hi, ive got a replacement zumo but no matter what gear im in im struggling to reach 140w at steady 80rpm cadence. im using 8 speed mountain bike with the spacer and wondered apart from me not being a very strong cyclist am i better looking for a 9 speed road bike as zumo made for 9,10,11 speed bikes?
What size is your chainring.
You might be spinning out because MTB are designed to have much lower gear ratios than a road bike.
Smart trainers apply resistance against which the rider can apply force thru the pedals but you may be at the limit for your trainer.
Try to get another bike, any non MTB, and put on the trainer and see if you get more power.
It’s a Carrera vengeance mtb, have no idea what chainring is!!!
I’ve no experience with the zumo (I have a neo), but I did have a MTB on it for months and I had no problem putting out power, except needing more gears in sprints when standing, but that was putting out over 700W.
When you say you are struggling to reach 140W, what is the problem? You are peddling as hard as you can and think the power output should be higher? You are spinning out and need more gears? There is just no resistance no matter the gear you are in?
Have you used another trainer or power meter before, do you have a power output that you think you should be able to do?
I’ve recently changed from my MTB to a road bike and it hasn’t made any difference to my power output at all despite it definitely having higher gears.
The chain ring is your front gears.
Your answers to Dave’s questions will be helpful.
Struggling to reach 100w at a cadence of 85-90.
have u calibrated the trainer
I have yes, via e-training and zwift
But struggling how?
As David asked before, is the resistance such that you can’t push harder and it’s only showing 100w? It doesn’t sound like you’re spinning out, since you mention a cadence of 85-90rpm, or is that the limit to how fast you can pedal and there’s not enough resistance?
Please describe more about what’s exactly happening.
Hiya. I can’t compete in any race like I did on dumb trainer as even keeping cadence around 80-90 rpm I can’t get enough wattage to even keep up with people I can pedal as hard as possible and just get over 100w , resistance isn’t an issue it’s actually just not enough power how ever hard I pedal. I got upto 190 but was absolutely nearly killing myself.
Is that on the flat? How about if you ride up a significant climb? There should be no problem in you generating watts up a proper climb up to your maximum, unless the trainer isn’t giving you enough resistance.
I’ve got a Zumo myself.
Yes it’s on the flat, not tried an uphill gradient.Are you on a road bike? I’m using a 8 cassette with spacer and wondered if that issue as zumo is for a 9,10,11 cassette as u know
Yes, I’m on a road bike, but I don’t think that’s an issue here. Your MTB gearing would only be a problem if you were spinning out on the flats, i.e. you were in your highest gear (large chainring, and smallest cog on the back) and you were having to go to a ridiculously high cadence.
Try going on a climb. E.g. try the Roule ma Poule course in France (create a meetup on it if it’s not a guest world) where after a short lead-in you’ll begin climbing the Petit KOM.
I suspect that your trainer is fine, and the issue is that you’re simply not as strong as you’d like to be, and your previous wheel-on trainer was giving you artifically high power figures.
ok, what’s best thing on Zwift to do if I’m not strong enough to ride competitively. I’m just about peddling fast and reaching 1.0 w/kg so not road worthy race wise!!!
Just try out different things on Zwift and see what you enjoy most. If you enjoy something you’re more likely to keep doing it, and it will improve your fitness.
Try out everything - free rides, individual workouts (loads of different types), group workouts, group rides (again, lots of different kinds of those).
Group workouts will have you riding along with everyone else no matter the difference in fitness levels, since they’ll be using the “keep together” function.
You can arrange your own “keep together” meetups with friends, which again will keep different abilities together on the road.
Even if you’re just free riding, enjoy the scenery and don’t worry when you get overtaken - we all get overtaken by others.
what cassette do you have on your zumo? ive got an 8 with 1 spacer and gearing sounds horrible so worry ive not got enough spacers or something
I’ve got an 11 speed cassette. With the right spacer your 8-speed should be fine. What spacer did you put on it? It might be the wrong one. But this is only likely to cause noise and problems with gear changes if it’s wrong, rather than to affect power.
You’ve got the correct spacer then. Noise could just be that the trainer is sitting slightly differently than your wheel, hence it’s not quite matching up with the cassette properly.
Is it definitely set up properly, with whatever adapters the instructions say for your setup?
Do you take the bike on and off the trainer (for riding outside, or does it stay on the trainer)?