Not normal. Can you adjust how firmly the roller on the trainer contacts the tire?

The roller should barely be tight enough to where the wheel won't slip, or slip just a tiny bit. Is yours setup like this?

What is a "generic trainer"? Never heard of an unbranded bike trainer.... Never mind just looked on Amazon and there are a TON of them. Have never seen one at an LBS though.

Gold standard for dumb trainers is Kurt Kinetic Road Machine, or CycleOps.

Total guess but an educated one: the < $100 trainers I just saw on Amazon are not built to last. If you trained 2-3 times a week they'd fall apart before spring.

Just on the off chance of a silly thought mistake, you're saying that with the chain on the largest rear cassette cog and the smaller of the two front chain rings, it's really hard to pedal for an expended period of time?

If that's the case something is definitely off.

Hugh

---

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

 I just remembered which trainer it is.

It's https://www.mec.ca/...-Fluid-Ritmo-Trainer

And I don't remember the trainer allowing for any kind of adjustment with the trainer.

Here's a portion of one of the reviews posted from the linked site.

"The big disappointment comes from the lowest level of resistance is far too high. It leaves no easy spinning for warm up / cool down and recovery during intervals even when the bike gearing is set to the lowest ratio."

Sounds a bit like your situation?

Hugh

---

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Absolutely.

I decided to ask here since I couldn't find much information when I searched around the internet.