Setup advice - Wattbike

#1

Hi, just after a bit of advice. I’m a cycling novice but bought the Wattbike Atom (newest gen) and wanted to know if there’s anything I should be doing to optimise it for use with The Sufferfest?

I have left everything set at default.

I’ve read a few things about the power smoothing and wondered if I should change that from the standard 3 seconds? Keeping the power at designated target can be quite tricky as it jumps all over the place (I’m not the smoothest pedaller… yet).

Absolutely loving The Sufferfest app. The workouts seem to fly by and finding it all very enjoyable, but just want to get the most from the system and make sure everything is optimised.

As I’m a cycling novice I signed up for the 10 fitness Kickstarter. Was this a good choice or should I lookaat something else?

Any advice gratefully received.

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#2

I have first gen Atom, bought it as soon as released - It took a few months for them to sort the firmware out so keep connecting the wattbike app as well as Suf to make sure you’re updated (you can have both open and running, just make sure Suf is connected first to the BT/ANT+ so it has “control”).
I use mine 99% on erg mode. I’ve got everything left as default. First gen takes 2 or 3 sec to adjust the power. Important thing I found is to get the cadence correct and stable just before the power target changes. Not sure how gen 2 works with that, this was supposed to be solved with the new gearing.
I don’t go for the workouts with short sprints etc. Not sure my first gen Atom would cope with that, hopefully yours better! I never sprint when I’m outdoors so no great loss for me! I’ve now done about 5500km ‘virtually’ on my atom with Suf, so in 3 years. My FTP is up about 40% so it definitely works!!

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#3

That’s great to hear and thanks for taking the time to respond.

I agree on the cadence point, seems to be if you focus on that in ERG mode the tech does the rest.

The short sprints seem to be the only problem as takes a while to adjust.

I saw this post (Wahoo Kickr Bike vs Wattbike Atom Gen 2) about power smoothing on a wahoo bike which looked to provide a much better result and wondered if theres anything I could do to make the Wattbike better.

#4

Hi Jonny,

Congratulations on your purchase - I had a Gen 2 for a while and they really are a nice piece of kit. Absolutely rock solid and look fantastic.

The graph that I published on the difference between the Kickr bike and the Atom Gen 2 was a little misleading as there was power smoothing on for the Kickr which does of course give a biased view of power stability one over the other.

At the time, I found my Atom to be struggling to map power against targets and it wasn’t holding power - it was a little jumpy in ERG for me which was being widely reported. I understand there’s since been a firmware update and it may well be much improved.

You’re right that all you should need to do is to focus on cadence and let the bike do the rest (provided you’re not on one of the workouts that should be ridden in level mode).

Short 5-10 sec sprints are tricky on ERG generally, that’s not a symptom of the Atom over the Kickr bike.

#5

Thanks Dave! Much appreciated, that makes perfect sense.