My wife did a a ramp test and her ftp was something like 58. The power never really changed for her during the ramp. I did a test ride and the power did change for me on a workout. I manually set her ftp to 100 and then I saw real changes on the trainer and she noticed the intensity changing too.
So, is there a bottom that would make te not really change intensity and just be a flat line. I have the feeling that if this is true is somewhere in the 60w range
Different trainers have different wattage floors. I don’t think it’s TR’s fault in terms of controlling things. I might have this wrong, but I think one way to help is to put her bike in the big ring little cog (tallest gear) as that would increase the flywheel speed.
I’m no expert though.
Here’s an article from TR on this issue. Each smart trainer has it’s own wattage floor. My Tacx Neo 2T for instance is 30 watts, others are higher.
That sounds like a textbook wattage floor problem. You’ll need to list the trainer type for more info.
What FTP setting was used for the ramp test? If it was set to a really low wattage to begin with I can’t imagine the 6% ramps would be very noticeable.
At the end of the day I don’t think it’ll matter much as long as she keeps turning the pedals. At 58 watts 120% VO2 work is going to be under a 12 watt bump. Not a huge difference by any means.
I wish I could get my wife on a bike. It’s too hard to go for a jog together with a little one in tow.
Hopefully this doesn’t offend anyone, I’m genuinely curious, but is an FTP below 70W or so realistic for an adult? If I figure a small adult at 40kg and 2 W/kg, it would still be 80W. Maybe I’m answering my own question there, since at 1.5 W/kg it would be 60W…
What trainer is it?
Wattage floor usually is the lowest resistance a trainer can deliver. When the power target rises above the wattage floor, the trainer should work like normal.
It could be that the trainer was not being controlled by the TR app. I’ve had this in the past where the TR app was connected to my trainer (Elite Direto), but it was not controlling power - and I could only get the power higher by pedaling faster (and only up to about 100W at over 100 rpm).
The solution at the time was to shut down the app, power-cycle the trainer (power off, then back on) and start over. Might make sense to give this approach a go, and see if the problem repeats.
Also, for lower power riders, choose an easy gear - little ring, higher up the cassette. This lowers the wattage floor.
And this
Thanks all!
She has a elite tuo.
Right now she is on the small front, middle on the back. I will probably change it to big front and keep the middle on the back. That seems more realistic anyway .
My wife had issues with the wattage floor on my Hammer doing her first ramp test. Unfortunately she isn’t patient enough to try another workout on the lowest gearing to see if we can overcome that lol I believe she came away with an FTP of 99w but I think the power/resistance only started getting steady around 70-75w.
I’ve had my 9y/o on zwift with the hammer and his power drops out a lot too, I presume due to a wattage floor, although is that a thing in sim mode? Sorry for the aside, doesn’t seem smart trainers are ever geared toward noobs with lower power, I wonder how much frustration/quitting happens because of that sort of thing?
Our gym has Stages stationary bikes and a few of the smaller woman that I know tested in 80-110W range. My sister has a Hanmer and started TR a year ago in the low 90s. So 70 seems on the low end.
That’s a great example @ellotheth. I saw similar results when setting up my neighbor earlier this year.
36 minutes is one hell of a long ramp test. Did the resulting FTP work out after that?
If I use someone like my mother as an example, >70 FTP as a ramp test result would easily be in the realms of possibility. She’s not overly weak or unfit. It’s just not something she’s used to doing and the act of spinning the pedals is more than enough to get her HR up.
Is her FTP actually >70 if she tested that low? I’d hazard a guess that the testing protocol becomes pretty useless at the edges of the typical power range.
DCRainmaker has a review of the Elite Toaster Trainer. There’s mention of low power accuracy in there.
The FTP result from that test was 95, and I did all of SSBLVI at that FTP. It felt like hard work and my next assessment was higher, so it was close enough get those 
adaptations at least – despite being so clueless that I didn’t even realize the yellow line was supposed to match the blue edge. I was on an Elite Qubo (wheel-on smart trainer) at the time.
Great achievement and thanks for sharing your experience and result. Much more relatable and motivating to me than the 5W/kg posts ;).
Ha most welcome! I feel that, these people who start where I arrived after a year and a half are just in a different league 
