@svens I… had never thought of using the brakes for that. 
If you’re in Erg mode - which is what people are discussing in the thread and seems to be implied by the thread title - the flywheel is going the same speed during your work interval as it is during your rest period, assuming a constant cadence.
So what is it you’re asking for?
Is what you’re really asking for actually a “ramp” period, spread over a number of seconds, to smoothly transition the Erg power / resistance downwards from the work interval target to the recovery target?
That’s the only way I can make sense of this request.
Personally, I simply unload my legs at the end of each work interval, per @Crownan, which is the exact opposite of what I do at the start of each work interval. 
Baffled!
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It’s also dependent on the gear you are running. I barely notice in the small chainring, but if I was in the big ring and had the flywheel going, it becomes noticeable.
I have never had a problem with how the H3 handles intervals down to 30-20s. There will be one rest interval a month where somewhere between TR, my phone, and the H3 something decides I can skip it and just keep working.
I haven’t tried the Play controllers yet but they sound interesting.
If brakes do ever become standard on trainers it will be because of Zwift. For every 1 person who would like to slow the fly wheel down after an interval, there are hundreds of people on Zwift who might like to be able to slow their virtual bike down.
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Key above (though not directly stated) is the general practice of hitting these intervals at high cadence (say 100-120rpm range), and then doing recovery intervals at a more ‘normal’ cadence (say 85-95rpm).
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When doing this cadence drop while in ERG, that high spin interval & flywheel speed getting dumped to recovery resistance and the flywheel just runs away. The drop in resistance is usually large than the associated cadence drop and is what gives the “coasting” aspect that is the focus of this topic.
- That could be a possible solution, but I suspect that would need to be a user selectable option since not everyone would want it. The idea of a ‘brake’ is a bit different since it could be applied (or not) directly by the user if and only when they choose vs being subject to the trainer or app programming directly.
I always just shift a few times into a harder gear so I have something to pedal against. Then when the trainer catches back up go back to my original gear.
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Rig a saw stop brake onto the flywheel and keep a hot dog in your handle bars?
I’ve just sort of learned to use that time as a stand up for a second, stretch out period. Wish it wasn’t necessarily forced by having the flywheel catch up sooner but at least there are things we can do to make use of that time.
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- I can only hope that this function would also be accompanied by virtual shifting
Ever seen one of those demonstrated live? Coolest damn thing ever…the guy even once did it on his own finger and only received a small nick.
Amazing technology…
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That’s bike riding though, that’s racing…you should get better at that if it’s a weakness. There’s constant situations where you go from 500+ watts to coasting and don’t have the luxury of gradually pedaling down to 200 watts while keeping your legs spinning.
This occurs in mtn biking, crits, cx, road racing…everything.
Even doing vo2 max intervals outside I end up turning around and coasting down because the hills too steep to pedal at some perfect cadence/power output.
We aren’t talking about “riding” or “racing” in this context…not everything in training needs to simulate the “real world” and it is arguably better from a training perspective if it doesn’t.
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If this is what is holding your training back, then your name is Jonas and you’ve already maximized everything else in cycling…or you’re missing the forest for the trees and focusing on the wrong things.
- Again, no one here is making that claim. This falls into the “nice to have, but certainly not necessary” bucket… just like dozens of other similar requests all around the forum.
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I’m not quite sure by what you mean by the flywheel running away.
Anyway, I suspect the underlying issue is that an Erg interval target transitioning from eg. 300w to 120w in a fraction of a second is just not something that happens when climbing real hills on a bike, which is perhaps what people are subliminally comparing the expected feel of this type of workout to: a road cannot immediately go from eg. 10% uphill gradient to flat/downhill in essentially zero distance & zero time - there’s always a transition of some sort, of distance and thus time, over which the gradient declines, and that a rider can pedal against and modulate their own pedalling effort downwards over if they choose to (vs, instantaneous unloading of effort).
The way you’d simulate that in Erg mode would be as I suggested - ramp the Erg target power downwards over a (user-defined 
) number of seconds, to better mimic transitioning from “climbing a hill” sensations to “cresting a hill/ slightly downhill” sensations.
I think that would be a useful feature - it doesn’t bother me doing an instantaneous “un loading” of effort at the end of a hard work interval, but I can now see why some people would like it to behave a bit differently. Easy, user-configurable(!), feature addition for TR IMO.
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Yup, that runaway is essentially just what you mention. High load (and cadence) dropping very quickly to low load (that becomes effectively zero once we add in the common drop in cadence that also happens upon interval completion) to have a rather odd and unrealistic drop in pedal “pushback” force
It’s not really like anything in real life (apparently a key sticking point for some here) other than the rare instance someone is doing something like hill efforts where the pitch transitions super quick between the up/down transition. Maybe some people have access to places where that can happen, but I’d guess it’s more rare than common.
As @Power13 correctly mentions, training can and should differ from outside in some ways to our benefit. It’s all part of having a range of tools and making the most of them.
I wonder, are the “just like outside or don’t bother” people are riding on motion rollers with massive flywheels and a progressive resistance unit to perfectly mimic their outside riding? Because using a smart trainer (especially one that is rigid and lacking precise lean & steering) would be a clear shortcoming and cause problems when they head outside
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Never seen a live demo and hadn’t seen that video, omg nope nope nope. Wish I had the funds for a saw stop at the time I was buying my table saw.
Now that it has come up I’m more into an ERG brake for safety than for the helping at the start of rest periods. Having recently gone to a wheel off some of that anxiety is gone, but man when I was wheel on and a dog would sneak in the room, instant panic. At least the tot was always in moms arms when they came in.
Wonder if there would be a way to use the erg brake to preload for the higher intervals too. On my wheel on with ERG it actually seemed to get up to target power faster but then would overshoot. With my wheel off now the overshoot isn’t has bad but the ramp up seems longer.
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I have never said anything like this and I’m not certain why you felt the need to respond in this tone, so… 
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Everyone – please remember:
There are just a few rules.
- Be excellent to each other
- Challenge the idea, don’t attack the person
- Contribute Constructively
- Don’t break the law
- Keep it tidy
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You said it’s impacting your training and recovery and I disagree with the premise that a few seconds of softer pedaling after an interval would make any tangible differences on your training or recovery…and if anything it may benefit you since it replicates actual cycling instead of just being good at trainer intervals.
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Replying to myself innit…
Thinking about this a bit more: what may also be contributing to the sensations people are describing here are the less than ideal Erg control algos within most trainers (all trainers bar Neo 3?), causing power target initial overshoots as they “hunt” for and oscillate about the target level…
For a 300w to 120w transition, this effect may result in nearly all resistance being initially instantaneously dropped in an attempt to get to the 120w target ASAP, followed then by some retightening of resistance…
I bet that if TR was “driving” a Neo 3, and did, say, a 3 second transition ramp downwards from eg. a 300w target to a 120w target - ie. combine the best-in-class Erg-mode control algo (Neo 3) with a new TR option to ramp interval transitions downwards over a number of seconds (vs instantaneously, as at present) - it would be perceived as feeling pretty good by many, esp. those who’d prefer this type of interval transition to feel more “natural” and akin to outdoor riding. Plus no need for new Erg users to become accustomed to handling transitions like these.
For me, the status quo is fine, and I’m well used to it. Trainer interval workouts are “gym sessions”, with no expectation by me of simulating outdoor rides. Same as a weights session doesn’t need to feel like “yardwork” or other IRL activities in order to be useful.
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