Try lowering your cadence in the rest section by 10+ rpm. When the interval starts or when you feel the resistance begin to increase slowly raise your rpm to where you want it. Eg. If trainer is thinking I need to but 400w at 85 rpm it will work out resistance based on that. Meanwhile you lift cadence during the ramp up to 100. You’re catching the lag while it’s figuring out the resistance. That’s the methodology that seems to work for my kickr core.
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Your issue is a result of changing the cadence. Erg mode adjusts the power to your cadence. Get the cadence you want and let the power adjust. It will get there.
^ and I’ll repeat my public service announcement, stated another way unlearn some of what you do outside. Which is equivalent to reinforcing a pattern that doesn’t work outside. @brenth not singling you out, that’s the correct advice if using Erg. The downsides of using Erg are rarely pointed out. Cyclists with smart trainers should have a balanced view of Erg mode pros and cons.
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Interesting reading through this thread. I’ve pretty much always used the big ring and fifth cog up to keep the chain in line. On shorter intervals I’ve had some spin up issues but nothing too irritating but on high rpm power efforts this spin down due to flywheel has been an issue. I’ll try your suggestion on my next short interval workout and see how it goes. Thanks
I tried a VO2 max workout on ERG mode yesterday. 30/30’s. I just couldn’t see how I would be able to maintain a good cadence and shift fast enough in Resistance mode. I have to say it worked out well for me. The challenge of ERG mode is the death spiral, and in a 30 second effort there’s not really enough time to death spiral. In contrast, plenty of time to meet your demise in 2 minutes with ERG if you drop off power momentarily.
You can see I pre-empt the effort by revving up to 105-110RPM. Then try to keep it above 100 for the interval. Seems to work pretty well.
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High cadence is always your friend in ERG.
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exactly I also do so, is also recommended so
So a bit of a delayed followup, as I feared I failed my first workout, the Spanish Needle I had mentioned I had coming up and was concerned if I was able to do it.
I then went on vacation, got covid and am just recovering from covid now, after a few days of low intensity endurance rides post covid symptoms I tried Tyndall -5 with similar 15 second 150% microbursts.
Whereas with Spanish Needle, I turned the intensity down and finished the workout, today I was just experimenting outside of my plan so just ditched, perhaps I could have finished but the quality was poor throughout with me generally missing the 15 second power target. Now, I’m not sure if maybe I was getting ‘close enough’ for the majority of them to get the intended development or not.
I also wonder if given this seems to be more of a fitness thing than a technique thing, how I can best address this “energy system” that seems to be a weakness for me. Should I start throwing an extra Tyndall -5 somewhere into my regular LV adaptive plan to improve my ability to perform these microbursts?
Here is my turned down but completed Spanish Needle after I couldn’t hit the 150% pre-covid
and here is my first dabble in intensity post covid from today
Looking at the graphs it seems like I did do slightly better at the 150% even if I did miss hitting the power avg targets on the majority, it seems like a slight improvement compared to my Spanish Needle… Not sure what else if anything can be gathered. With Spanish Needle to finish after seeing I couldn’t hit the 150% I turned the intensity down by 20%, that seemed to be more than I needed but it did allow me to finish. I feel that I probably reduced the intensity a little bit more than I needed to.