I used an AB (Assault Bike Pro) and a VA4 (Vivioactive 4) watch for last 3 or 4 months.. Former Zwifter of two years with a road bike on a Saris fluid 2 stand Downloaded Zwift data into Golden Cheetah. I use data to keep my interest in "training" myself:
First thing I did with the AB was to add my old Wahoo cadence monitor to a crank. For my workout/ride, I prop my iPad ton a nearby window sill to see my watch HRM via Garmin Connmect, my primary focus is on the AB console for my in ride cadence/watts/speed, and I take pictures of the AB console after a ride.. I use the photos to edit some of my activity data in Garmin Connect. That works but essentially the distance and watts edits are summaries and do not match up with the HR on a time scale. I figured a speed sensor would at least give me one granular metric of distance traveled over time.
By undoing 4 screws and with some difficulty, I was able to open the cage enough to mount a Garmin Sensor2 to the inside of the wheel rim. Now that I know the required tools and technique, this should be a 15 minute job to change the battery in the future. The sensor does not seem to impact the wheel balance. Each indoor bike will have its own issues and my preference would be to mount it on the equalivant of a hub.
After 4 or 5 rides, I figured out how to make sure both sensors are picked up by the VA4. Only have two rides with the speed sensor communicating to the VA4. After the first ride showed 84 MPH, I have adjusted my watch wheel size to 640 MM. AB says 18 mph and Garmin says 25 mph. I have no idea which is correct and frankly, don't care. My intial goal is to get the AB console and Garmin Connect to sort of agree on distance traveled.
I will come back and post when I dialed it in closer.
I have looked at other similar posts about indoor bikes that do not electronically send info to Garmin Connect (via a watch). The AB RPMs translated directly to watts and distance (speed). There are sites that have charts of each RPM=Watts for an Assault Bike. I noticed there is an aftermarket item for some bikes, where the sensor feed passes through a black box on the way to the console. The box translates the rpms into watts and distance, plus received a chest strap HRM signal, to produce a real fit file kind of data. Seems like this would also be possible for an Assault Bike, but I don't see it yet. I don't have the programing skills to alter a fit file to add the incremental watt values from the RPM values.
Thought this post might be useful for people using other watches and perhaps other indoor bikes.
