Ive changed from a Tacx Neobike to a Kickr Core over the past 7 days.
FTP was set by TR AI at 235W (3.90 w/kg) 20 days ago and all workouts have been OK. (ERG accuracy and power smoothness seem along way off the quality of the Neo but thats a different discussion)
I had my first race on Zwift yesterday, a 10 mile TT, and managed a 22:50 minute average of 252W which prompted Zwift to bump up my FTP on their platform to 243W (4.04w/kg).
Mr previous best 20 minute effort was 239W back in December last year.
That feels like some jump considering my TR AI was only set on the 1st of Feb
This makes me wonderâŚ
Is this just TRs improvements coming through over time & I should just crack on
Is the Tacx Neobike stingy with its watt output?
Is the Kickr Core generous with its watt output?
Is this new extremely sugary toffee cake ive started eating 60 minutes before races some form of racing superfood?
Regardless of the answer, ive got 9 days until my next AI FTP so should I wait to see what TR does, or intercept with a FTP or Ramp test?
General advice is if you change Power meter/trainer, then youâll need to retest. Two sources are rarely the same and TR canât know unless you tell it.
The advice to retest on your new trainer is correct.
As a temporary alternative, given the 8W / 3% difference between the Zwift FTP and AI FTP is to use the intensity +/- buttons in the TR player to run your next couple of TR workouts at 103% and see how that goes for you.
If the workouts feel as they should in terms of RPE, you might well be in for a boost come AIFTP day.
8 watts for 9 days (or a few weeks) isnât going to be enough to make all your workouts ineffective. Adaptive training will take care of most of it with progression levels pretty quickly anyway. And you can always turn things up (or down) a few percent manually if needed. If you want to avoid the pain of a re-test then youâre probably fine to just wait.
If you donât mind testing and you just want to know then by all means go do an update. Could be a difference in trainers, could just be a bump in fitness. Could also be a number of small bikefit changes between the two setups - and even if they were 100% identical, the wind from your fan probably hits you different on one setup compared to the other, plus other stuff that Iâm sure none of us could anticipate.
Only way to truly compare the two setups in terms of their power readings is if you had (or borrowed) a set of power pedals and used them to dual-record a similar testing workout on each setup and then used something like the DCR analyzer to see how closely the pedals track to each trainer.
Otherwise Iâd guess AT will close 50% of the gap before you get to next AiFTP, AiFTP will bring that to 75% corrected (but not all the way because it still has 20 days of data from the old setup), and then AT/progression levels will have you exactly where you need to be another week after that. But it does mean youâre waiting til the following AiFTP in 28+9 days before the ego FTP number on your profile is drawn entirely from the current trainerâs data
Yeah if the Neo Bike was 1.4-1.75% low, the Rally pedals were âtrueâ, and the Kickr was 1.4-1.75% high then that would give you the 3% difference without any one of those power meters being out of spec.
Alternatively, you could use Workout Alternates to find a harder workout to attempt. If you pass as expected youâll get a bigger jump in Progression Levels which will likely impact your next FTP Detection more than simply bumping up the intensity of the workout.
I did the other way around, going from my broken kickr to the neo 2T.
And while using the same(!) PM on my bike, that neo somehow feels so much harder that I had to cut my PLâs by 50% to survive that SS and TH sessions.
Donât ask my why or how, but something this neo is doing very different than the kickr which makes it more exhausting to pedal even if you apply the same measured power to the pedals.
Key difference is that the Neo series uses a âvirtual flywheelâ since it lacks a heavy one like seen on other smart trainers. The Neoâs literal âdirect driveâ is a resistance brake AND a motor. It uses that motor aspect to propel the flywheel forward as though it has more mass. So what it is and how it works differs from most trainers and is one factor to why it can feel different.
With that I wonder if suffering the Neo will give extra fitness on the real bike compared to the âeasyâ kickr or if at least I would adapt and compensate enough so after a while the neo would feel like the kickr did before pushing the same power.
Or not, i.e. I would neither gain any extra benefit on the bike nor would I adapt. Rather I would just need to rider lower power or PLs compared to outside or another trainer basically forever.
In that case I probably should get rid of it and get another kickr.
Which of the two or three options is it in you experience?
Sorry for the delayed reply, but thinking about it over the weekend, thatâs likely impossible to answer with any certainty.
Personally, I use lower gearing to mimic the pedal feel of lower inertia riding that makes up most of my use (gravel & MTB). The deltas in the feel and function between Neo & all other trainers is something interesting but hard to pin down. I certainly noticed a difference with my time on our Neo2 but I am not sure it would amount to any meaningful training delta in the end.
Much like trainer mode and other choices, I think we are talking the most marginal of marginal gains here. If it were much larger, I think it would be easier to pin down. Until someone takes up a proper study on trainer inertia and the like, I think all we can do is guess and pick based upon personal preferences.
Thank you, I also thought about my question a lot. Coming to the conclusion to keep trying for another while. I anyways foresee to keep training pretty constant over the coming 2âŚ3 months still, so not expecting any FTP/performance increases.
In case I return to kickr-time PLs, I guess I will have adapted.
If not, I might return to a kickr (while I really like the neo meanwhile).
Or maybe bad luck solves my riddle when the neo dies. I read that happened to some owners.
I would just wish that TR would finally understand that my PLs have dropped, so train now or planning would make the slightest bit of sense again
