Erg mode slow to react - Tacx Neo, Ebbetts Workout

I actually noticed the same thing, in Erg mode on my Neo, the short (less than 15) seconds or so it lags too much.

Here is my last run on Ebbetts from a few weeks ago. Didnā€™t seem to have any issues on my Tacx Neo. To achieve the power in the short 5-10sec sprints I have to be in the big ring. What chainring are you guys using?

https://www.trainerroad.com/career/jlopez149/rides/48290455

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I did Ebbetts today too on Tacx neo in erg mode and also experienced it hard to Average the desired Watts in 5 sec. I was able to hit the wattage just not ā€œaverageā€ it in such a short span of time. Iā€™m always in the small ring on the front and middle of the cassette. I feel like I got the benefit of the workout even though the numbers donā€™t look perfect. My workout is below:

https://www.trainerroad.com/career/danasummey/rides/49024411-ebbetts

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Both of the workouts above also look good to me. You can see different approaches in the gearing, cadence and jump timing. But they each are getting the power profile really close to the target, IMHO.

Iā€™m riding my KTM hardtail, Eagle MTB.
So 34 up front 1x and the 5th up from the bottom on the Shimano 11 speed 10-28 cassette on my Neo.
Chainline perfectly straight, ERG MODE so no shifting. Itā€™s the one gear in the cassette that is perfectly lined up with one of the shifting Eagle indexes.

So Iā€™m not generating as much flywheel rpm as you guys in the big road rings. But my cadence is always 92 and up.

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I did Ebbetts a few weeks ago and I too have a Tacx Neo. Itā€™s hard to get those 5 seconds, but I just went for it, from the start and didnā€™t follow the graph on the screen or anything. I just gave it all I could.

This is from one of the sprints in the very last interval. Itā€™s not perfect, of course, but I am satisfied with the trainer.

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Again, that looks great. I think you got it figured out and are getting what is intended.

My interpretation is that people often get confused by the (not matching target) numbers shown on screen after a shorter interval or in the interval summary.

With smooth pedaling and small front ring I usually get close to those short interval targets with the Neo if I look them up on the web page, zoom in and shift those 5, 10 or 15 second block 1-2 seconds to the right. So not 1:00-1:10 but 1:02-1:12 for example.

There is a feature request to do that automatically and look some seconds around for each short interval and use the part with the highest average power for that interval duration and show that in the interval summary list. You might want to comment and upvote here:

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Thanks for taking the time to look into it @mcneese.chad!

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@chadmcneese hereā€™s my file for ebbetts today. Iā€™m on a vortex. Iā€™m not sure I get the intended benefit. Managed to get 3-4 seconds of work a above prescribed on virtually every burst interval. But my trainer is so slow to ramp down on some of them it took over 20 seconds to get back to the sweetspot I was supposed to be in. All in all every single interval was in the treshold range for average power.

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Looks perfectly acceptable to me.

image

I focus on the ā€œareaā€ of the power zone and even if it is shifted to the right (like we see here), you are quite close to having a block with the same area.

The key point to keep in mind is that these efforts are more about a pure effort and load. The fact that it doesnā€™t perfectly follow the defined block is OK, reallyā€¦ itā€™s OK :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks a lot.

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I think Chad you are completely correct, the training exposes the user to the required training level, but as a Neo owner, I can tell u itā€™s really frustrating, you build yourself up for 150%, 3,2 1 ā€¦ nothing,nothing, spin spin, pedal to fast, oh here we go, other times when you think, wait a couple of seconds ā€¦ donā€™t spin, brick wall

It might have the desired training, from a user experiance itā€™s a bit rubbish, why do a count down, if youā€™re actually going to do it a few seconds later

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I guess you may be having a different experience than me. There are two things in play here:

  1. What do we feel and experience in the moment of the workout.

    • TR sends the actual resistance change instruction in ERG at about 2 seconds to go (this might even vary from trainer to trainer as loaded in the TR app, but Iā€™ve seen mixed info on that). I know on my Neo, Kickr and H2, that I get ā€œhitā€ with power from jumps like this before the actual 0 in the countdown.
    • This is done in part to offset the actual power captured and try to align it better with the prescribed blocks when doing analysis in #2 below. It doesnā€™t always work for alignment, but for me, it usually means I am well into the power kick when I am officially in the power block.
    • What you are describing seems to be different from my experience, and Iā€™m not sure why that would be?
  2. What do we see in the post workout analysis.

    • As above, the TR app sends the resistance change early, hoping to get closer matches between planned and actual power.
    • This can be impacted by the riderā€™s power/cadence reaction to the resistance change, the actual trainer used (delay and response capabilities), the gearing used on the trainer (some respond faster in different gearing), and who knows what else? As such, we can see different results despite apparently similar use.
    • I have played a fair bit and come to one basic trick for these jumps. I often drop my cadence 5-10 rpm prior to the jump. Doing this causes the resistance brake to clamp down a bit more from the slower cadence. When the interval hits, I accelerate my cadence back to or well beyond the prior cadence. Doing so means I hit a harder resistance and higher power level sooner than purely waiting on the trainer to make the change. It doesnā€™t always work, but itā€™s something that I find works most of the time.
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I do this exact thing too. Not least because if the interval anything over 120% FTP, I need to be spinning quite fast or Iā€™ll just grind to a halt.

Thereā€™s nothing worse than getting distracted and a sprint interval unexpectedly kicking in when youā€™re just doing 85rpm or something.

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DUDE!, I did this last night and almost got crushed. Hammered to get on top of it just in time before getting bit by the clinch :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yeah, I donā€™t think itā€™s a trainer issue since Iā€™m on a Snap circa 2016 with the same thing happening.

Itā€™s been a while since I did Ebbetts and after a couple of those sprints, I thought, ā€œoh yeah, now I remember this oneā€. :upside_down_face:

Ebbetts on a Neo2. Tuesdays workout. What delay?
I barely even change cadence these days.

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Maybe thats the fix

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It could be the reason.
I also train on a MTB with much lower gearing. The whole momentum thing is a wash when you train in a lower gear.
IRL I donā€™t have a choice about grinding out of potential low cadence situations. +30% grade or a rock face you need to get up? FTP of 160 or 260 and youā€™ll still need to push +1000w to get over an obstacle.

Iā€™d hazard a guess that flywheel speed is a bigger factor in shorter intervals.

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