Hi, I’m new to cycling, and it’s my first week using ZWIFT, so I wonder if I’m doing anything wrong.
I got the Kickr Core with the Zwift cog for an old road bike I have. Today, I was doing a training session called “Mend - Recovery” where Zwift asked me to maintain a cadence of 110 at around 85W in ERG mode. However, I found this to be a challenging task. My feet kept slipping because I lost most of the resistance in the pedals/chain with such a high cadence and low wattage. It feels like the trainer resistance is too low for such a cadence, and many of the strokes feel “empty.” With regular pedals, it was really hard to maintain proper form.
Could this be a configuration issue or a bike problem, or is the training plan simply not well designed for ERG mode?
Shuji at Zwift HQ here. My guess is that your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) number is set too low for your true abilities.
Most ERG mode workouts ask you to hit a watt target that is x% of your FTP number If the FTP is set too high - that target feels incredibly difficult. If your FTP is too low - you won’t get enough resistance.
Try manually raising the FTP number, by say - 20 watts at a time. That is a significant enough increase that you should feel the resistance change if you go back to do the same workout. This is how to manually adjust your FTP.
Once you’ve set the FTP reasonably close - something to keep in mind with ERG mode workouts - your only job is to hit the cadence RPM target. Your smart trainer and Zwift will adjust your resistance automatically so you can hit the watt target. You just have to pedal and maintain the target cadence.
At some point, I’d recommend you try an all-out effort using an actual FTP test. It will be difficult - that is the point - but you’ll benchmark your true abilities. There are several ways to perform the FTP test in Zwift, outlined here.