I’m using a Neo and I notice a delay in the power getting up to target.
However, it feels to me like the resistance changes very quickly (and starts changing before the interval start is due - a deliberate TrainerRoad behaviour to work around trainer lag). I believe what a lot of people are ascribing to a delay in the power is actually an artifact of power smoothing. This smoothing will give the impression of lagging power.
You shared a link to the ride, but your account is “Private” and we can not access the ride.
Sorry,
now it’s public.
Yes bigger cog with smaller ring, I use semicompact 36/52 and 11/32 rear, the challenge here is to use the bigger cog that permit the right output from the trainer.
Looking at this, you may be overestimating the problem. If you grab one of the sets of intervals, you’re only missing the required intensity factor by 1% (see screenshot)
While it takes a second or 2 to get up to power in the work intervals, it can also take a second or 2 to get down to the right power for the recovery intervals. So these can cancel each other out.
For the interval you are correct, but in a VO2Max aren’t any of the “microinterval” more importat?
In this scenario the power error came from 5% to 7%, at the end of the workout have you do the right amount of work?.
Ok I see your point, thanks.
I’m just getting to my first VO2max workouts on my new smart trainer (Kickr Core). On high power intervals, at least for me, I’m finding the trainer behaves better if I slow my cadence just a few rpm before the resistance hits then hit the power but not until I feel the resistance go up. The key is not anticipating the power and waiting to feel the hit before accelerating. If you start spinning too soon, it takes a decent chunk of a short interval to catch up. I find the “establish your cadence early” tip works great on longer FTP or lower intervals but not the short high power stuff.
Also, things may not be as bad as they seem. Remembering back to my dumb trainer days (a couple months ago . . .) it still took a second or two to shift and get up to power unless I was cheating and starting early and/or going way over the target for the first second or two (and if you are use to cheating that way, it will screw up your smart trainer intervals - see above). And, I am doing exactly the same workouts I did last year and in comparing them, overall I am generally putting in more KJs with the smart trainer than what I did on the same workout on a dumb trainer. There is always the odd interval where you don’t nail the target, dumb or smart, but over an entire workout, the smart trainer usually wins.
This was my experience on the dumb trainer as well, and then I got all kinds of “free” TSS/IF in the recovery valleys because I didn’t want to shift the big ring or the cassette four times every interval, so I just slowed cadence and shifted once or twice to recover. That reduction in cadence in the recovery valleys might be why Taylor felt easier than it should have, too.
I noticed when using Ant+ in TR my Kickr also starts ramping 3 seconds before the interval but when using Bluetooth in TR the Kickr starts ramping at the interval start (or within 1 second).
One issue is that the numbers in the interval list do not match the numbers in the right panel when you highlight an interval. It’s a known TR issue which they are apparently looking into. I’ve picked one of the intervals at random so you can see what I mean. In this one the numbers in the panel are pretty close (341W/345W) but in the list they are some way off (336W/352W). I don’t know however which are correct.
