Direto XR problems with ERG mode

[jhankey]

I have attached a graph from my work out. Towards the right hand side you can see that the power drops considerably. My heart rate flattens and starts to lower, but you can also see in the cadence graph,I lifted the rpm, it was from 98 to 105+ to 'chase' the power up. It simply would not increase.

Also, here is another lama post that is worth a look. This probably explains a little more of what is going on with regard to erg mode a little bit more.
I think their are a few issues that Elite need to sort out, like the one that I have posted here. But the reality might be htat the variation is more real than we first assumed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7hfT0I7E0

[arno]

Hi all,

My biggest issue is the response of the trainer to a step in power. It takes quite a long time for the trainer to respond to such a change, around 20 seconds in most cases. This means that a training with smaller intervals for 30s (for example over/under interval) are impossible to perform in this way. By the time the trainer responds, the interval is over.

I have a very similar - if not the same - issue since updating to 073 from 067. Filed a service request with Elite, so far they are not acknowledging this as an issue. As a tip (maybe we can exchange our experience): My impression is, that when using a very small gear - for testing I would recommend using even the smallest gear you have using the small front chain ring and the biggest chain ring of the cassette - the issue is a bit reduced. Also a reduction of cadence may help. Of course, this is not a solution, but may help understanding the issue better. Personally I will conduct some tests around this "theory" soon.

[urdel62]

Hello to all,

Please apologize for my english

I'm new to home trainer and therefore to direto xr that I acquired a few days ago. So I'm not able to compare to others ERG mode behaviours.
That's why I'm writting in this post to get advices from you with more experience on HT.
My direto XR is in version 073 already.
From now on, I only activated rouvy 30 days trial so I'm not able to compare with Swift.
Therefore I made the test recommanded by rouvy and send them the results : https://support.rouvy.com/s/article/The-Trainer-Resistance-Seems-To-Be-Wrong?language=en_US
I post you an image of the excel graph I made to let you tell what you think of power variations which seem quite big to me. FYI I was using 34/21 gear for the test I think. That's the result :

The test was like this : from second 15s to 195s, 1 minute at power 150/200/250W and from seconds 285 to 465s 1 minute at slope 0/3/6 %. What do you think ? Should I create a ticket to elite too, or the results seem quite good to you ?

Also a lot of you are talking about smoothing calibration ? I didn't find this option on rouvy ? Is it only on swift ? Therefore I can't tell you on which smoothing value was made the test.

Thanks in advance for your answers,

[imarszi]

Stability of ERG mode. Direto X vs Wahoo kickr core.
Power measured by Assioma Favero DUO pedals.

[enesto]

Stability of ERG mode. Direto X vs Wahoo kickr core.
Power measured by Assioma Favero DUO pedals.

Hi Imarszi,
just to be sure...
Did you test the same level (250w) with both elite and wahoo, but measuring the power values not with their internal power meter, but using the assioma, did I get it correctly?

So you are testing the "responsivness" of the ERG, in terms of requested power, by measuring with an external power meter.

This demonstrates that Direto has an higher scattering in the "requested power", confirmed by the assioma measurements.

Really good work.

Thanks.
Ernesto

[enesto]

Hello to all,

Please apologize for my english

I'm new to home trainer and therefore to direto xr that I acquired a few days ago. So I'm not able to compare to others ERG mode behaviours.
That's why I'm writting in this post to get advices from you with more experience on HT.
My direto XR is in version 073 already.
From now on, I only activated rouvy 30 days trial so I'm not able to compare with Swift.
Therefore I made the test recommanded by rouvy and send them the results : https://support.rouvy.com/s/article/The-Trainer-Resistance-Seems-To-Be-Wrong?language=en_US
I post you an image of the excel graph I made to let you tell what you think of power variations which seem quite big to me. FYI I was using 34/21 gear for the test I think. That's the result :

The test was like this : from second 15s to 195s, 1 minute at power 150/200/250W and from seconds 285 to 465s 1 minute at slope 0/3/6 %. What do you think ? Should I create a ticket to elite too, or the results seem quite good to you ?

Also a lot of you are talking about smoothing calibration ? I didn't find this option on rouvy ? Is it only on swift ? Therefore I can't tell you on which smoothing value was made the test.

Thanks in advance for your answers,

Hi Julien,
I think that this chart is completely compatible with what we are experiencing here.
Big scattering of the power values, even using a very stable cadence...

I cannot understand how can Elite not consider this as an issue...

For power smoothing there is an option in the My Elite training app, under advanced config (or something similar) you can set an higher number, up to 10, with the result of smoothing the power output on more pedal strokes, up to 10.

Cheers.
E.

[enesto]

I have attached a graph from my work out. Towards the right hand side you can see that the power drops considerably. My heart rate flattens and starts to lower, but you can also see in the cadence graph,I lifted the rpm, it was from 98 to 105+ to 'chase' the power up. It simply would not increase.

