Definitely...I always said that the trainer is a harder ride because the roller/flywheel is ACTIVELY resisting you the entire time, whereas on the road, once you've overcome the coefficient of friction (and wind resistance), you can stop pedaling and not almost instantaneously come to a dead stop. There is no such thing as coasting for a bit on a normal trainer to take a short break from pedaling. I added the supplemental flywheel to my Kinetic trainer years ago, makes long steady efforts much more realistic, you can actually take a break or soft pedal for a bit and not loose a whole lot of wheel speed.