Hi everyone,
yesterday i did a workout that was supposed to be at 40 rpm in zone 3 wattage.
I used Erg mode but it seemeed too hard when lowering my cadence.
at one point i went too low with cadence, about 25, and the resistance went so hard that i had to shift to “resistance mode”.
Also, using resistance mode with same cadence and more wattage seemed easier than erg.
I’m using an Elite suito as trainer, is there something i’m missing?
That’s called ERG spiral of death or lockdown. As you lower your cadence, the trainer continually adds resistance, until the force becomes so large that you cannot overcome it. 40 rpm is very low for ERG and as you say it’s easy to go too low and get locked out. It’s expected behaviour. If you want to do that kind of training, resistance mode is your friend indeed.
Some trainers work better with low RPM than others, you also can try shifting to an easier gear to see if it helps a bit but if it is too easy then you wont be able hit the target watts. You just need to be very steady at these low RPMs to make sure it does not go too low as you pointed out it can become impossibly high resistance.