Cadence higher on Turbo

doyler78

Back on the turbo the last couple of weeks so that over Christmas I'd be used to so hoping I don't go "ughh I'll not bother"

Anyway I've noticed that my cadence is higher on the turbo is about 9-11 rpm higher than on a normal 2x20 outdoors. Typically my cadence outdoors on a 2x20 (on the work part) is around 86rpm (on a non interval ride it would be around 88-90rpm). On the turbo I've noticed it's more typically around 95-97rpm. On the gym bike the difference is even greater and that's around 105-110rpm.

If I try to ride at my typical cadence and do the watts that I had planned I give up after a few minutes whereas with the higher cadence I can complete the intervals. Any idea why this would be or anybody else see this?

kettrinboy

Ive found the opposite , outdoors i ave around 88-90 rpm for intervals and most rides actually, but on the turbo doing 2x20 min intervals at circa 230W i was getting fatigued at 90 rpm it just felt too fast to complete the interval so i settled back to ~78 rpm and still found them hard but doable so i stick to about that cadence for turbo intervals now, on the turbo i now only do 90+ rpm on the easy spinning steps of a session.

rob13

Perhaps your flyweight for a given gear is lighter than the resistance on the road? For me, the flywheel is much heavier than the road, so i'm definitely a couple of gears lower on the trainer.

doyler78

Oh that's interesting. Looks like I'm the opposite way round to the way others experience it. Nothing really new in that though

I doubt it is the flywheel being too light as I'm using a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine Pro so that's the one with the even bigger fly wheel attached.

amaferanga

I think it does depend on the turbo. On my previous turbo I would always end up doing 2x20's at around 75-80rpm, where as on my current turbo I usually do them at 90-95rpm, which is much closer to what I'd do on the road.

doyler78

amaferanga wrote:

I think it does depend on the turbo. On my previous turbo I would always end up doing 2x20's at around 75-80rpm, where as on my current turbo I usually do them at 90-95rpm, which is much closer to what I'd do on the road.

I don't doubt that the turbo trainer resistance makes a huge difference however what I was commmenting on was a bigger flywheel resulting in lower cadences as the Kurt Kinetic Pro has one of the larger flywheels out there so if that explanation in itself was right then I would be expecting to see lower cadences than normal not higher as I am seeing.