Hey guys not sure if it is possible but could the app, and would it be useful, to be able to somehow set a cadence cap for ERG mode?
I find my cadence ever increasing workout on workout. On the road, with zeros removed but including climbing, I tend to pedal at 85 average.
The lowest from any workout bar ramp test is 95 and am on some hitting 100.
I always seem to find my cadence drifting upward, the trainer then lowers resistance to maintain the target power and again I speed up.
Think this is ok at the moment as want to build my aerobic capacity and muscular endurance, but in new year I want to start focussing on the run up to CX season. This is of course typically lower cadence short bursts and on some courses in my region a 2 or 3 minute grass/mud climb.
Any thoughts? Is this just down to the type of workouts in SS base?
It is important that you don’t try to chase power numbers when you’re training in ERG mode. Ride the cadence you want to target and let the trainer adapt to you. This can feel counter-intuitive if you’re used to a ‘dumb’ trainer, but if you want to ride a lower cadence then ride a lower cadence. It might take a while (depending on the trainer) for it to settle in at the correct power, but trust the machine and ride your own cadence
In general the higher cadence you’re finding on the trainer will help you, but as you note you need to be able to use other cadences for your events so it is worth mastering the ‘skill’ of ERG mode cadences prior to your harder intervals that will come during build and specialization. Take the time now, in SSB, to ride a lower cadence (and a higher cadence) at times and get used to the trainer doing these things for you.
As for your feature request - I’m not exactly sure how this would work. Are you proposing that when you go over a manually set cadence, say 95, that the trainer no longer decrease power to keep you on target, so that when you spin at 100 you’d be forced to put out more power and thus punish you for spinning too quickly? Would you also set a cadence floor such that when you dropped below the floor the power would drop?
I feel like any feature like this would actually be a bad thing too… For instance, during interval work, I often like to spin up my cadence a few seconds before the higher power kicks in - taking some load off my knees.
I also generally spin a higher cadence for higher power output than for the recovery intervals or floats between efforts.
As the above poster suggests - I think it’s better for you to let the trainer do the work for you and just pay more attention to the cadence you want to ride.
The only way I could see it work is by artificially raising the resistance if you shoot over but that might cause the exact opposite issue (where cadence drops) plus ruin the goal of a workout.
I guess it comes from years of road riding. I’ll ride a gear until get on top of it and change up. The trainer is trying to hold me at a lower power than I would normally ride at, my body wants to feel a reasonable resistance and it doesn’t. Impact is I speed up and it gets easier to pedal.
I then slow the cadence and it is again easier for a second or two as trainer adjusts, then cycle starts again (no pun intended).
My work around so far apart from just letting power and cadence vary up and down has been bumping up % during the low periods to get some more resistance which possibly goes against the goal of each.
When get back from holiday I am going to start over at the beginning and run all my training in the small ring up front, focus on cadence.
An alternative solution could be ability to set a minimum wattage on any given session/workout.
Not sure how people feel about that. Guess I could just make my own workouts like this but that defeats the object of using the plans (plus can do that easy enough via a Garmin).
I think my optimum cadence is looking like 100 or so. Maybe I should change disciplines!
One ssolution might be to use smaller gear, so that the flywheel speed of the trainer is lower. Becasue, if the flywheel speed is too high compared to the power curve of your trainer, the trainer may not be able to hold the resistance steady enogh in the ERG mode. That causes more fluctuation on power, which in turn causes fluctuation on your cadence, as the power changes too much.
Just to make sure I understand, because I have been having similar issues, though I am a newbie to smart trainers, so there is a lot of room for operator error.
I can hold a cadence at 90 ignore the power reading for a while? It will settle in to where it should be (ERG mode Tacx Flux trainer).
I find this particularly difficult in the lower power regions. Coming out of an interval into a recovery phase, if the target power is too low, I simply have to lower my cadence to get to the target power. But maybe I am doing it wrong. I should just hold my cadence and let the ERG mode find my target?
If you go into a recovery valley and hold a consistent cadence the trainer should adjust and get to that power. If it can’t get that low it is possible you’re in a gear where the trainer simple can’t apply resistance appropriately due to fly wheel speed. For some trainers, and some very low power numbers, this is a limitation you’ll see in very low gears. Try shifting (ahead of time if you’d like) into the middle of your cassette and see if you have the same problems
