Well today I jumped on the turbo for an interval session.....and noticed that the turbo didnt quite feel right resistance wise.... I have a Tacx Flow... I turned the adjuster on the flywheel and jumped on again... I then had a thought.....
Knowing that the flow has issues with accuracy in its power readings and knowing exactly what power I should be putting out at what HR whilst on the road, this question popped into my head:
What would happen if I adjusted the resistance on the turbo so that the 'feel' of the output was similar to what it feels like on the road, and took note of power/speed/HR and compared between road and previous turbo sessions?
Well after a little tweaking with the resistance I hit the nail on the head with power output against HR, so at my L3/L4 threshold (Long Distance Pace on the bike) I should be at 270W at HR 159, both of these were spot on.
Then uncovering the 'feel' aspect of it, it actually felt right too....
Then a max productive power test, this cam out within 10W of my known Max output....
Therefore On first impressions I seem to have iradicated the power errors of the tacx flow turbo trainer???
My session was certainly harder than it usually is.... I usually can put of a power output of nearly 350W on the flow for this particular interval session, but today I struggled to hold 270W and keep the HR within limits... and best of all I was only half way down the cassette on the bike....where Im normally in the 11 tooth .....this surely can onlybe a good thing come the race season, this should hopefully give me some more power for the open road as training on the turbo really does help with pure brute cycling power needed for my way of smashing the bike leg of a tri or duathlon:)
Ill keep an eye on other sessions over the next few weeks and see what happens with them.