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'Pain Cave' Makeover
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So, now that Zwift is firmly embedded into the mainstream, how has it affected the look of your 'Pain Cave'? Are the days of spinning in the garage/cellar long gone now with the need to be connected to a screen?

Or am I the only one with the trainer now set up in my office at home, next to my second monitor...and fan...
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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All in on the concept. So much so that we're building a new house with a 'third garage'. Even the contractor is referring to it as the 'pain cave', now.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not a fan, but my wife is hooked. My daughter finally move out so her room was converted and the family room was put back in order.

We emptied the bedroom and pulled up the carpet. Put down a floating fake hardwood floor, filled in all the holes in the walls, and repainted in gaudy bright colors. I shut off the heat to the room and with the door shut and the window open I can get the room down to about 65 degrees during training.

The bike is now in the middle of the room facing an empty wall. On the wall are two 30" TV's. Above them is an Alienware Alpha I7-6800 running 16 GB of ram. Hard Drive is a 256mb SSD for boot hooked to a 1tb drive for data. Machine is running windows 10 home. It has two GT1070 graphics cards with 6 GB of memory each. The system is connected by HDMI and has BTLE built in natively.

The bikes hang on the wall, as do posters from races, shadow boxes, and lots of hooks and shelves for shoes and clothes. We have a cheap Home Depot fan.

The internet is wired to that machine and the Manus trainer, heart rate monitors, and power meter all connect thought BTLE.

When training the bottom monitor is displaying the Zwift output. The top monitor is showing Netflix for my wife and XM radio for me. It would be nice if I could figure out how to split screen Zwift to show the virtual world on the bottom screen and the performance data on the top monitor. Probably a way to do it, I just haven't had time to play with it yet.

If you are wondering about the computer, it was spec'd by my son-in-law who is a big gamer. It breaks his heart to know that it isn't being used for gaming, but when Zwift (or the next big thing) go VR I want to have a system that supports it.

"...the street finds its own uses for things"
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [AutomaticJack] [ In reply to ]
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TWO x 1070GB graphics cards and NOT being used for gaming?!?!?

That's like nearly $1500 alone just for graphics cards - truly a waste if not being actively used for gaming!
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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I thought I remember seeing a while back a system of ceiling mounted fans someone had that could rotate and articulate to point at various areas of a room, mounted on something like rails that also let them move back and forth along them, anyone remember a pic or link to something like that? Would be handy to keep the floor clear and be able to adjust to point at the treadmill, bike, rower, more than one machine if one more than one person working out, etc. Gigantic ceiling fans or fans that just sit in the corner are not ideal.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [thndrmatt] [ In reply to ]
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this thread is worthless without pics!
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [AutomaticJack] [ In reply to ]
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The bike is now in the middle of the room facing an empty wall. On the wall are two 30" TV's.

These two things don't go together.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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dtoce wrote:
So, now that Zwift is firmly embedded into the mainstream, how has it affected the look of your 'Pain Cave'? Are the days of spinning in the garage/cellar long gone now with the need to be connected to a screen?

Or am I the only one with the trainer now set up in my office at home, next to my second monitor...and fan...

Recently got our detached garage fixed up and saw it as an opportunity to move the trainer/TV/fan setup (and rower, and a bunch of other stuff) out of the basement and set up a pretty much dedicated space for it out there. We were having new electric service run from the house to the garage anyway, so I had the contractor run some direct-burial Cat6 in the same trench so I wouldn't have to rely on spotty WiFi due to distance from the house.

Still riding in the basement for now though - still need to finish painting the garage walls and patching/painting the floor once the temps improve.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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Well last winter I finished my basement and built a dedicated pain cave. Set up a wall mounted TV two bikes and a treadmill.

In the spring I sold my tri-bike bike and bought myself with an entry level fat bike. I'm hooked on fat biking and snowshoe running in the winter, I maybe workout inside 20% of the time.

Ditch the pain cave and get outside.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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I read something recently that high end video cards are getting hard to find because folks are snapping them up to build computers to mine Bitcoin. Not sure how that works but it sounds like it might be a nice little bike fund sideline for a Zwift machine loaded with graphics power ;-)
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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Recently built a 12x16 shed for the trainer/treadmill/rower/etc... In addition to the 30amp power for heat and air I ran 2 cat6 lines, they are for the computer to run training programs and stream videos it also runs my BlueIris security camera software. The 2nd one is for a security camera covering the and door and window.

