The only real difference between the bikes is the wheel size and the tyre. Yet the road bike gave me a good 50 watts more power on the flat.
The road bike didn't give you Watts, more it didn't rob you of them.
Mountain bikes are designed to adsorb a certain amount of energy in order to smooth out the bumps and crashes but they don't care where they actualy adsorb it from.
Big tyres and low pressures = high rolling restistance subject to the surface they are being used on.
I say the latter because the Road Racing fraternity is moving away from super skinny 23mm or smaller tyres to 25mm as they ride over road surface deviations more easily i.e. lower rolling resistance where as thoeretically on a smooth road the skinny higher pressure tyre should be better.
That said based on the UK road surface perhaps we should all be using MTB tyres on the road.
However a turbo is a constant smooth suface, all be it very round so the skiny tyre high pressure is the way to go.
This will also generate a lot of localised heat in the tread because all of that contact is on a very narrow footprint, all be it its generation is reduced due the lower rolling resistance, hence the production by some tyre companies of turbo specific tyres.
I was steadily loosing power in my early Bkool days and I thought I was over training unitl I realised the tread on my tyre was almost totally debonded but sprung back into palce when stopped but while riding the edges where flapping out and causing drag both by acting like an air brake and rubbing on the turbo roller
Bill, are you
