LifeLine TT02 and Power Outputs (New to TR)

Hi All,

Before I begin, I am new to TrainerRoad and to static bike trainers. Being a keen mountain biker with less time to ride, I was hoping it would be a great way to keep my fitness up.

I got a LifeLine TT02 fluid trainer from a well known bike sale website, as it was on sale, and a wahoo cadence and speed tracker. On this I’m using a fairly inexpensive road bike I bought a few years back. I’ve told TrainerRoad I have a Kinetic Road Machine fluid trainer as I read a review it has a similar power curve.

I have found my comfortable cadence tends to be around 70, maybe a bit quicker on a good day. When doing some of the workouts in the “Sweet Spot” training plan, the text often tells me to keep a much higher cadence (around 90). If I try do this in a higher gear my power output is way over the target. In a lower gear my power output is a fair amount under.

So my questions - is this normal? Have I got the setup wrong, and need to try a different trainer setting (if yes, how do I know which)? Is it down to bad technique and will be something I slowly get the hang of?

I realise this could be a stupid question(s), but I thank you for your patience with me

Let’s define this a bit. On a road bike, you usually have 2 chainrings on the front and something like 8-11 gears on a cassette on the back.

With your High/Low, are you only using the front derailleur and shifting between the big and small chainrings?

Or are you also shifting the rear derailleur?

Usually, you will need to experiment with the front and rear der’s to get the right combo to get the cadence and power output combo that you want.

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I am only shifting using the rear, to attempt to only get small changes. I didn’t even think of using the smaller front chainring! I’ll have a play around with this

Then that is a something to do. The Virtual Power system uses the rear wheel speed and the trainer model selected to estimate a power. If you are always in the big chainring, that will end up being a fast speed (high power) even at the easiest rear gear.

Good luck. I think that front shift will help a lot.

Has anyone tried and compared this trainer to the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine? They look very similar but the price difference is huge.

And another question, it would be nice if TR could ask Wiggle/Lifeline for the power curve data, or create one themselves, since it is a fairly popular trainer.

To the best of my knowledge, TR builds their own power curves in house via live testing. I suspect they haven’t done this trainer since it seems to be UK based.

But it looks great and they should probably get one to do an official curve.

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Thanks very much for your help!

It would be great to get a power curve for this trainer, too. Will keep a look out incase one is added in the near future.

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