So, I started with a Tacx Flow smart (had it for 3 years), but I just felt it wasn’t up to the task for interval training, too slow to react etc, feel not always the best (grabby, not smooth).
Went with a dumb Cycleops Jet Fluid Pro (still own it), and used with my PM it was great, particularly for on/off intervals where sometimes an ERG mode or resistance mode can jam you up a bit. The challenge was not going too hard and trying to keep to the power. Example being, target 280, I might be doing 290+ (Get into the rhythm), so I looked around at smart trainers as I felt a good turbo and ERG mode for TR would be ideal.
I bought a Cycleops Magnus for £260, reduced from £499. Initial thoughts were good, it was much more stable than the Jet Fluid Pro, but I just can’t workout how I should be using it!
I want to use Trainer Road with the power coming from my PM, so I pair the Magnus and the Stages, use power match, put in ERG mode but it simply doesn’t work right, the resistance just doesn’t seem to correlate. First point to note, I also pair my PM with my Wahoo BOLT as I like to have this running in case of crashes on iphone and also because I have a HRM that I can’t pair with my phone.
Should I attempt to leave the Wahoo off as a first step to see if the ERG mode works OK before trying anything else?
Have you tried it without powermatch and/or without bolt (although i think the bolt only listens not talks to the trainer) as then you can learn which part of the systems to rule out.
I love my Magnus. I don’t bother with power match and it works flawlessy as far as I can tell.
From time to time I run my Powertap G3 hub just to see how close the magnus is. It’s close enough. The main thing for me is; tire to 110lbs, spin down every week or so and seems to work.
Sure. I air up tire to 110lbs (with my reading glasses on… try to be exact here). Tighten the trainer knob unto the tire. Ride for 10 minutes in Rouvy free ride. Do calibration in Rouvy. Close Rouvy. Do TR workout. For the following week or so I just make sure the tire is at exactly 110. I don’t loosen the knob. I’ve verified with my Powertap and when the magnus is fully warmed up it’s actually within 5-10 watts.
Great, I’ll follow that protocol. Sorry for the questions…
So you then open TR, do you just pair the magnus to do the workout, or do you pair Magnus and Powertap?
I’d also like to run my Wahoo paired to my stages as a backup as well, do you think that would cause issues?
Also, (sorry) another thing you may be able to help with.
Forgetting TR for a second, if I have a workout synced to my Wahoo from Training Peaks and I pair my Wahoo with the Powermeter and Magnus I can then control the trainer from my Wahoo. What I need to ensure is that the power being shown and recorded is coming from Wahoo, I just need the trainer control ability. Do you know how I confirm where the power is coming from?
I never bother to pair the powertap to TR. I don’t bother with a backup either. The magnus and TR tend to be very reliable IMO. The only time I use the powertap with Wahoo app/phone is to verify that both power readings are close.
Each power meter/ trainer has a unique identifier. The Magnus will be saris than a number I think. Once you have your app (TR, zwift, wahoo, etc) loaded and device connected you should be able to find setup/devices or something like that and see what meter you are connected to.
If that doesn’t work I guess you could unplug the Magnus when you think you’re reading the stages and if the power still reads than you will know it’s the stages. Hope that makes sense.
Paired trainer with Rouvy, did about 6 minutes free ride, turbo nice and smooth, responding to increase in power. Closed it down after calibration.
Loaded up TR, chose workout and began with Magnus and Stages running (power match too). All working nicely, Magnus clearly responding to changes in power.
At this point I then turned my wahoo on (paranoid about power not coming from PM! ). Again everything working fine, trainer clearly in ERG mode and doing as told. Only issue is that towards the end of the interval the resistance seems to get less and less and I’m then doing 110RPM to hit power! Left it for interval 2, same result.
Then switched to resistance mode 3, power then being achieved at 10 less rpm. Switched to mode 2 and even better feel.
So for these intervals (4 x 8) it seems like resistance is the way to go and I’m pretty happy to do that.
Thanks for help, I’ll keep experimenting with ERG mode on different sessions.
My Magnus works perfectly in ERG mode. Even with intervals as short as 30 seconds. If ERG mode is important to you, then you should try a workout with just the Magnus and see how it works. All of our power numbers are somewhat subjective. The important part is that they are consistant. If your ERG mode is working, then you should be able to have a cadence of 50 or 110 (or more) and within a few seconds the power should be on target.
). Again everything working fine, trainer clearly in ERG mode and doing as told. Only issue is that towards the end of the interval the resistance seems to get less and less and I’m then doing 110RPM to hit power! Left it for interval 2, same result.