OK, so I had a great HM test today with some good improvements, so obviously happy with that. However, more importantly it was a fail as far as trying to get the kickr into erg mode via a secondary control device during the constrained effort.
Here’s the details of what I used if anyone else is interested. I had the kickr connected to the SYSTM app on PC using bluetooth. That’s my standard setup so no dramas there. I made sure the ant+ dongle was removed from the PC and ant+ was ‘off’ in device settings in the app. My plan was to try and use the wahoo app on my iphone to control the kickr wattage in the constrained section.
Test ran fine. At level 6 in the ramp the kickr clmb started doing its thing which is great, (profound thanks to coach neal for that). At level 12 my cardiovascular system stopped doing it’s thing, (no thanks to anyone for that).
Sadly, the iphone simply did not take control of the kickr during the confined section. I tried closing and reopening the wahoo app on the phone, and putting the kickr in and out of erg mode in the SYSTM app on the PC but nothing worked. The only big if, is I didn’t establish the Iphone to kickr connection prior to the starting the test. Maybe that might make a difference.
I suspect an IT guru will point out what we are doing is never going to work, but it’s fun trying.
I never tried this and maybe it just can’t work, but did you unclick the lightning bolt with the circle on your trainer in the SYSTM app Devices tab (that’s the icon that represents SYSTM controlling the trainer). I imagine that you have to release that before trying to get your phone to take control, but I’m just speculating.
Congrats on the HM though @timbo. If you got to the 12th ramp then BOOM! There’s some MAP improvement for you. No wonder your HR did it’s thing (unless you’ve actually got a medical thing that you’re referring to).
I’m still considering testing the tech to see if it could work (not sure I wanna do it during an actual test though )
Yes, I did try unclicking the power icon in the kickr device settings on the app. The only effect it had was to remove the power being displayed from the graph.
I think the issue might be with the phone connection to the kickr, i’m going to resolve that before trying again.
So I did a non-test test. Short answer is it’ll work as you said (take the trainer control lightning bolt thing off but allow power to be read from Kickr, use Wahoo Fitness app on phone to do a “workout” in ERG mode, set power and adjust as needed).
Honestly, that is waaaaay more EFfing about than I’m after. I was looking for it to be easier than shifting gears but even if I could find a way to do it by tapping on the up/down keys on my keyboard I don’t see that any easier than just changing my cadence a bit or, if needed shift up or down a cog as my HR dictates.
It’s been fun to consider though so thanks everyone for entertaining my “genius” thought 🥸
I thought it could work with a bit more attention to detail. Thanks for confirming.
Don’t think I’ll try again. I kind of think using erg mode in testing is interesting, but is kind of cheating. I kind of think getting the cadence to wattage ratio right is actually an important part of the test and something we all need to learn about ourselves.
I’m thinking our ‘most efficient’ cadence varies as we approach and go beyond threshold.
After the first two HM I realized that following the proposed power target would take a lot of time to get the target HR (I believe this is where “every person is a bit different” comes in to play and makes perfect sense to me).
Because the test is not looking at the power for the second half, I am now switching from Level mode to ERG mode every time I am doing the test. I am starting with the proposed power target then adjust up/down to reach and be in the HR target indicated. Works great for me and is very easy to do from the Systm app.
In ERG mode, the power is initially set by the app at whatever number, and I don’t really bother for it. I then use the up/down arrows on the keyboard (I have an older PC laptop for my setup) to get to the target power recommended. That is my starting point, from there I adjust the power as needed, every 30sec or so until I get to the HR range indicated. I found after my first attempts that this approach works best for me.
Hope it helps.
It’s funny, here I was trying to jerry rig something that is already there.
It’s actually what I was wanting to do (see first post). I just figured that since there wasn’t a target displayed and there wasn’t a blue graph that ERG wouldn’t be set. You’re confirming that it is, so now I’ve got to give it a shot to see how it goes.
I knew you could do it in FF though cuz there’s those graphs. In HM it’s just a blank space so I assumed (erroneously it seems) that there’d be no Erg control possible in the constrained HR section.
So basically we can just leave the SYSTM app in erg mode during the constrained effort and used the arrows on the keyboard to adjust erg power; or we can switch to level mode and pfaff about with a phone and ant+ / Bluetooth / third party controls from a secondary device while trying to pedal smoothly at a constrained heart rate!! I’ll pick the second option every time!!
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arrows on the keyboard to adjust erg power; or we can switch to level mode and pfaff about with a phone and ant+ / Bluetooth / third party controls from a secondary device while trying to pedal smoothly at a constrained heart rate!! I’ll pick the second option every time!! 