I’m using zwift with ‘dumb’ rollers and a power meter. Everything seems to be working great, power in zwift matches my garmin etc…
BUT one difficulty for me is that it is very difficult if not impossible for me to do any really powerful efforts because of the smoothness required to ride the rollers vs the ‘rocking’ motion often required to produce high output.
I did the ftp test today and rode avg 275 watts for 20 mins. However it is not physically possible for me to hit 400 watts even for a few seconds.
Are there other users here that have this same issue? Not a huge deal but i would like to try some training programs and i know there will be many (short) efforts that will ask 400, 500 watts etc. I guess i just skip those and do the max i can without jumping off the rollers.
At around 375 watts i REALLY have to concentrate on being smooth so as not to jump the rollers or drop the band off the rollers
Rollers require more caution than a trainer and the rider must concentrate in order to keep the bike on line. This is not a device for practising violent efforts out of the saddle, and while the bike can come unstuck pretty easily, there’s no risk of sling-shotting into the wall or TV (the momentum of the wheels is no match for the weight of the rider but they will still fall over).
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I think, when using rollers, you just can’t train sprints or other full gas efforts. It is too dangerous. Safety first;-)
Thanks for the response - as i think about it the limitation is really the maximum cadence you can maintain with a very low resistance. No wind resistance/drag or grade to slow you down or make it harder.
Kind of like when you are riding down a hill with a small grade you will never be able to put out as much power as when you would ride up that same hill