Trainer Difficulty setttings

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Crook Town AFC

Dave Wade on BRVR
Hi Folks,

Searched under "Trainer Difficulty" to find an answer to my question but couldn't find what I was after, hence the new thread.
On my DiretoXR I have a 10 speed 11-28 cassette and an 11-32 on my road bike. I'm now beginning to struggle on the steeper climbs, especially the BRVR ones, but don't want to keep swapping out the cassettes. The easiest solution is to dial the trainer difficulty down from 100% to make the 28t gear simulate a 32, is it simply a case of multiplying by the ratio of 28/32 and setting the difficulty to 87.5% (88% on the app) or is there more to it than that?

Regards

Dave
 

BurningLegs

Veteran
I'd say not to worry too much about replicating gear ratios on the turbo and just set the difficulty at whatever percentage gives you the ability to use all your gears the way you want/need to.

We are only familiar with the ratios you've mentioned i.e 11-28 and 11-32 because that's what we have available on the road. On the turbo we have many more ratios available and can be much more granular with it, so I wouldn't suggest trying to replicate another road ratio - just go with a difficulty setting that works :smile:

I personally don't agree with that term "difficulty setting" because watts are watts, right? I'd say you could look at it as a tuning setting for your cassette rather than a difficulty setting for your ride. It doesn't matter what cassette you've got on or the difficulty setting of your trainer, you need the same watts to climb any given hill regardless 🤷‍♂️
 
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Crook Town AFC

Dave Wade on BRVR
Cheers, appreciate the reply. I agree, watts are watts and as I spend most of my time on the trainer doing Erg mode workouts, trainer difficulty is fairly meaningless anyway. There are times though when I want to have a go at being as realistic as trainers can get so I like to grind the gears now and then. Playing with the difficulty settings allows an almost infinite spread of gears, it's just a shame we can't have that in the real world.

Regards,

Dave
 
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Crook Town AFC

Dave Wade on BRVR
Hi folks,

Thanks for all the replies so far, greatly appreciated. I can agree about there being too many variables, road surface, tyre pressure, wind direction etc., the question was more of an academic nature than anything else. As I stated a bit earlier up thread most of my indoor riding is in Erg mode so I keep a constant cadence and alter the desired power on what feels comfortable at the time. As methods of torture goes I reckon even the Spanish Inquisition would be pressed to better it.

Regards,

Dave
 
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