Select your product to confirm this information applies to you
Garmin Power Meter Pedals: Understanding How and When to Calibrate
Calibration of Garmin power meter pedals is important to ensure power readings recorded by the pedals are accurate. Calibration can occur two different ways.
NOTE: Do not use pedal extenders. Doing so could damage the electronics in the pedals, causing the pedals to not function.
Auto-Zero
Strain gauges within Garmin power meter pedals can be susceptible to external factors which can influence their accuracy. This is where auto-zero comes into play. When the pedals are woken up by spinning the bike cranks, they will try to do what is called an auto-zero. This process takes about ten seconds. There is no indication to the rider when this process is triggered nor if the process was a success or failure. Auto-zero requires the bike be upright and stationary to complete. The process will also fail if the offset is too large which could be due to the pedals leaning against something or if shoes are clipped in as an athlete transitions into the bike portion of their triathlon race.
For a triathlon race, we recommend waking the pedals up to allow an auto-zero to complete before clipping your shoes into the pedals.
Manual Calibration
Manual calibration also known as zero-offset is triggered by either a prompt from a paired head unit or by triggering the process from the sensor menu on the paired head unit. Manual calibration of Garmin pedals is important to complete after you have installed the pedals on your bike. This will get the pedals into a range where auto-zero will track and adjust any further minor changes.
Steps to Manually Trigger a Calibration
Select a calibration option below to reveal instructions.
Garmin Cycling Computer or Watch
Rotate the pedals a few times in order to activate the power meter.
Unclip from the pedals.
Rotate your cranks a few times to wake up the pedals.
From the paired head unit or watch go into your paired sensors screen and select your power meter once it is connected.
Garmin Edge (Touchscreen): Select > Sensors > Choose your power meter.
Garmin Edge (Button Controlled): Scroll down to Menu > Settings > Sensors > Choose your power meter.
Garmin Edge® 130 | Edge® 130 Plus: Press and hold the Top-Right button to access the Menu > Scroll down to select Sensors > Choose your power meter.
Garmin Watch: Press and hold the Left-Middle button > Settings > Sensors & Accessories >Choose your power meter.
Select Calibration and following the on-screen instructions.
With most systems the screen will look similar to what the Edge 1050 displays below:
It is normal to have a slight negative or positive value displayed on your screen after calibration.
> Sensors > Choose your power meter.
