Bike Trainer Resistance

Triathlon Forum
1

Just purchased a cycle ops magneto trainer and after two hours of trying to figure it out, i think i figured it out. However when i’m on the trainer it seems like the lowest gear is almost too hard to pedal or like the resistance is too high but there is no way to adjust it. So after thinking that i just suck at biking and that i don’t in fact have bike legs i took my bike outside and tested it and i was able to handle a lot higher gear.

Is this normal for a bike trainer? If not what should i do to fix this problem to make the resistance more realistic

Thanks

2

it’s a trainer; it’s supposed to be adding resistance. there were some threads yesterday (or the day before?) that discussed this at length. Long story short, you can’t really compare road riding to trainer riding. two different animals.

3

I bought my first trainer a couple of months ago and had the same experience. I’m a decent cyclist; I can do a slight uphill into the wind at approx 20mph and hold that for a while. When I first got on the trainer, warmed up for 15-20mins, and started spinning at 30km/h, thinking I should be able to handle that, I almost died after like 10 minutes.

4

Hi,

I have the cycleops mag trainer as well. You have two settings on it (and I appreciated the question cause I was confused too till I called cycleops and had them explain it to me):

  1. Knob on the back side (or cam lever)
  2. resistance knob on side (triangular in shape)

First you only want to tighten the knob on the back side a max of 3 full turns from the point at which it first touches the tire (this is the knob that moves the roller closer to the tire).

The triangular knob on the side is the one that increases/decreases resistance. When this knob/lever is all the way in it’s hardest resistance setting. When it’s pulled all the way out it’s the easiest resistance setting. I have mine set not at the hardest but one away from that.

Then you use your gearing on the bike to adjust the resistance when on the trainer.

Hope this helps, feel free to PM if you have additional questions.

5

As mentioned above, I started a similar thread yesterday. Although good feedback given in mine, this is what I was looking for. Thanks for the input.