Hi,
I only very occasionally used my kickr core in the past as I mostly hated riding indoors.
After christmas I changed that trying to save some training time and it went great, quickly progressing on PLs (up to SS 7.3, TH 4.5) without any obvious end in sight.
Then the kickr broke and I replaced it with a used Tacx Neo 2T during a scheduled rest week.
Since then I am failing every single workout big time.
It’s less my legs giving up, it’s more my HR going 10 beats too high or so which beats me down after a while.
I hypothized that some light infect I had during the trainer switch would still linger around. But last Sunday I had a 5h group ride which went great, even pulling off some Strava PRs on the way. Also nightly HRV and RHR are in check, so it’s probably not that.
Important no note is that I am not relying on the trainers integrated PM. TR reads power from a P2M I run on the bike which is mounted on the trainer. Exactly the same one as on the old trainer before.
Lacking much experience with trainer/indoor rides I wonder what’s going on.
Maybe it’s the fact that the Neo 2T has this lateral movement, which drove me nuts the first 2…3 times I used it. Now I got more used to it, but maybe by body is working overtime to compensate for it next to moving the pedals?
Other than that I maybe got a bit more stress at work, but also nothing major.
I sleep well and eat a ton.
I wonder if others had similar experience or even explanations for it?
If nothing better comes up I think I will just drop all my PLs and will try to start over, hoping for better times.
how do you have the device setup in TR and how do you do the workouts? when only connecting the PM in TR and let the trainer run in resistance mode and shift to hit your targets, then the trainer should make no difference.
But more commen is using powermatch and connecting both the trainer + the PM, this -should- give similar results and should not be harder on 1 trainer than another. changing targets might feel (respond) different, but overall it should be the same.
What might be wrong is, that you will need to re-enable powermatch between your PM and the new trainer, otherwise I think TR will just use the trainer power / ERG target
Hello mate.
Last year i move from Saris H3 to Neo 2T.
It was a kind of shock, i found the interval harder.
Maybe, maybe this is due to the fact that we moved from a belt to magnets where the resistance is on or off.
But this is just my view
Cheers
I’ve also experienced this demoralizing feeling when using a Stages power meter after using a KICKR for several years. I think there are often bigger discrepancies between power sensors than we might think, and sometimes even bigger than what the manufacturers claim in terms of accuracy ratings.
If you’re using a power2max power meter with PowerMatch enabled, you might still see a discrepancy between the two trainers. PowerMatch mostly eliminates discrepancies between the trainer and the power meter, but if the two trainers read very differently, there will still be a discrepancy since the power meter serves as the mediator between the two but doesn’t have the ability to simply override the trainer’s data.
What I like to do in these cases is use the trainer as a standalone device in TR and connect the power meter to another device such as a head unit so that you can read the power figures simultaneously. This should give you an idea of the discrepancy between your PM and your trainer. Of course, you can’t do this with your KICKR anymore, but it might give you an idea of how close your current trainer is to your PM. If it’s close, then it’s likely the KICKR that was off (which is likely since it’s not broken).
Years ago, I had a Neo 2T and then switched (after the Neo circuit board fried) to the KICKR. I found the KICKR “easier” (and closer to road riding in my opinion). I think it is due to “flywheel” speed. The Neo has no flywheel per se but has magnetic resistance using a virtual flywheel. I think all things being equal in the settings, this is what you are feeling. I would do a FTP 20 minute test using the NEO and adjust according in TR. I found a 10w difference indoor on the NEO vs outdoor on my Favero pedals.
For clarity, despite lacking a traditional weighted flywheel, the Neo models apply forward rotation to the axle as a “virtual flywheel” I can’t swear to it, but believe it may factor in the rider weight as set in the Tacx app. If not, it presumably applies some stock flywheel factor as the axle spins a decent amount of time after stopping pedal input.
But generally speaking, if a rider is using the exact same gearing between trainers, the functional effect of deltas between flywheel action may well contribute to functional differences in actual rider demand and fatigue. It will vary with gearing in use as lower gearing will benefit less from the flywheel in general vs higher gearing. So it is a factor worthy of consideration as they all have some delta that might matter in some use cases.
Powermatching is on using the default state (I believe it’s “new”)
I have watched the old trainer, the new trainer and the PM on seperate units. Both trainers measured maybe 2…3% lower than the PM. But given TR is connected to the PM and the trainer, this shouldn’t matter, right?
To my suprise no one commented on that lateral movement the Tacx Neo 2T allows, probably to make the ride feel “more natural”. Was no one impacted by that? I still have the suspicion my decline might be related to that.
Correct, with power meter & trainer paired, TR’s PowerMatch is in use so any delta between the trainer & power meters is irrelevant.
WRT motion, I ignored it since I consider the “flex” in the Neo to be rather minor. It’s barely more than a thick trainer mat from my experience and well short of motion from rocker plates or similar. It may matter for some people when comparing to an ultra rigid setup, but it’s hardly a level of loose action that requires actual control from the rider (again, vs a legit motion setup).
You confirmed ERG mode, but are you in exactly the same gear combo still?
Interesting you comparing the lateral movement with that of a trainer on a mat. For me (97Kg) coming from the rigid Kickr I was swinging left-right-left like a leaf in the storm.
Also I contantly had the impression my body/bike was hanging a bit more to the left all the time.
Probably really bad pedaling posture I couldn’t notice on the rigid kickr or outside.
Meanwhile both is better, the swinging amplitude and also the felt left dominance.
But then, I still failed todays SS workout. Not at the end or something, but rather right in its middle…
That can sure vary based on rider weight & riding style. The flex I have seen with riders at lower weights is less, so your experience may well be a larger delta as a result.
This is a common statement and issue for some riders and it’s due to the asymmetric layout of the Neo trainers. The axle center width for the bike is not on center with the “flex” pivot. So it can sag or lean more to that offset left side.
I can’t say without a video, but that wouldn’t surprise me. In my years of doing indoor trainer classes, I have seen a wide range of poor to perfect form. And the rigid nature of most trainers hides those issues to a degree that gets exposed often when motion comes into the mix.
So to amend my prior statements… “it depends”
Cleaner action fixed or rigid shouldn’t matter much, but more active deltas between those is likely to add some amount of demand to the rider.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Especially that one:
…making me feel a little less crazy. I really doubted if my brain is falling for some visual effect or if my body is maybe formed like a cucumber and since 47 years no one noticed.
Not uncommon to find the Neo harder to ride at threshold than other trainers with weighted flywheels. This has been reported by a lot of people over the years. It’s also why the saying “watts are watts” isn’t the whole picture. How you produce those watts is more important… and that’s where the flywheel / virtual flywheel of the Neo is different.
Spend enough time on the Neo and you’ll adapt to it, then maybe even defend the Neo to the death (hat tip to Reddit where the love for the Neo trainer is stronger than anywhere else on the planet ).
I will restate something I have mentioned elsewhere many times, but not here until now:
Anytime you change a key component in your training device workflow, a new FTP test may be worthwhile.
In this case, despite having the same bike (fit) and power meter (data), the x-factor of the trainer inertia & motion could be enough to sway your results. Won’t always happen or be enough delta to sweat it, but sounds like this one might just be a case to apply that.
You might have “lost 1/4 of my FTP” but in reality you lost nothing. Your fitness is the same. The numbers might have changed due to difference in trainers.
