Allow tuning / adjustment of smart trainer base resistance

Hopefully I’m not the only one who’s found this, but when riding around on a 0% gradient I’m at a point right in the middle of my cassette where there’s a 2 tooth jump (think I’m running an 11-28 11spd so nothing too unusual) and to churn out 180-190W puts me at either slightly too high or too low a cadence to be super comfortable depending what gear I pick. Sure I could change cassettes or chainrings to dial this in, but if the range of trainer difficulty is adjustable then this should be possible too?

Thinkrider x5 neo for reference

this has been asked for previously – if memory serves, the MTB crowd have asked for this because their overall gearing is too low and on flats/downhills they can find themselves spinning out.

I’m sure there’s a variety of circumstances where it could help, I’m not expecting anything as fancy as the full virtual gearing on a smart bike (although I imagine that some of the trainers could achieve something like that and them we could run singlespeeds or belt drives on them) just a degree of tunability

what %age do you run the trainer difficulty at?

I wonder if this is something that should be asked of the trainer manufacturers also/instead? That is, some way to configure or calibrate base resistance in their respective apps that sticks with the trainer when running any 3rd party app such as Zwift.

Wasn’t there recently a forum member offering use of an app they are developing, to do exactly this, with lots of positive feedback?

Possibly @Roberto_Viola and the qzfitness.com app

If it doesn’t already support the Thinkrider trainer for virtual gearing, he’ll probably add it if you ask

2 Likes

that won’t make a difference at 0% gradient

I can help you with qz, let me know on github page if you need help

If its at 100% it would be the same as being outside on a 0% gradient so I’d assume he has the same issue outside

trainer difficulty at 100% or 0% will feel the same on the flat