Who to believe?  Seem to be some funny business between the two.  Just went out for a quick blast, Garmin tells me I averaged 256w (258 normalised) with a max of 2102w strava says same max but 195waverage which is quite a chunk different ( weighted average is 234)

If ‘m thinking about paying for the training stuff on strata I’d want to be sure its correct.

Bonus question.  I keep getting change of ftp messages on the Garmin is there away to see the history of this?  I’m not really a big user of connect and having spent a bit of time scouting about I can’t find it so far

Unless you’re using a power meter I’d just be ignoring it.

OTOH, I went riding with a mate how is very similar height and weight to me. He had a power meter, my Strava average was very close to what his PM said

Yes I am using a power meter, I have 3 across various bikes and a kickr and about 3 years data.   The  numbers on the Garmin are consistent with my hr.  25% odd variance on average power is massive.  If you are sat riding to an average power for training purposes and then upload it to strava and it is completely different its not good.

I was thinking of paying for the training analysis but don’t think I will if I don’t understand why numbers are different

Ignore Strava power, if you want to pay for training data/analysis try TrainingPeaks 👍

I think Strava apply different maths to the data to arrive at weighted average, think they take your bike weight into consideration as well?

Everyone else uses tried and trusted NP

I’d read strava weighted is not the same as NP but surely the base average should be the same.

Surely if they are trying to sell the training ‘summit’ thingy they need to sort this out.

Ill have a good look at training peaks

Bike weight included is interesting, mine always defaults to my heaviest (commuter) and I change post upload.  If that is the case it should change when you edit the bike.

I gave up on Strava as a training tool ages ago, it’s a social app in my view…my proper training stuff goes on in TP, it takes a bit to learn it but it’s not difficult. Patience and a bit of reading 👍

Strava power does change when you edit the bike.

, it’s a social app in my view

I agree, I’ve signed up for training peaks and the analysis is much better and more useful. Also pretty accurate when it comes too looking at form.

I use Stravistix and https://power-meter.cc/home , both freebies, for power analysis.

Latter one is quite new for me, ~6 weeks, but it’s handy for a very easy way to break down a ride to find your best output over 5secs; 1min; 5mins; 20mins plus your PBs for each time window.

https://cricklesorg.wordpress.com/ also gives a Normalised Power value for activities with  a power meter, another freebie, along with some other useful stuff like LTHR and a fitness trend that will estimate ride efforts where you weren’t using a HRM or the HRM data was ignored due to errors (eg. my current 6-week CSS is 3434 and my XSS from HRM-less commutes and the odd HRM ride with corruption is 4037).

My recent best 20min power effort (290W) and coincidentally my best “hour of power” (252W) ride https://www.strava.com/activities/1722691543 has different Normalised Power values at Crickles and Stravistix (255W), while Power-Meter gives the same ride 246W, the same as Strava’s “weighted power.”

Power-Meter.cc grabs rider FTP from Strava, so because I’ve been using the free version since March, it’s a bit out of date and as a freebie Strava user I cannot edit the 247W figure. But I have an offer of a free trial of Strava Summit, so when I activate that, I can then edit my Strava FTP (albeit they like to use the theoretical 95% of your best 20min effort, which is ~275W from the recent ride linked above, but that’s somewhat higher than my real world “hour of power” best from the same ride of 252W.

Golden cheetah for analysis. Strava for social. I Ignore Strava estimated power.  The six week power plot is ok. Fitness and freshness are generic and there are better measures.

Fwiw my FTP test on Zwift with my calibrated KICKR – tested against my Pedal PM matches my best one hour normalised power in circuit races to within 3 watts. My best 25 TT power is 10% down on this due to position but again, entirely consistent. I have not done an FTP test on the KICKR on the TT bike.

Xert is another worth looking at, decent free trial period to have a proper play.

I thought it looked pretty good and lots of potential, only dropped it as I couldn’t justify as well as TP.