Tacx Flow - no way of showing average power over an interval

Gixermark

Hi Guys,

i've recently got myself a flow... seems a nice bit of kit to ride on, and the head unit has all the stats i want etc.... but unless i am a total idiot (quite possible) i dont see any way of logging efforts - say if you want to do a 2*20 min session.. no way of seeing av power for each ? or intervals.... again... no way of looking at the data afterwards ?

seems a bit pointless if it cant do this......

supermurph09

You're correct you can't look at it afterwards, I thought this was pretty stupid too. I now have a power meter!

Gixermark

yep - seems bizzare !!

i have now learnt how to at least reset the thing... so you can get the average power over a given 'interval' or session.... but its far from ideal.

will most likely do for now though... the turbo itself has a nice 'feel' to it compared to previous Tacx ones i've had.

no doubt i may end up getting 'proper' power at some stage... maybe if i achieve some goals this year as a 'treat' !! lol

foggymike

You need the pc upgrade (to turn it I to an i-magic or I-flow as they now call it) to do what you want. The head unit it comes with is a bit basic and out of date, but it is does give you lots of data for the price and it's a good turbo. It even works well for a warm up when not plugged in.

Gixermark

yep... it definitely is a nice turbo to use...

the fact i can reset it will do for most of what i want to do for now....... maybe next winter i'd look at the VR head unit/PC interface... or just bite the bullet and buy a power meter...

andy_wrx

I don't trust the power figures mine gives me - either they are exaggerated or I need to be talking to a Pro team.

There has been some discussion on the timetrialling forum by people who have power meters as well as the Flow, who reckon theirs are perhaps ~20% high
- they are consistently high (ie when it says 360w today it's the same as 360w yesterday) so you can use them for training, just don't trust the actual figures (cos it's more like 300w)
- and the mode it's got where you set it to a constant power, then you can alter your gears/speed but it alters its resistance to keep you to that same power, isn't accurate over time - it drops as it warms up

foggymike

Hmmm. I no longer have a power meter (had powertap and stages) but when I did i played with the tyre pressure a bit and easily got the power reading from the turbo within about 5 watts. One reason I got rid of the power meter was that I did more structured sessions on the turbo anyway and it was so close it was pointless having both.

I've always found the flow/I-magic is consistent anyway. As Andy says above, even if you've not calibrated it against a power meter, as long as you keep the same roller pressure and tyre pressure setting each session it's perfectly useable to measure efforts and improvement over time. People get too hung up on accuracy to within a few watts, it's consistency that matters if you are trying to measure progress.

FatTed

I find it is easier to ride in a particular gear at a set cadence than worry about looking at the power output.
Over time you should be able to work out what gearing/speed represents what power you want.

phreak

Gixermark wrote:

Hi Guys,

i've recently got myself a flow... seems a nice bit of kit to ride on, and the head unit has all the stats i want etc.... but unless i am a total idiot (quite possible) i dont see any way of logging efforts - say if you want to do a 2*20 min session.. no way of seeing av power for each ? or intervals.... again... no way of looking at the data afterwards ?

seems a bit pointless if it cant do this......

It might not be 100% accurate, but if you're doing that kind of interval then your power isn't fluctuating much anyway is it? So why not just try and hold it steady and observe the reading?

Pretty much all of my turbo work at this time of year is longer intervals of that nature, and it isn't hard to get a pretty good idea of how I've done over the course of the interval just by looking at the headset regularly.

Am I missing something here?

Gixermark

thanks guys....... I've already answered my own question above - in that i now know how to see the average power over a given session.. and can re set it say if doing a 2*20

i agree that you can glance at the screen, but if you are doing a 20 min test... and doing longer stints that you wnat to monitor average power over a given period of time - its very useful.. at least i now know how to do it !

thanks for the input - agree on it seeming a tad optimistic too !!