On one of my first outdoor rides when I started biking in 2010 a truck "breezed" by me and my training partner on a county road at 70MPH causing us to collide and me breaking my collarbone. Since then, I've done a good portion of my biking on the trainer. But, when I do go outside, it's usually on my area's well known bike routes. I'd rather do multiple 17 mile loops than venture into unknown roads.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

Perhaps you missed my point. After all, I did preface that argument by acknowledging it may seem pedantic. Cycling deaths on the road do happen but they are not a high risk by most measures. Very few people (relatively speaking) use trainers. I expect risk of trainer death is very low. But if it happened it's unlikely you'd hear about it. If a guy dies in unexciting accident exercising at home - it's not a big news story. I'm sure the risk is low, but it's not zero. Just as cycling on roads is low risk but still a risk.
Moving indoors may reduce the risk, but if the argument is that risk itself is not acceptable then why accept the risk of using a trainer. It's all relative. Bike riding is on a par with a multitude of other risks in our daily lives. It seems absurd to me to cherry pick the ones to eliminate. If one is disproportionately high risk (e.g. base jumping) then there's a strong argument for eliminating it.

Not many texting teenagers have crashed into people riding on trainers in their garages.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

I fail to see your point. Who said they had?

I should preface this by apologizing, I really hate it when two people get in a back-and-forth that derails the thread. Again, this is you and I viewing things through our different filters. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I think your argument is silly.

The reason I view the death-by-trainer argument as silly because I would presume that if someone is going to have a medical episode while exercising, it's a coin-flip whether they're outside or in doors. I can't speak for others, but when I ride my trainer, I'm indoors, at a fixed address that an ambulance would have an easy time finding. I'm usually not alone, and there is a phone within arms reach of my bike. The only way I can make your safer-having-a-medical-episode-outdoors argument hold water would be if I were riding my trainer alone in a house at the end of a dead-end road deep in amish country. Then sure, trainer would be a worse place to be. Otherwise, the trainer doesn't introduce new risk.

I agree that riding a trainer is not risk free, but it's certainly lower risk than riding out doors. And while I use mine to reduce my exposure to the risks of riding in traffic, I still ride outdoors.

We all cherry pick the risks we choose to eliminate or reduce. There is weighing of perceived risk against perceived benefit.

You have made some silly leaps and posted a whole bunch of totally irrelevant stuff.

Parents being able to communicate with their children goes beyond firearms in schools. Knowledge of safety is a massive component that you seem to be ignoring, and there are all sorts of scenarios ranging from weather issues to bus and bus stop issues to even being back home that may warrant that ability to communicate. Not to mention the ability to record should a situation present itself in which no immediate communication would help.

Yes, 100% things are more dangerous and that danger takes on a myriad of new and unprecedented forms which are left to the parent to ascertain and evaluate for potential impact.

I'm a teacher. Phones stay in backpacks in lockers. If a child had one at their desk, it's taken away. Pretty clear expectations for having phones. If a teacher just lets them play with it in class, then I'd agree that the teacher is at fault in that regard.

I have a daughter who is a freshman in college, and another daughter who is in 8th grade. I have never, ever, needed to call either of them during school (for most of those years, they didn't have a cell phone).

There has never, ever, been a safety-related reason for them to call me. The only reason I've ever been called by them during school was when they forgot to bring something in. If they aren't feeling well, they go to the nurse. There's *nothing* I can do that the school can't do better, and faster.

Amazingly, schools have set up mechanisms for communicating with parents: the Main Office. Whenever there is a situation like a lockdown, they communicate with parents in multiple ways. As far as "left to the parent": despite being told to stay away during one such occurrence, parents showed up in droves.

Stop living in fear. School is about the safest place for kids to be.

(edit: my wife is a teacher)

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"Go yell at an M&M"

There's alway an argument for not needing something, until that one time you do.

It's up to each person to determine if and how they want to prepare for that possibility. Decrying that is pure ego and delusion. Your experiences or lack thereof are not everyone else's. Something to remember.

Why do you believe that things have become more dangerous? Worldwide this is the most peaceful, equal, healthy and well fed that humanity has been in recorded history. I'd have to try and find figures for your part of the world but most countries follow this trend.
Perception in the westen world however does not match this. Distorted media has fostered excessive anxiety and fear and a sense that the world is going to hell.
The most dangerous thing out there is that distortion.

Great. Give me a scenario or three in which I need to directly communicate with my child in school, and that need is not better served by communicating through the school. How often does one of your students get a call in class and need to rush out? I'm guessing "never"; I'll ask my wife about that.

Again: left up to "each person" led to bunches of parents clogging up the area around one of our schools during an "active shooter" situation (there was no actual shooter, but someone in the area).

As many have already pointed out, humans are terrible at ascertaining risk these days.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

different for different districts, both my brothers are teachers, and they get the whiny parents complaining if they take the phones and they cant do a voluntary put your phone in a basket for extra credit due to the risk of someone grabbing someone elses $700 phone

Wise move, I've been taking the indoor approach for years.

I can appreciate the OP's and others thoughts on this. I've had quite a few close calls over the past years that I know about and perhaps more could have happened behind me that I don't know about. Some have been intentional as I have had a handful over the years point their car at me coming from the other direction as if to intimidate and then yell at me. Not quite sure why other than some are potentially just generally bitter people. And some have greater things to think about while driving than paying attention. If they don't care about risk to themselves for hitting another car head on than they surely could careless about risk to anyone else or so it seems.

I do all my weekday training inside year round because of the schedule and where I live. On the weekend I travel north of Atlanta to some rural roads where I may have 10 cars pass me in a 100 mile route. Even then have been some of those close calls.

That being said I am so looking forward to getting out for a longish ride this weekend. The weather is supposed to be decent and I am tired of being on that trainer constantly. The other thing is that being 53 I am going to more funerals these days and going to visit a friend in hospice today that has an aggressive cancer. He seemed healthy just a few months ago and now he is in his last hours. This kind of changes my view how we can try to live in a bubble and still something else comes along just as unexpectedly and as deadly as a distracted driver. Just with what is going on and losing a friend and having lost some other friends in the past couple years from cancer and other aggressive illnesses I am less concerned and at this point just want to enjoy spinning some miles out on some back road. Perhaps the next bad experience on the road may change my perspective once again.

I can't say whether or not it's a strictly American phenomenon, but many American cities have a very limited number of bikes on the road, including mine. In these areas, drivers simply don't know how to react to cyclists

I come from skateboarding, surfing and bmx so I am used that there are risks involved in my sports. The difference is that risks can usually be minimized when you increase your skills or are carefull. With road biking the risks are other people, who are careless. So an almost uncontrollable or minimizable risk. The only thing you can do is increase your crazy driver avoiding skills. Stay safe but dont stay inside. The thing is called a road bike. #mytwocents

Having said that, I've seen those video game roller things on movable platforms with built in fans that look pretty sweet. I'd ride that inside though.

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Swim with swimmers, bike with cyclists, run with runners. Train with those who are hard to keep up with. Soon you will be hard to keep up with.