WKO+ Average Power Differences

Greg Lewis

My Garmin 500 and WKO+ show different numbers for Average Power for every ride I do. Todays ride had the Garmin showing 221 avg watts, and on the Journal page (summary window, lower right corner) WKO+ showed 183 avg watts for the same ride.

Does anyone know why they are different? Which one do I believe? Thanks.

 

Joseph Lombardi

 I'm new to Power and WKO....but just a thought...check to see if they are both reporting avg. watts or avg. normalized watts...my guess is that one (wko) is reporting normalized watts.

TH3 FRB

The Garmin is probably set to exclude 0 from the average. So if you coast for 15sec, that time at 0 watts doesn't get factored in.  Over an entire ride all those little breaks add up and make a big difference in your Pavg.  It also gives you an idea of how much time you spend NOT working when you are riding outside.

Greg Lewis

Thank you, I'll check that out.

Tom Glynn

Seems like a large difference to me. I'd start by riding on a trainer for 20-30 minutes with continuous pedaling and then upload data to WKO and see what the differences are. Check your Garmin settings to see if you are displaying average power with or without zeros. I believe if you upload the data to Garmin connect it will show average power with zeros, the same as WKO. The display on your Garmin watch has a toggle switch, showing average power with or without zeroes. It still records the data, just displays it differently. Normalzed power between Garmin and WKO should be very close. Does the 500 show NP yet? I know the 800 does and the 500 is supposed to be pretty soon.

Greg Lewis

Tom: It doesn't show normalized power yet. I heard there is going to be an update soon. I also heard that normalized power should be close to average power without the "zeros" counted.?

Tom Glynn

 Greg,

 

That is correct.  I used to have the LYC on a wired PT and I had it display power without zeros.  After uploading to WKO, it was always remarkably close to NP.

 

tom