Good shorts. Inside you don’t shift your weight and you sweat more.

I have used my trisuit and tri-shorts for longer rides with no problems, but for me its not the suit but the saddle. I have a saddle that works really well with minimum padding found in trisuits/tri-shorts.

Around 50% of my female athletes prefer trisuits for indoor and maybe 25% prefer them for outdoor riding. None of my male athletes go that route indoors or outdoors. Or if they do, haven't told me about it.

Personally I just use bib sorts, have two fugly pair that I would never wear outside (really, really fugly) but inside they work great. Plus save my outside bibs for, well, outside!

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Good feedback from everyone so far. It's interesting that a lot of women favor tri suits for indoor riding and no men. I guess it comes down to male and female anatomy, which makes sense.

I'm thinking of investing in good indoor kit that can be used outside as the season progresses. That way I don't need separate pieces. Just get something good that will work inside and outside as well.

I like the Assos Mille GTS, Rapha Core, and LeCol bibs. Right now I'm favoring the Assos. The floating pad, pad cut out for the perineum, wide straps, and straps off the nipples. The Rapha look generic and the Pro and Classic versions are like $235 with no unique features from what I can see. The LeCol start at $150 for a basic pair of bibs. Any experience with these brands? I've done the cheap ones and I'm looking for something with more protection that will last.

Bibshorts all the way, might even change into a new set of them halfway through.

Not a bad idea about changing out kit midway through a long session.

I have a collection of old shorts and bibs (5 or 6 in total) for my trainer rides. I just grab whatever happens to be clean at the moment but always change into a fresh pair after about two hours of riding.

I don't know if it is just me but I do 90% of my indoor riding sitting up on the pursuit bars, and for that I wear bib shorts. For the other 10% when I want to ride in aero I find tri shorts/suit better. If I'm expecting to mix it up I'll generally use tri shorts/suit.

I don't find my split nose saddle comfortable with bib shorts and a thicker pad if I'm in aero. But of course YUMV*

Cheers, Rich.

*Undercarriage.

Call me crazy, but running shorts, and an old well worn saddle for me, and I’m hitting 300 mpw this winter. Much less sweat and zero chaffing. SO much cooler. No shirt, and big blasting pedestal fan. Call me even crazier, but I’ve become so accustomed to it, that most of my outdoor training is in running shorts as well. The last time I wore padded cycling shorts, was in a race last August. But then... I’m from the generation that raced in speedos. Maybe it was the saddles back then, but you find the right saddle, and you can forget about padded anything, it just feel gross, like wearing diapers

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Athlinks / Strava

Why not just ride and run in a Speedo too? You could save on bibs and run shorts. Haha!

It is cool to see how simple it can be. What's your longest trainer ride indoors and are they done on a TT bike?

My Speedo days are long behind me! But I will s/b/r in my running shorts, just to make it simple (ride to pool, ride home, run), and have raced sprint & oly tris in jammers (speedos seem to no longer be socially acceptable). I've been riding since childhood (over 50 years) and doing tris since 83, and have never even owned bib shorts. The only time I wear a top of any kind, is when it's mandatory, and even then it's usually a t-shirt or singlet. I own some... but I cannot stand cycling jerseys and tri tops, and only race in them. I never train in them, unless is a rare group ride, and I don't want to show up looking all newb.

My longest indoor trainer ride was 120 miles preparing for IMAZ in 2019. I'm super old school, and ride a totally dumb dinosaur spin bike. It's fit coordinates (with aero bars) are set up identical to my tri bike. The thing is a tank, and I can't wear it out. It's approaching 40K miles, without a lick of maintenence. I have garmin speed and cadence sensors on it for data, but that's it.

This sport can be very very simple. My bike was cheap and its old with all its cables and rim brakes. My body is old and slow, so the expensive pro looking shit isn't really very important anymore. I'd rather train more than spend more. I still squirt cheap chain lube from a bottle, and don't like squishy padding crammed up my butt crack. And can still kick some local age group ass.

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Athlinks / Strava

YMMV, but indoors typically requires more padding than outdoors. Like others, my go tos are bibshorts that are too worn/ripped/crashed for outdoor/public use. Chamois cream also helps a lot.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Love it!

Bibshorts. My tri suits I save for racing

Also, I need bag balm for indoors

Also... 5 hours. Damn

I tended to do longer (3-3.5 hour rides in peak and normally 2x 2hr+ rides on the trainer over last 3 years.

My learnings as they apply to me.

1) tri shorts for tri bike and bike shorts for road bike. Depending on what bike I'm using depends on if I want the added padding from the bike shorts or the thinner pad from the tri shorts. The position / saddle angle is set for the thickness of padding specific to the activity, and woe betide mixing road and TT.
2) Chamois cream - lots of it, and having some at a grabable distance for a top up after a couple of hours is advised. The Muc Off stuff is pretty good, replaced my previous go to of DZ Nuts just because more widely stocked locally.
3) Expect to feel more pressure for a given time on trainer. The sweat mixed with more consistent position, lack of coasting, climbing, acalerating from traffic lights means it is expected to be more taxing.
4) The trainer is a great place to use all that kit - tri or road - that is still fine, but too see through to be decent. Can get years more use out of it with only your SO to see, and being honest, they learn quickly not to come near you or the trainer room.
5) Don't use new kit on the trainer - chances are the sweat/rub/constant position will wear it out double quick.

The sport needs more simple, more chamois cream, and less padding crammed up the butt. Well said my friend!

Ikr...the worst part will be the first hour of Week 6 of FTP Builder which is a Threshold Development workout. Ouch! Too much for imdoors in mid-February during a pandemic.