With classes filling up, and the season cranking up, an impressive addition to the studio has been the 400PT bikes in the front of the class. These are a little different as they have an electronic tension mechanism, instead of the knob tension to get resistance. It takes a little instruction to use it effectively so we asked Stefan to break down some basics for everyone.
Here is Stefan's first impressions of the 400PT from his own posts on IrionMan.
Having fun on the Cyclops 400PRO
I was riding the new M2 toy 400PRO in this mornings class at M2 and I thought I
share my thoughts, well knowing that this was the last time I rode the
thing (because you will all jump on it now).
While it appears to be similar to the 300 in physical appearance,
the resistance dial is a mere dummy and you control the wattage using
the little joystick on the right of the Joule head unit that you never
used before. Pressing it down cycles between 'gear', 'target grade' and
'target power', while nudging it up or down moves the set value up or
down (you guessed that). M2's recommended warm-up is on 'gear', where a
higher number indicates an easier gear. I would find a sweet spot and
then go up 2 (easier) for the cadence and down 2 (harder) for the stand.
Moving into the main set of intervals it's pretty simple. Put it to
'target watts' and dial in the watts you estimate you can hold. Note
that the unit will make you overachieve this target by about 10-15 watts
on your average (ie you set it to X watts and you end up averaging
X+15watts). A clever trick is to keep the 'gear' in a high gear so that
when you come off a hard effort you can push down on the toggle switch
and it becomes easy to pedal/rest. This works great, but there is a
slight delay in ramping up and down and it's a bit tricky for very short
intervals (ie 20s). Also the watts you are actually pushing fluctuate
quite a bit (set point X, will make you push X +/- 20 watts), you can
either like this as a rode-like feeling, or hate it. Your choice. I like it.
Overall fun experience, give it a try
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There are currently four 400 Pro's in the studio, so feel free to try them out.
