"More Power" but not enough resistance

General Discussion
1

Hi, first post… I searched for a similar topic with no luck:

I’m doing “Build Me Up” training plan. During warmup I can match cadence and power without issue, but when the routine wants higher watts I simply cannot match the power with the cadence suggested. For example it wanted 215 watts at 110 RPM and I was cranking 115 RPM but making 145 watt. It’s like my feet are windmilling around!

I’m in control of cadence, but I cannot make more power without more resistance, and that’s the job of Zwift talking to my trainer. What can I do to fix this?

I tried a ‘free ride’ on a hilly route and confirmed that the trainer responded to incline as expected. I attacked some hills so I could get up on the pedals to make power and reliably got 400+ watt resistance as I would have expected.

setup: Wahoo Kicker Core, Zwift on PC with Ant+, cadence sensor, TT bike with 56/11 gearing.

2

Hi @Count_Colnago

Welcome to the forum.

A few things to check.

  1. pair your trainer as power and controllable using ANT+ Fe-c profile.
  2. was ERG on?
  3. did you do a spin calibration.

It does sound like ERG was off.

2 Likes
3

I think Fe-c was on, certainly the Kicker is the controllable device and I know for certain ERG was on.

The setup was initialized with a spin down calibration, but I’ll do that again just in case.

4

Also check that your trainer is not connected to any other app.

5

I tweaked 3 things and it works as expected. Not certain which one did the trick, though I suspect it was the companion app that was interfering. I guess I’m smarter now than I was this morning.