Also, here is another lama post that is worth a look. This probably explains a little more of what is going on with regard to erg mode a little bit more.
I think their are a few issues that Elite need to sort out, like the one that I have posted here. But the reality might be htat the variation is more real than we first assumed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7hfT0I7E0

Hi Jhankey,
yeah, the left part pf the GPLAMA chart is scattering, but it seems to me that the spikes are much lower than ours on Direto...
And moreover, the GPLAMA spikes seem less "predictable" than ours that have a real sinusoidal shape, up/down/up... like we can see in the image uploaded by Julien.
I'm still convinced that the resistance in ERG mode is adapting up/down too fast, trying to follow too quickly the cadence variation in reality even when the cadence is not changing.

I can get that amount of "movement" GPLAMA chart) only if I set the power smoothing at 6 or 10. While instead, on the right part of that chart, when wahoo smoothing is enabled, is not even immaginable with direto (and it is supposed to be when we set 10 in smoothing...)

At least this is what I get from the video...

BTW for all this testing effort we deserve at lease a 20% discount to buy the next Direto XR2 when it will be available with ERG working correctly!


PS I noticed that, when the power drops down, instead to try to regain power by increasing my cadence, I get best result by lowering it and after some seconds, the resistence increases and the power goes up again... I will try to have a dedicated test on it.

[urdel62]

Hello to all,

Please apologize for my english

I'm new to home trainer and therefore to direto xr that I acquired a few days ago. So I'm not able to compare to others ERG mode behaviours.
That's why I'm writting in this post to get advices from you with more experience on HT.
My direto XR is in version 073 already.
From now on, I only activated rouvy 30 days trial so I'm not able to compare with Swift.
Therefore I made the test recommanded by rouvy and send them the results : https://support.rouvy.com/s/article/The-Trainer-Resistance-Seems-To-Be-Wrong?language=en_US
I post you an image of the excel graph I made to let you tell what you think of power variations which seem quite big to me. FYI I was using 34/21 gear for the test I think. That's the result :

The test was like this : from second 15s to 195s, 1 minute at power 150/200/250W and from seconds 285 to 465s 1 minute at slope 0/3/6 %. What do you think ? Should I create a ticket to elite too, or the results seem quite good to you ?

Also a lot of you are talking about smoothing calibration ? I didn't find this option on rouvy ? Is it only on swift ? Therefore I can't tell you on which smoothing value was made the test.

Thanks in advance for your answers,

Hi Julien,
I think that this chart is completely compatible with what we are experiencing here.
Big scattering of the power values, even using a very stable cadence...

I cannot understand how can Elite not consider this as an issue...

For power smoothing there is an option in the My Elite training app, under advanced config (or something similar) you can set an higher number, up to 10, with the result of smoothing the power output on more pedal strokes, up to 10.

Cheers.
E.

Thanks for your answer.
I may open a ticket to élite with my data though.

Concerning power smoothing setting in my elite app, it would be a setting only for power data on the app or will it concern data send by the trainer to any app like rouvy or swift ?

Thanks

[JohandeWit]

Hi all,

My biggest issue is the response of the trainer to a step in power. It takes quite a long time for the trainer to respond to such a change, around 20 seconds in most cases. This means that a training with smaller intervals for 30s (for example over/under interval) are impossible to perform in this way. By the time the trainer responds, the interval is over.

I have a very similar - if not the same - issue since updating to 073 from 067. Filed a service request with Elite, so far they are not acknowledging this as an issue. As a tip (maybe we can exchange our experience): My impression is, that when using a very small gear - for testing I would recommend using even the smallest gear you have using the small front chain ring and the biggest chain ring of the cassette - the issue is a bit reduced. Also a reduction of cadence may help. Of course, this is not a solution, but may help understanding the issue better. Personally I will conduct some tests around this "theory" soon.

Last couple of days i did not really test, i only made Zwift group rides and races using free-ride mode (where I really like the behavior).
But I will do some further testing as well. I will create a short stepped interval sequence and test it on different gear combo's as you suggest.

I already noticed (and this has been mentioned in this thread earlier) that it's essential to keep cadence as stable as possible. In Zwift there are intervals where you need to increase/decrease your cadence together with the change in power. If you do that the power is all over the place. The trainer can not handle that at all. So I ignore the cadence warnings Zwift give me and focus on keeping it as steady as possible, that works best (but you do not get alle the stars in the Zwift workouit though)

As soon as I have some results I will post that.

[imarszi]

Stability of ERG mode. Direto X vs Wahoo kickr core.
Power measured by Assioma Favero DUO pedals.

Hi Imarszi,
just to be sure...
Did you test the same level (250w) with both elite and wahoo, but measuring the power values not with their internal power meter, but using the assioma, did I get it correctly?

So you are testing the "responsivness" of the ERG, in terms of requested power, by measuring with an external power meter.

This demonstrates that Direto has an higher scattering in the "requested power", confirmed by the assioma measurements.

Really good work.

Thanks.
Ernesto

So the measurement was only from the Assioma pedals.
I have a Direto ride on 270W and a wahoo on 250W.
It is not a well-done study because there was a target for a different power. But I think it captures the love of ERG power for the Direto X.
These power fluctuations make it much harder on the Direto to finish the interval than on the Wahoo.

In the attached file the same for the cadence.