AeroPod, PowerPod and Newton

I know from other posts I’m not the only one using PP both indoors (specifically TrainerRoad) and outdoors. (Same bike for both. Indoors, on Kinetic Trainer, with Kinetic's InRide sensor’s data going to TR app, and PP’s virtual power going to Garmin 520, and finally to Garmin’s Connect, which gives me one place to store both indoor and outdoor work.) Satisfactorily, mostly, until I invested in wonderful new bigger softer tires for outside, and a dedicated rear wheel and trainer tire for indoors. Meanwhile I had privately pitched PP to TrainerRoad’s support because their podcast gets queries about how to add outdoor rides (they can’t yet), and they recently had another question about what power meters could be switched between bikes (their answers didn’t mention PP). So I told them what I did, using Garmin’s Connect as a hub. They said thanks, they’d check out PP.

Red face. As soon as I began switching between the outdoor and indoor rear wheel, the Garmin files going to Connect became essentially worthless for my purpose: 8 minutes of garbage (like 1800 watts going down a 25% hill!, or 0 watts in flat neighborhood) would turn summaries like TSS into fake news. What changed was changing wheels. Since I have disc brakes, it’s easiest to do so with the bike upside down. Oh my. Princess PP does not like that if she’s awake; she bides her time silently, and then retaliates viciously. Yes, you can snip off the fake news in Isaac. But it’s still in the Garmin file.

A second lesser problem was that the new outdoor wheel/tire is a couple inches farther around than the trainer combo. That’s only 3%, but over an hour or two it adds up. I tried finding an easy way to alert the hardware and software to the different scenario, but ultimately got lost in the labyrinth of Isaac and PP (aka Newton aka Dash aka Ibike), and what is stored where and how and for how long. A third is that although I could tweak one of PP’s indoor ride files (from its virtual power curve) to match the data TR had on the same ride, I couldn’t get the correction to “stick” for a new indoor ride after an intervening outdoor ride.

So: do any other users have an easy foolproof routine for what would seem to be a pretty common real-life scenario? Before a ride, I just want to:

a) Put appropriate wheel on my upside down bike.

b) Tell PP which wheel’s on it and whether I’m out or in — it would be nice if this were just one step.

c) Go ride — out or in — recording ride on Garmin 520, that hasn’t been snowed with 8 minutes of garbage.

At the end of ride, I just want to:

d) Get the Garmin’s data to computer and thence to Connect. Get the PP’s data to Isaac.

e) Clean up the bike.

f) Hang up the bike.

It would be nicest if the routine didn’t force any 20-minute waits. If that’s not possible, then at least that the routine reliably avoid the 8 minutes of lies. The power data doesn’t have to be surgically precise, but should be at least roughly comparable. I don’t like regularly removing the PP from the bike but will if I have to.

One of the dilemmas is how connecting the PP to computer affects sequences. It seems to wake up the PP. You have to, to tell it whether it’s indoors or out. But you better have already changed wheels, because doing that while it’s awake is going to bite you (but only if it’s an outdoor ride?). Likewise, getting the PP data to Isaac means PP will be awake for next 20 minutes, no? (so you better be careful what you do in those 20 minutes).

Hate to make John wear out the aid car answering distress calls all over the world, so happy to hear from anyone who has this all down in a foolproof routine. I know I’m not the only one, but I still hope it’s a routine that doesn’t include the neighbors speculating about that geared up guy riding round and round the block every other day looking down and mumbling to himself before he finally disappears down the road.

There are a lot of words to absorb in your post, so I hope I've distilled the problems as briefly as possible:

1) You get 8 minutes of "junk" readings in your Garmin when you switch from indoors to outdoors

2) You are using Isaac to switch from indoor to outdoor profile. You use separate wheels indoor/outdoor riding, so you have separate profiles for each wheel.

If the above is correct, then here is what I would do:

1) When using the same bike with different wheels, PP will require recalibration each time you swap out wheels. There is no way around this, and it will take 8 minutes of riding to recalibrate.

2) If you don't want recalibration data in your Garmin from the first 8 minutes of riding, then leave your Garmin turned off until the 8 minutes have passed (or don't start recording the ride). Start your Garmin after PP has recalibrated itself.

3) Create separate profiles for your indoor and outdoor setup. You will be able to customize everything, including wheel diameters.

4) When moving between indoors and outdoors, make sure you also turn trainer mode on/off when switching profiles

5) Use Isaac to select between indoor and outdoor profiles. You're correct that PP will be "awake" for 20 minutes after you switch profiles using Isaac, so if you're spinning wheels etc on your bike stand while PP is awake, this will be recorded by PP. As long as your Garmin is turned off, this will make no difference; after being on the road for 8 minutes, any miscalibration will be purged.

Distilled to the essence, John. And speedily. Thanks.

I understand the essence as: make peace with the 8 min, call it a warmup, and wave cheerfully at the neighbors. On all outdoor rides, since I'm doing a lot of alternating. Garmin can be ON, but NOT RECORDING until this ritual is over. (In fact if it isn't on, I don't know what PP is doing at all.)

Before wheel-swapping I had been getting what looked like good data from the get-go, and thought I could maybe devise a routine that would repeat that even with the new setup. Ok. If you can't, I can't, and will dutifully warm up.

Yes, I can create two different profiles for indoor/outdoor for the difference in wheels. At first I was hoping that edits to the trainer settings would also go with the "indoor" profile when they were made, but I think they don't. Where are these saved, and at what point is wheel size taken into account? It isn't a parameter in the trainer settings, though it is in the bike profiles. I did get Isaac's file on one indoor ride to match TrainerRoad's for the same ride by tweaking the speed / power relation, and thought I sent that tweak to the device, and assumed it would be applied to future indoor rides. Was that nullified by an intervening outdoor ride? The next indoor ride was a 10-20 watt mismatch, and the power curve was back to default for my trainer -- i.e. not in agreement with TrainerRoad's.

The gadget is both lovable and maddening. In any case, I haven't got the indoor-outdoor-all-in-one-place ironed out yet, as you can tell.

For the first 8mins calibration you can also run the ride file through Issac, change initial data such as starting elevation or confirm the ride finished where it started, and Issac will rework the power data to values which will be closer to what they should have been for the the first 8mins.

For me I use Golden Cheetah for my ride analysis so I open up the csv file created by Issac and copy the first 8 mins of power data to Golden Cheetah so that I can use the first 8mins data for my analysis.