The 50" TV is mounted to a heavy duty closet door track so it can be moved directly in front of the bike, treadmill, or rower. All in on the TV mount is about $60 for the track and heavy duty shelf brackets, used some scrap angle from the vesa mount to the track rollers.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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With an empty nest, we recently fled Boulder CO and moved to San Diego, and the loss of a basement. With year round good weather I didn't expect to even use a trainer, but it turns watching a sunset in my backyard is more enjoyable than an afternoon ride in rush hour traffic and for set workouts, etc... turns out I kind of like it.

I cobbled together an iPad stand with some cement in a bucket and galvanized pipe with an iPad holder rigged up to it so it is portable. I had already hung an outdoor AP outside, because conference calls by the pool are better than inside. This gives me a very portable station where I just set up the stand and trainer in a salutary spot depending on sun or shade, connect all the gizmos to the iPad and suffer away on The Sufferfest.

I'm very happy with the flexibility of it all. If I had it to over again ( and I may) I would use a larger 5 gallon bucket and get one of those canvas pouch units that provide a bunch of pockets. That would make it easy to bring shoes, bottles, nutrition and miscellany in one contained unit.... A Pain Picnic!





" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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Our son moved out of his 800sf basement suite a few years ago. The downstairs family room is a walkout with windows and big french door leading to the lawn which leads to the lake. Concrete floors. Cool in the summer and as warm as I want it in the winter (hydronic heat in the floor). I have my spin bike and my wife's recumbent exercise bike in there. Just fired up the Precor treadmill I bought off of craigslist in not working condition for $250. Bad power supply / lower board, which I had repaired for $250. So for $500 I have a 956i treadmill that goes for $7K new. Upgraded our flat screen TV upstairs, so I have the old 50" HDTV that I am mounting on the wall today. Will selectively decorate the walls with triathlon stuff.

The downstairs area also housed an office and a separate bedroom my son slept in. These are now both guest bedrooms. The downstairs suite / pain cave has a full bath and a small kitchen area. I'll be putting in a mini fridge.

Round trip travel to work out in town is an hour. It will be nice to have this set-up right in the basement for training. Outside doesn't work this time of year. It's 5 degrees F outside right now, on it's way up to a scorching 20 degree high today.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [WelshinPhilly] [ In reply to ]
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Painting my garage floor was a huge upgrade. No more of that concrete dust!

It just feels much nicer now too
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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Not the poshest around, but in terms of the journey I have come quite a long way from staring at a gas meter in the filthy wet basement of my old house. Now I'm in a dedicated training room where I keep a lot of my SBR gear, Elite Direto, gaming PC for Zwift and TR, and a big telly on the wall with Netflix if I want it. And before anybody says anything about it, the elliptical is for the missus... this was a necessary evil to avoid this amazing man-space becoming the spare bedroom. And she never uses the thing.

Before and After.


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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [dtoce] [ In reply to ]
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Drive Medical Non Tilt Top Overbed Table, Silver Vein https://www.amazon.com/...8S?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

I just replaced a stack of boxes for a laptop stand with this instead, for about $40 shipped prime. It’s very easy to use, cheap, sturdy, on casters to move between apparatus, and plenty tall. Beats the $200+ ones the trainer guys are trying to sell... Room for my laptop mouse remote extra bottles you name it.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [thndrmatt] [ In reply to ]
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thndrmatt wrote:
Drive Medical Non Tilt Top Overbed Table, Silver Vein https://www.amazon.com/...8S?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

I just replaced a stack of boxes for a laptop stand with this instead, for about $40 shipped prime. It’s very easy to use, cheap, sturdy, on casters to move between apparatus, and plenty tall. Beats the $200+ ones the trainer guys are trying to sell... Room for my laptop mouse remote extra bottles you name it.

I got the same one a couple of weeks ago.. works fine, and like you said not $200+ for "trainer-specific".

Now to start modifying it with power strip, cable guides etc :)
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [mvenneta] [ In reply to ]
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mvenneta wrote:
Painting my garage floor was a huge upgrade. No more of that concrete dust!

It just feels much nicer now too

what sort of prep work did you do and what paint did you use?
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [knighty76] [ In reply to ]
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And before anybody says anything about it, the elliptical is for the missus... t

Bwahahaha! Marriages are all about compromises. Well played, sir. Well played.
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Re: 'Pain Cave' Makeover [jkhayc] [ In reply to ]
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https://www.homedepot.com/...Kit-286879/205697937

This is what I used. Took about 4 hours of work, spread over 2 days. So happy with results
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