Newby - cadence vs Watt - resistance on the pedals

General Discussion
1

Hi,

Wahoo kickr user here: just did my second training (started easy) but I had trouble doing the 90Watts during the relaxing phase of the training, the resistance was very light and my cadence was about 80 - 90. I had trouble doing 360 with the pedals and keeping a good troke.

I would expect to cycle at cadence 50, some more resistance and give the legs some rest?

At a certain point, I was doing 60km/h downhill… when I never went beyond 50 irl (I live in the Netherlands = flat as a pancake). In zwift i was on a on 6-7% downhill cycling very lightly?

Perhaps I am doing something wrong?

2

Hi Robert, are you familiar with ERG mode? Sounds like that is what you are experiencing.

3 Likes
3

Yup that must be it but in a possitive sense, I did not have the spiral of death but the spiral of light lol!

So what is bettr for a beginner? Use erg or not?

I was picturing myself climbing mountains in Zwift, having to change gears…

4

Workouts use ERG and that does not follow the route profile. If you do a free ride like you did in ride 1 you will feel the hills go up and down.

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5

Your FTP might be set too low in that case. I generally slow my cadence down to around 80 during the recovery intervals and try to be above 90 on the harder intervals.

1 Like
6

Exactly! The workout felt so strange! So when you a workout, start relex mode with cadens 80? And don’t usegears…

Next training sunday, thanks Gerrie/mike, will try that.

7

You don’t have to change gears, but it can be done.

So when you have a recovery block you can slow your cadence and the trainer will change the resistance.

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8

As an exercise i did a training called the wringer, with a lot of short interval. I didn’t shift and it went much and much better.

I do have a challenge still with the relax fases, there sometimes the reststance is so light its hard to do 80 cadence.

Maybe i should do an ftp test in a week or 2