Fluid Turbo Trainers

Hurricane151

Has any experienced inconsistent resistence from the Elite Crono Fluid Turbo trainers.

I store mine in the garage and used it for the first time in a while yesterday and during the first 10mins or so the resitence seemed to fluctuate massively no matter what setting i had it on. It did appear to settle down after a about 15mins but i just woindered if this is normal for this type of trainer. will the temp make a difference? is there anything that can be done to avoid it?

cheers

phil s

Yes, I had this problem so I returned the trainer and got a Kurt.

amaferanga

All fluid turbo trainers take several minutes to stabilise. However, some are better than others. I used to have an Elite Supercrono turbo, but now I have a Cycleops Fluid 2. Have a look below. The first screenshot shows a roughly constant power 2x20 session (power from a PowerTap) on the Elite turbo. Note how the top graph shows constantly increasing speed throughout both 20min intervals - in other words the resistance never really stabilises, though it is a little better in the second 20min interval (ignore the peak at the end as I tend to ramp up the power for the last minute or two).

Contrast that to the speed for the Fluid 2 in the bottom screenshot. Constant power and constant speed as you'd hope you'd get. I also find it much easier to hold a fairly constant power with the Fluid 2, as you might have noticed from how smooth the power curve is for the Fluid 2 compared to the Elite (middle graph in each screenshot).

With the Fluid 2 I find there's almost no resistance for 2 or 3 mins then I can feel it change and after as little as 5mins the resistance is pretty much constant.

Buckled_Rims

I have an Elite Crono as well. I read somewhere at the time of buying, it takes 10 minutes for the fluid to heat up and provide consistent resistance. Mines in the kitchen so never gets cold like if it was kept in a garage, so I have no problems.

amaferanga

Buckled_Rims wrote:

I have an Elite Crono as well. I read somewhere at the time of buying, it takes 10 minutes for the fluid to heat up and provide consistent resistance. Mines in the kitchen so never gets cold like if it was kept in a garage, so I have no problems.

Look at the graphs above - mine isn't providing stable resistance after an hour. Useless really.