Hill climbing calibration

[HHRoadtrip]

I'm looking for comments about whether my recent experience makes any sense to anyone. On two consecutive rides on the 7%-10% section of Ventoux 1, I found myself pushing a much higher gear than I could ever do in reality. I had grade reduction modest (7% to 20% real became 7% to 15%), I maintained my usual 85 cadence and 150 watts, noted credible speed of about 4 mph- but was pushing gears of 50 (front)/18 (rear) or so. There is no way that I could really do that, and even in VeloReality, I am usually in 34/24 or so on similar inclines. Only after the second ride, I noted that the rear brake caliper was askew, and the brake was dragging slightly on one side of the rim. Subsequent rides have not shown any peculiarities in gearing/incline relationships.

Is it plausible that the increased resistance from the dragging brake could cause such an aberration? How? I'm curious about this, but before trying to reproduce the dragging brake condition, on the same segment of Ventoux 1, any comments (other than " Are you completely daft?") would be welcome. Thanks.

[admin]

Not sure what trainer are you using but let's assume that it is one of those that requires spin-down test. This kind of test measures time that takes for wheel to decelerate from one set speed to another and that is enough to determine CRR of your system. Subsequent calculation will compensate for this CRR. In case of dragging brake calculated CRR would be much higher so is the compensation. This combo in combination with imperfect math model, full moon, Russian hacking and global warming may cause all kinds of funny stuff to happen

[HHRoadtrip]

Aha! The TACX Smart Vortex does indeed use spin-down calibration. Your anaysis makes great sense- except maybe the global warming thing- I read on the World Wide Web that it may not even exist.
With all the variables, I don't think I will try to replicate the experiment- I'll just ride with the brake off. Thanks.