Hey folks, hope all is going well with your training.
Quick question, out of interest really.
How often do people calibrate their power meters/ smart trainers?
Cheers
Steve
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As per manufacturer recommendation, man 
In fairness, when I was riding, on the bike I would every ride. My Kickr is an absolute ball ache to spin down though, so basically never.
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, Pav!
I’m not good at this, to be honest. I tend to leave it far longer than I should. Keen to hear that I’m not the only one…
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I tend to calibrate the power meter on my bike about once a week, usually before I start a long weekend ride. Otherwise, I might calibrate if I’m riding in a different climate or different altitude. I used to be pretty good about doing it every ride, but just got out of the habit.
I rarely pull power numbers from my smart trainer, so I almost never calibrate that.
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Kickr every week. Pedals and crank meter never because they are supposed to self calibrate when freewheeling. Is that just bs that they do that?
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Great question on whether self-calibration works or not!
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Agree with Pav re zeroing before every ride and with @letsplaybikes on pulling power from pedals indoors too - just helps keep my data consistently from the same source.
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I have taken data sets on a lot of occasions using a power meter (auto calibrated) and a wahoo kickr core (calibrated) and have never found more than 1-2W difference. Where I have found a difference is in recording devices. The same data source recorded on zwift and garmin can be more than +/- 7W difference on average power and 30W+ on peak power.
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That’s interesting. You’re saying that the same power meter can have power displayed differently in those different apps? That must be something to do with data manipulation by the app.
The display is the same but the recorded data is different.
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Interesting. Different connection methods ? ANT+ vs. BLE ?
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Thanks for everyone’s comments on here, I clearly need to up my cali game!
I tend to ride on feel using the power meter as a gauge or reassurance that I’m about where I need to be power wise. Because I train and race on different bikes with different meters I’ve never been that bothered about the data because of the variables in different power meters. But that said, I’ll pull my finger out and update these things more regularly. So cheers 
Hope you all have a great weekend
Steve
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good point. Yes. ANT+ on my Garmin and BLE on Zwift
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