Just joined TR as it had been on my to-do list for some time.
To the point, started the Sweet Spot high volume plan yesterday with the ramp test being the first workout. I went into it with a reasonable amount of enthusiasm and optimism with hopes of getting a fairly accurate measure of my current FTP. I’d had a lactate profile test performed at a local university sports science lab not too long ago; not to go into the numbers too much, the final value of this particular test was lower than what I was expecting and yeah, I know, it’s what they all say, ‘It must be wrong!’" 
Anyway, notwithstanding the lower than expected result, what I did encounter was that after the first step or so of the ramp test, I noticed that my trainer, an Elite Direto direct drive unit, was anything but constant or consistent in terms of resistance during any given step. My trainer would fluctuate between very low resistance, <150 watts to greater than 400 or more in less than a couple seconds. It would continue to do this every 10 seconds or so. It would create a low resistance and then suddenly jump to a much higher resistance. It kept doing this throughout the entire ramp test which needless to say, affected my ability to ‘hang in there’ as long as I would have predicted otherwise. Not allowing for a reasonable warm up to due to the almost immediate resistance fluctuations combined with an equally sporadic cool down created a less than positive experience overall. That said however, after the test, I immediately got set up for an outdoor ride, went out and got a bit of good cycling time in. All was/is good.
FWIW, I’m using PowerTap P1 pedals. My head unit’s a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt, the latter of which might have played a part in the fluctuating resistance as it was powered on during the test. It was set to ‘Indoor’ in its settings and after the fact, I did notice that the resistance level page displayed a value of “1”; whether or not that may have conflicted with TR or otherwise affected the test, I don’t know…
Regardless, I’m glad I (finally) joined TR. Up until now, I’d been watching and learning from TR YouTube video podcasts (thanks to Nate, Jon, Chad and others). The major factors that were holding me back was that I’m so used to and enjoy training outdoors here in northern California (like duh, right?) and up until now have been totally NOT enthusiastic about training indoors at all. Also, I’d purchased my Elite Direto more than a year ago and had used it less than 1 hour in total; it had become a $900 paper weight. In part, that had to do with the thoroughly miserable trainer software that came with the unit (shame on you, Elite). With that said however, I did find the very structured and controlled training that’s specific to indoor cycling through TR to be appealing and have little doubt that it will be a net positive in the end not only in terms of allowing for me to make use of the trainer but in making me a better cyclist as well.
-Glad to be here, finally.
