Lately my avatar has been randomly stopping and dropping to 0 watts power, despite no change in my pedaling and the app continuing to register cadence. In yesterday’s ride, it happened 7 times, with pauses as long as 45 seconds despite continued pedaling (see attached photo, showing Power in white dropping dropping to zero while Cadence in blue is maintained.). Bike is a Stages SB20 trainer, has new batteries, and the bike and connected iPad are physically in the same room as a FiOS Gigabit router with no apparent connectivity issues. Any ideas what is happening? ,
Others with the SB20 have been reporting problems since the last update with increased/erratic power (and I see your 1332W max there). I wonder if this could be associated?
Or you could try another app and see if the behaviour is limited to Zwift, or if it’s your bike that is stopping transmitting power intermittently.
I’ve been having the same issue, it happens mostly on the flats when my pedaling is not enough to keep up with the spinning of the fly wheel, it gets way worse when trainer difficulty is set to 100%. Just wondering if you found a better fix than adjusting the trainer difficulty?
I have a very similar issue with the Wahoo Kickr that I’ve been battling for months - you can read about it at Bug: ERG mode has intermittent drops in resistance and reported power (Wahoo Kickr) - essentially the problem with all these units seems to be that they attempt to detect the power using mathematical algorithms based on chain tension etc, rather than using a more direct means such as a strain gauge that is fitted to power meter pedals and crank-based power meters for instance.
As a result, sometimes they simply give duff info.
I’ve not found a solution. You can definitely improve things by not “getting ahead” of the flywheel as Trevor says - i.e. using the small ring at the front and the big ring at the back (or equivalent for Stages gearing) but its not a perfect solution.
Its frustrating but its a fundamental flaw in how the trainers calculate power. I’m only really surprised that those such as GP Lama etc haven’t called the trainer manufacturers out on it as a whole. its possible that trainers that do not use a flywheel such as the Tacx (electromagnetics only) may be less susceptible but that’s a hunch and not something I’ve tested for myself. The only 100% solution would be using power meter pedals or crank power meter and just resigning yourself to not having ERG mode.