Turbo Trainer Advice

Do both.
#marginalgainz

https://www.pedalpro.com/pedalpro-pvc-floor-protector-mat.html

Recommended, especially for the money. Do you really need more than a mat @giofox if you've got thick carpet?

do I need to do a ramp test, or shall I just halve my ftp and act like it's all fine

I didn't use mine for about 10 weeks recently - did a ramp test and was surprised to find I'd only dropped four watts. It's good to know IMO, plus depending what software you're using (if any) the workouts should be matched to your FTP really.

People who have smart trainers and power meters, which one do you use for your power numbers?

Smart trainer stuff for indoor, PM for outdoor.
About once a month maybe with a ramp test I’ll run both one on phone one on head unit to see what the difference is.

Although see hill climb thread I clearly don’t know what I’m doing hahaha

People who have smart trainers and power meters, which one do you use for your power numbers?

Always the powermeter as the source.

This is using TrainerRoad, same bike/pm indoors and outdoors.

PM adds some lag into zwift so like @GoatandTricycle I tend to use my smart trainer alone indoors but I also know that there is about 3% between the two as I run my Garmin while I'm riding.

Cool, cheers all

Both.
I accept that they are different, and measuring different things.
At first I tried to use my power meter for turbo but it didn't control the resistance properly.
I occasionally do calibration tests where I run both. At lower powers the turbo measures quite a lot higher, 20W, but they converge towards threshold. From the trainerroad forum I believe it is more typical for the power meter to be higher (measuring at crank vs wheel) so mine is odd but it seems consistent.

Keep it the same if you can, ie. in my case it's
Powermeter + Trainerroad using their powermatching to control KICKR resistance.

This is one of the reasons why I should really upgrade to something like KICKR from my entry level smart trainer (Tacx Vortex Flow).

I use the power meter, it has a disadvantage where it stops recording power if you stop pedalling (as it should), but the turbo calculates it from the wheel speed so if you do a coast the power and resistance doesn't drop away instantly making it easier to spin up again. I don't care that much about real world accuracy, more about smoothness and the turbo doing calculations tends to jump too high or too low when changing speed. I don't notice any difference in speed for the resistance changing between the two.

Super helpful, thanks guys.

Another noob turbo question:

Using Zwift I'm going to use my PM as the power source and cadence sensor to keep it consistent. Will use the Kickr as the controllable.

My question is when using Zwift do I want the kickr paired with my Garmin? Does this matter?

You could do but you can connect your Strava to Zwift so it uploads to there once you've done a workout

Presumably then the activity won't upload to Garmin Connect?

You can connect Zwift to Garmin Connect. It's one of the options when you set up your account.

I bought a turbo trainer. However, I be never had one before. I’ve managed to connect to the Elite app, which is shit. What do I do next?

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Put it in the shed and sell it for £40 in a year.

im looking to get a trainer when im back in the uk to help with the recovery from knee surgery.
would love to get a bells a whistles one but no way i can afford one. my budget will be about £250/300.From my reading am i right in thinking a good half way house is fluid trainer with smart stuff.
i like the idea of set training help from aps as i want to recover but also improve my cycling and fit ness and loose all the weight ive put on from not being active

ive only used one once and that was a years ago on the cheapest thing ever and was horrible to use. Is there much difference from a magnetic resistance to fluid ?

ones i like the look of so far - kinectic road machine,

if im allowed to spend a bit more - Elite muin direct drive

is it worth spending the extra for direct drive ?

Yes

.

Did my first turbo session in about 5 years.

It's still shit and dull

Elite muin direct drive

I had this, its a good trainer, I had it with that bluetooth sensor.
The power readings should be taken with a pinch of salt; it almost always did 30w above! Which I loved obvs.

As a trainer it is definitely better than a wheel-on trainer, the resistance curve is nice but nowhere near to something with a heavy freewheel. Trying to replicate 'road feel' on a trainer is a trap that no1 should fall into.

Put a CD in it and pedal at 500rpm.