Direto XR problems with ERG mode

[JohandeWit]

In my Training Sessions in Zwift using the ERG-mode it is +-5Watts with some spikes +-10Watts.
I have experience with other trainers, but it seems OK to me.

It is essential to ride in a low gear. I ride on the small chain ring and the second biggest cog (25).

But what about the respons on a power change? So when you interval for example changes from 100 tot 200 Watt. How long does it take before you are hitting the 200 Watt?

[elite949]

But what about the respons on a power change? So when you interval for example changes from 100 tot 200 Watt. How long does it take before you are hitting the 200 Watt?

It goes up/down in about a second and stays there.

This evenening I will ride a training session with 10s 400W intervals.I will keep you posted.

I also did several calibrations, each week about 2 calibrations.

[rederik1979]

In my Training Sessions in Zwift using the ERG-mode it is +-5Watts with some spikes +-10Watts.
I have experience with other trainers, but it seems OK to me.

It is essential to ride in a low gear. I ride on the small chain ring and the second biggest cog (25).

Yeah, with the small chain ring and 19/23 rear gear the erg now working right, also with rpm target. Thanks

[elite949]

10sec intervals worked out on the side of ok.
It was from 130 to 490 watts, which took about 2 seconds to adjust.

[JohandeWit]

10sec intervals worked out on the side of ok.
It was from 130 to 490 watts, which took about 2 seconds to adjust.

Ok that's nice. I would like to have that. But my XR behaves different. See attached picture of a ERG workout 2 days ago which is very typical of what I see all the time.
I created a short workout in Trainerroad with a few 1 minute block. Forget the first and the last, they are meant as lead-in and lead-out. I focussed in this wo on keeping RPM stable at 85 (which is the case imho). Yellow is the target power. Grey the power I produce.
With every step in power I see a big delay. Only at two places it behaves as I would expect (the red cirkels).
In this wo i used 34x20 (which is halfway my cassette). And powersmooting is set at 2. Furthermore the calibration is only 1point different from the sticker.
Based on your remark, i will repeat this with 34x25 or 23x28 see if it makes a difference.

Anyway, with this behavior I can forget 10s intervals

I will open a ticket with Elite about this. But i doubt if i get any useful respons.

ERG 85rpm 34x20.JPG (75.62 KiB) Viewed 10871 times

[carlo.caronti]

Same here, even with Trainerroad.
Plus it was impossible to caliber the Direto XR with the IOS app.
All it says is: start pedaling...i did it for 10 minutes, many times, but absolutely nothing!

ELITE, what should we do? Consider that this is your flagship product...

[enesto]

Hi, I think I've tried almost all of the possible linear combination of gear/rpm/smoothing...

Ok, best results with 34/18 or there close...
But I've never reached the results reported by elite949.

Using smoothing 6 and maintaining a "Zen" level in cadence stability I can have low variance in longer intervals, but I need to forget all the rpm changes suggestions (like often requested in zwift workouts).

Btw the trainer is slow to adapt to level changes... 6 seconds at least to reach the level.

Even if the "spikes" are lower, it is clear to me that the changes in power are following a sort of sinusoidal shape, like the trainer is trying to adapt resistance up/down without reaching a sweet spot in stability.

@elite949, what is your cadence?

With smoothing 2 power spikes are higher, changes in power level seem quicker, but I cannot say because the variance is so high that I cannot understand when the requested watts are actually reached.

When the workout request some interval in free ride, to go full gas for a period, you need to change gear and it means that the interval before and after will end and start completely out of the place...

I'm sure I'm not doing something wrong, so the results of elite949 confirm that some units have actually low performances respect to others and this is not acceptable, but we had to...

This thread is the longer and most partecipated on this forum, and Elite just showed here for 2 seconds without giving any help... I think we learned more with our own tests and our shared experiences...

Not really satisfied about how I spent my money.

[jhankey]

I am trying to really stick with the xr. Unintentionally it is making me a way better rider.
Today I did a free interval session just riding around 3 x 8mins targeting 3.5w/kg.... and I nailed all 3 of them, with the watt variation really not that much different to erg mode.

Ok, I know that's not the point. But it is a really good machine in normal and sim mode.

Anyway, I am going to spend a little time trying to determine exactly what erg mode wants when transitioning from one power level to another.
I found another Lama video that explains quite a lot on a trainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbeliW8uObk it's worth a watch.

He is saying that below 20 second intervals are best done in free ride mode. Also, changes in cadence at transitions is a no no. And maybe explaining in my last graph post why it didn't find my watt target at all on the final increment. ( If you are increasing your cadence the resistance will always lag, it will only ever stabilise once you have stabilised your cadence. So when I was spinning up to chase the watts, it is effectively not properly regulating.)

This last part means a change in wattage and cadence at a transition is going to be really bad, ... firstly get to the new wattage then reset the cadence. The system is going to be all over the place until you settle at the new cadence. The quicker you do it the better it will be.

Lama also says each trainer has it's own uniqueness to this, they ae not all the same. So I am going to spend next week trying to capture different scenarios when I ride. A lot of the issues we are seeing are around the transitions.

[arno]

10sec intervals worked out on the side of ok.
It was from 130 to 490 watts, which took about 2 seconds to adjust.

Ok that's nice. I would like to have that. But my XR behaves different. See attached picture of a ERG workout 2 days ago which is very typical of what I see all the time.
I created a short workout in Trainerroad with a few 1 minute block. Forget the first and the last, they are meant as lead-in and lead-out. I focussed in this wo on keeping RPM stable at 85 (which is the case imho). Yellow is the target power. Grey the power I produce.
With every step in power I see a big delay. Only at two places it behaves as I would expect (the red cirkels).
In this wo i used 34x20 (which is halfway my cassette). And powersmooting is set at 2. Furthermore the calibration is only 1point different from the sticker.
Based on your remark, i will repeat this with 34x25 or 23x28 see if it makes a difference.

Anyway, with this behavior I can forget 10s intervals

I will open a ticket with Elite about this. But i doubt if i get any useful respons.

ERG 85rpm 34x20.JPG

I filed a ticket with Elite about - I would say - the very same issue: big delays in target power adaptation. For me the issue started to become annoying when I upgraded the firmware from 067 to 073. I urged for a downgrade and finally they sent me instructions for a downgrade to 067. The 073 firmware according to Elite "smoothes" the power in Erg Mode, but I did not like this as well due to the mentioned issue. IMO this is still a bug.Long speech short: I finally downgraded to 067 again and this works a lot better for me in terms of target power reactivity during sharp jumps of target power as usually occurring in interval workouts.

[JohandeWit]

I filed a ticket with Elite about - I would say - the very same issue: big delays in target power adaptation. For me the issue started to become annoying when I upgraded the firmware from 067 to 073. I urged for a downgrade and finally they sent me instructions for a downgrade to 067. The 073 firmware according to Elite "smoothes" the power in Erg Mode, but I did not like this as well due to the mentioned issue. IMO this is still a bug.Long speech short: I finally downgraded to 067 again and this works a lot better for me in terms of target power reactivity during sharp jumps of target power as usually occurring in interval workouts.

Ok that is good to know. I never used 067 so don't know how that behaved.
I also opened a ticket and just got a request to sent them a csv file. I will do so tomorrow.

How did you downgrade? Did you receive special file from Elite? Or is this something everyone can do?