the Powertap on a trade, couldn't pass up selling it for what I did then found an unreal deal so it wasn't that I wasn't listening just cheap

Hida Yanra

Replied, with an obligatory defecation reference

rkwaki

Guess whose SRM arrived this morning????
I will now change my name to Big Diesel

echappist

nom de plume from a previous profession ?

rkwaki

Goes hand in hand with a post from another thread where someone asked what I did for a living...

Creatre

What's the best way to do some season comparison charts. I would like to overlay the 2011 season over the 2012 season for CTL/ATL in one chart, and another for mean maximal to see the max power between the years. I've had trouble using the WKO charting, is this better done in Golden Cheetah or something else? Or is WKO where its at?

veloboy971

Digging up a couple of old posts. My quarq for a while had been just under -500 (-510->-530) but lately has jumped up to -600. It has slowly worked its way up here and the numbers haven't seemed to change (ie my workouts feel the same). Could this just be bolts that the bolts have loosened and I need to re tighten them to 10nm?

shovelhd

Quarq service is very good. Call them. IMO -600 is very high.

echappist

yes

mine crept up to -900 before i asked my LBS to torque it down again

veloboy971

alright, I'll take it down the the bike shop when I go today and see if that fixes the problem

echappist

also, you are supposed to apply carbon paste (the stuff you use for carbon seat tubes) on the threads, so make sure they know that

you can probably torque it to 12 Nm without problem (assuming steel bolts). Mine went back up to -300 initially and has settled around -500 for a while now.

AzTallRider

It's easy to do yourself, and should be done every now and then to prevent drift. Drift is the issue, as opposed to any particular value. While their manual says to have it checked if the value is less than -1,000 or greater than 1,000, if you talk to the Quarq techies, they say it isn't really an issue. But, they can adjust the Y intercept to get down closer to zero, which makes owners more comfortable. If you have significant drift, the 'best practice' is to use steel chainring bolts, and torque them to 10-12nm, making sure that any slack is taken out by putting pressure as if you're pedaling as you snug up a bolt to hold it there. Quarq makes a great product, but one which is susceptible to drift (and also moisture). They swapped my chainring bolts, adjusted the zero intercept while they had the unit, and since then mine has been rock solid with values between 0 and -150. I loosen the bolts and re-torque periodically to keep it that way.

mattm

All this drift talk makes the Quarq sound like a pain in the ass.

shovelhd

All power meters are a pain in the ass.

waterrockets 

+1

aham23

i sent my quarq back in last fall after a year of use. my main issue was a bad electronics pod. they replaced it, but also stated one of the bolts was loose. prior to going in my numbers were creeping up. since coming back they are +20 to +80 every time. i was told -500 to +500 is fine. as for their service it was great and fast. less than a week. later.

rkwaki

Well finally got admin rights on my laptop and downloaded Golden Cheetah. Man that's a lot to dissect.

mattm

You should also download WKO+ to see what the golden standard is (free trial edition for 2 weeks).

Anyway you're an exec, you can afford it! =]

rkwaki

I'm an executive PITA.
Is there that big a difference?
How much is it afterwards?

What do all these Critical Power colors mean?

shovelhd

It's really not. This thread is a great help.

The 30 second primer.

1. First, set up the Athlete page. Set your FTP, LTHR, weight. Save it.
2. Connect your computer and download the file into Golden Cheetah. Save it.
3. The summary page has all of the high level stats that you care about. Judicious use of the lap button during workouts helps to break the data into sections which are easier to digest.
4. The Ride Plot page gives you the specifics around the data in the summary page.
5. The Critical Power page shows your current workout in black versus your personal bests at each power level.
6. The PM page shows your CTL, ATL, and TSB.

I don't use any of the other features.

mattm

Executive PITA, lol.

WKO is $130 or something? https://home.trainingpeaks.com/products-desktop/wko.aspx

GC is fine to get an idea of what power data analysis looks like, but I found it very unintuitive, and it also had a hard time smoothing out some spikes in my data for some reason. As far as usability, maybe it's just because I started with WKO years ago and have gotten very used to it.

The one feature GC has that I miss in WKO is the maps, but you can at least export the gps files from WKO to Google Earth, it's just not as seamless.

shovelhd

They are the power zones, Z1-Z7, over time. They correspond to the power zones which were derived from your FTP on the Athlete page.

rkwaki

I'm just easily mesmerized by pretty colors
I'm messing around and figuring things out.

Matt - I am super cheap and always hunting deals...
I am not a complete numbers ***** so FREE is my best choice.