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Got a Lifeline TT02 fluid turbo trainer, been fairly happy with it - a bit low resistance perhaps you need to spin at 140 rpm to hit 1500w in 52x11 and the ride is a bit bumpy/vibrating but that could be my rear tire.
Last night did a 1 hour 250W easy ride then some 30s sprint intervalls at the end both high cadence up to 175 rpm and low cadence in a high gear. During the high cadence ones the trainer suddenly went BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and lost all resistance. It would however work again just at lower wattages. Wheel was clamped tight. No liquid leaks spotted.
Did it simply overheat and is this some sort of protection mechanism under too much load, or did I partially break it? Where the heck can I find a decent one? Seems like many magnetic trainers actually offer more resistance (the fluid ones only give 400w resistance at 40 kph and 1400w at 80 kph), electromagnetic being the best.
Easy 250w? Hit 1500w? 175RPM?
Generally I think you are asking too much of a low end fluid trainer like this, especially given it's resistance curve (~400w at 40km/h wheel speed).
In my experience, anything well over 500w, 120rpm or really high output speeds is best saved for outside.
@boombang yes could very well be although reviews are good and it seems fairly sturdy. Perhaps if I do my intervalls at the beginning it won't be a problem.
Think I'll have to go direct, beefy-magnetic or electromagnetic in the future. Kurt Kinetic does however state that their road machine has been tested up to 3000w (at some infernal cadence presumably).
You can't throw down savage intervals on a toy turbo like that.
Need a direct drive basically, which is easier said than done right now in the UK, don't know what stock is like in Germany. Or if you're a gym goer some places have Watt bikes which are good for heavy efforts.
On CRC there are reviews saying it offers very little resistance, same on the TrainerRoad forum - for some (I imagine lower power people) it sounds like it is ok, others appear to give up and return it.
I now have a Tacx Flux 2 and even if I could put out decent power I wouldn't want to on it for worrying about it tipping over. For me trainers are limited as don't move like a bike outdoors, find it horrible.
On CRC there are reviews saying it offers very little resistance
It goes up exponentially with rpms so it's ok if you have enough gearing but def a problem for one by mountain bikes (52x11 66 rpm = 400w and 40 km/h, 138 rpm = 1400W 80 km/h).
To heck with it, ordered a new Tacx boost they claim up to 1050w resistance at 40 kph so should give at least 2100w at 80 kph muhaa (magnetic trainers tend to be linear).
140 rpm to hit 1500w in 52×11
52mph wheel speed?
Yes approx, a higher resistance trainer would be better as you'd reduce wheel speed and could stay in a better gear (straighter chain etc) plus do higher gradient simulated climbs.
The Tacx Boost looks a lot like the old Genius - I had one of these until it totally failed this summer.
What was good is I found I could get it to within 5% from 150-250w against a PowerBox power meter. Get tyre and trainer properly up to temp, from experimentation that took 30 minutes of hard use, then pick a tyre pressure like 100psi and calibrate. Once fully cold I took that as my reference tyre pressure. Unless weather swings hugely I found it stayed accurate if you got the tyre pressure the same and ignored the tensioner
The wheel diameter setting block can break on the road and 26" settings, leaving only the MTB wheel size (think needs min 29 x 2"), the little lugs snap off. A hack if you aren't using the MTB slot is to shim it, a ground down 4mm hex key is what I used on the replacement.
Eventually the metal part of the roller detached from the inner, thankfully within warranty and Garmin/Tacx sent me a Flux 2 instead (which then failed on second use and was replaced again). There is a hack to fix this by drilling and filling the voids with epoxy - hassle though.
I have a powermeter but the breaking bit is worrisome, but hey if they send me a flux 2 when it breaks that's allright!
out of interest - I have a Tacx Flow. I can be relatively comfortable (for not very long) at 400 watts but if I go balls out max is about 550 watts - which may be true but it feels that my power increase is greater than 150 watts. (I'm a big unit - 15 stone ex prop).
Also, if I change to a harder gear, higher perceived effort at lower cadence gives me lower power
feels to me that it goes a bit flaky at higher power levels