Turbo roll down time

Gav888

Hi,

Ive been reading a bit about turbo setup and a few people mention that a roll down time from 20mph to 0mph should be around 12 - 14 seconds, mine is 3 seconds!

Ive got a Elite Crono Fluid ElastoGel and im wondering if this is a normal time for a fluid trainer of this type or if it is faulty?

Also, is there anyway to increase the roll down time for this trainer as its not very smooth, I feel like im constantly fighting to keep it turning over?

sungod

time will depend on type of turbo and resistance setting, mine probably takes 4-5 seconds

haven't tried the same turbo, but some do take a while to warm up - a few months back i was using someone else's and it was very lumpy at the start

with a fluid unit, resistance is proportional to wheel speed, try using a much lower gear for the first 10-15 minutes, then both you and the turbo have time to warm up

Gav888

That was done after an hour of intervals so plenty warm enough. There are no resistance settings on this turbo.

amaferanga

I have the same turbo and roll down time is about the same. The fact that it clamps differently to almost all turbos probably effects roll down time a lot.

Mine doesn't feel lumpy though - compared to the Tacx magnetic trainer I had before it provides very smooth resistance.

sungod

is the tyre slipping on the roller? might make it feel uneven

i know there's no resistance adjustment, but that's why i suggested you might want to try using lower gears, otherwise the resistance will feel too high between intervals

what gears are you using for rest/warm-up?

elite's training handbook suggests 39x21 as the resting gear for a crono fluid trainer

but if you find it's still heavy/uneven at low gears then contact the retailer and see if you can get it checked/swapped

most turbos aren't very road-like, there's no coasting, i get on, i slog through the session, i give thanks that it's over and wish for warm dry weather :-)

btw the kurt kinetic is supposed to be one of the better ones, big flywheel, so coast down time is longer

MatthewBulmer

15 second coast down from 20mph on my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine. Previously I'd had an Elite MagLite that had a coast down of a couple of seconds. The KK certainly makes turbo sessions more bearable that previously. This is especialy useful for me as over 50% of my training time is on the turbo due to work committments.

Gav888

Nah no tire slippage unless I stand up which I don't do often as I don't want to stress the frame too much.

What I mean by smooth is it feels like I'm dragging something all the time. When doing intervals my rest gears are small on the front and 3 down on the back (not sure on teeth numbers) and that is fine and feels smooth / easy to pedal, its just when the speeds go higher in the big ring it feels like it's really dragging. Maybe the resistance curve curves up alot quicker when you reach a specific speed?

I've ridden one of those exercise bikes in a gym and they are really smooth and I can get my hr up no problem and they feel like riding on the road, having that knowledge plus the quick run down time I thought something might be wrong. Looks like I chose the wrong turbo.

Thanks for the advise guys.