Hi All, Can you help me assess the ramp test below? My wife did it today and she was able to go up from 111 to 121 watts but i’m confused with the final part of the test. Towards the end of the test her power started to drop but her cadence kept in the same range for about 4 minutes before she dec…

Looks like a normal ramp test to me.

Your wife seems to quit slower than most people. You probably already knew that.

Not sure if this was on purpose, but once she couldn’t hit the power target at 22:00 I would have stopped. Not sure if this is a trainer ceiling/floor resistance issue, but I don’t think ramp tests should look like this at all. The “don’t stop until you can’t turn the pedals anymore” thing presuppos…

That doesn’t look right to me as once you can’t do the work anymore the power curve drops off sharply and your cadence drops because you can’t pedal anymore.

Hitting a power ceiling could be happening on the vortex. You could test it by using the same gear and cadence when fresh, and see if you can get to a higher power. It could also be an erg mode issue where it just stops following the demand power - I’ve had that in a ramp test. If you have erg mode…

So I didn’t want to jump to conclusions before getting some replies but my impression is that the trainer had Something going on the erg mode that allowed her to keep pedaling at a power lower than the target but I didn’t know if this could be some type of feature to keep people from going to an all…

The cheaper trainers often have power ‘floors’ and ‘ceilings’ - there is a power range for a given gear that you can’t get out of, you’ll have to shift to get higher or lower. I know I often have to shift between work and recovery intervalls, because I can’t drop as low as the recovery wants, or I c…

Yep, until recently, I was training on a Vortex. The power ceiling when in the small ring with a slow cadence is around where her power started dropping. To get the advertised 950+ watts you have to be in the big ring + the 11 tooth with a cadence of about 120+.

[image] gcarver: Not sure if this was on purpose, but once she couldn’t hit the power target at 22:00 I would have stopped. Not sure if this is a trainer ceiling/floor resistance issue, but I don’t think ramp tests should look like this at all. The “don’t stop until you can’t turn the pedals any…

[image] Jack_Thompson: To get the advertised 950+ watts you have to be in the big ring + the 11 tooth with a cadence of about 120+. But her power drop was way below 950W, more like 150-160W. Wouldn’t have thought that would be a limiter even if she was in bottom gear with low cadence. Unless …

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cartsman November 16, 2019, 3:44pm 11

But her power drop was way below 950W, more like 150-160W. Wouldn’t have thought that would be a limiter even if she was in bottom gear with low cadence. Unless she’s riding a gravel bike with a cassette that goes up to 50T or something!

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