My personal opinion is that a watt is a watt, regardless of flat or uphill. That said, it is a bit hard to simulate hills on the trainer without the Climb - I try to do a lot of lower cadence work, which can help out.

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As long as you have the gearing, making the climbs shouldn't be an issue.

You'll probably lose more time on the descents, however. I can whip down Alpe d' Zwift at 50mph around the hair pins, but that doesn't help me on the road.

Good point on the descents. I always have a miniature heart attack when my avatar is coming in too hot on one of those hairpins.

Most definitely. Set your trainer to 100% and your weight correctly to get the best simulation. If you want to do some calcs, you can even calculate the total climbing and set out a course that simulates the race to some degree. Or you can just generate a workout in Best Bike Split and import that into Zwift. The wattages will be the same as if you were racing the course even though you might be climbing at 11% or descending at 50 mph.

I've use'd it successfully to get ready for gap rides out of Helen GA in the early spring.

As others have said, workouts in ERG mode to simulate the wattages, or doing the long zwift climbs can accurately prepare you for riding up the hills (including the cadence things). There's no need for something like the kicker climb, yes it gives you a more accurate body position, but it's a toy, not necessary, but kind of cool... For the downs, unfortunately any time bike handling comes into play, is where riding on a fixed trainer is going to fail... straight descents, sure, but anything turny or technical, you'll want to practice some high speed descending outside, to work on body position on the bike, and cornering technique...

What type of setup is required to do this? I current have a "dumb" fluid trainer, vector two dual sided pedals, speed and cadence sensors, and trainer road.

I would love to be able to upload a file and just simulate a lap on the IMLP course if at all possible. I would probably even be willing to drop $500 to do it.


additionally: would it just cause power spikes during the climbs and cause you to yo-yo around the course...which is kinda the opposite of what you want to do in an Ironman...right?

My personal experience is watts are watts, endurance is endurance, and cardiovascular fitness is cardiovascular fitness. All three can be trained and increased solely in my bedroom via a smart trainer and Zwift. I am seeing big gains and improvements.

The only thing I would caution is to be mindful of the logistics of riding outside that you normally would not experience on a trainer. Ex. bike handling skills (especially for technical descents), being able to fix mechanicals on the road, the elements and other riders etc, and most importantly, making sure you have the right gearing for the outdoor hills. Smart trainers do a fine job of giving you almost unlimited gearing. I ca nspin at 90 RPM up the alp de Zwift while only generating 200 watts. That would be pretty much impossible for me to do outdoors, the gears are just not there. So just be careful you don't train at 90 RPM all the time and then come race day you are stuck grinding 60 RPM up the mountains.

good luck!

EDIT: as someone mentioned above, you can change a setting in Zwift - I forget what it is called - to limit those "unlimited gears". Basically it will not let you spin at 90 RPM on a 15% grade. It will simulate more to outdoors where you run out of gears and you are stuck grinding at 60-70 RPM. Or you could just keep the setting as is an intentionally grind at 60-70 even though you have the gearing indoors to increase it.

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

Although I have recently 'upgraded' to a smart trainer...I made huge improvements in my climbing when I was still on a dumb trainer. I went from grinding up a climb to spinning at a higher cadence. Posted my best climbs IRL on local routes, both long and short after a winter of Zwift on a dumb trainer. Races forced me to spin faster at the wattage needed to stay at the front.

I think in zwift that setting is the trainer difficulty setting and it's set at 50% by default.

I've always thought watts are watts as well.

I've been riding exclusively on Zwift across the winter. I went out for my first real ride of the year on Monday.

I was taking it easy and i did a long climb significantly faster than i had ever done it before.

Like others have said, i would set your trainer to 100% difficulty. I would also put a block under your front tire to make sure you stay in a climbing position.

It might also be worth going to bestbikesplit.com and downloading the power profile for the course as a Zwift workout. Then you can virtually ride the course to your heart's content.

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I do the same thing as them, just slower

Agree with everyone here who has said that a watt is a watt and you can prepare pretty well using Zwift.

Only caveat: in addition to of course not helping your handling skills at all, Zwift really can't replicate the "road feel," for lack of a better phrase, of rolling hills. You intuitively will know what i mean, even if you've never thought about it: you can sort of feel the hills, feel with your whole body how best to use your momentum to carry you up the other side, when to subtly change power, shift you weight, etc., to maximize that momentum. Zwift lets you see the hill visually, and you feel the resistance change, but when you're out on the road you're really using all your senses.

now, this is NBD of course; it comes back super quickly. It's just to say, best to leave time to do a few good road rides to get that "feel" back in you prior to your main event, if at all possible.

The other thing you can do is do all your workouts on zwift, but commute by bike. You don't get much training stress from commuting but you can help maintain your road feel.

It's not too bad.


First off, you need a smart trainer. I have a Kickr Snap, which is a wheel on, not as great as a direct drive trainer where you don't use a wheel But it's less expensive and plenty good for me, especially since I measure my power with my pedals (Vector3's). If you really want to love Zwift, I'd say a smart trainer is a great investment. Makes it much more realistic (although I will admit that I have used dumb trainers but never with Zwift so maybe I am giving smart trainers too much credit). When I am in erg mode Zwift gets my power and cadence from my pedals and then controls the resistance of the trainer to get me to the right power.

With your set-up I imagine you'd have the power meter tell Zwift what your output is and a smart trainer will modify the resistance based on the slope (if you're not in workout mode) or the desired power (if you are in workout mode). Is your power meter Ant+? You might need a dongle to communicate with your computer. I'm not sure what hardware you have, but I think you could get it all together for around $500. Maybe less if you find a sale.


Then you need a way to simulate the course. I'll mention two:

1. If you just want to simulate the ride, you can make routes that will give you an equivalent amount of climbing, hopefully with the fine scale details equivalent too: e.g., individual climbs with similar gradients, heights, distances apart, etc. Before Challenge Roth last year, I had a circuit that involved tooling around Watopia and hitting certain climbs at certain distances. It wasn't exact but it was pretty close to the course profile. This approach is nice, because your distance and speed are pretty much reflections of what you would be doing in the real world. If I've gone 30 miles in 90 minutes, then I have an idea about what I'm doing on the course IRL.

2. If you want to match your power to the course in a very exact sense, you can make a workout in Best Bike Split and import it into Zwift. You need a BBS membership, obviously. Then you put in the various parameters you want - e.g., do you want a certain power? certain time? TSS? and then create the race profile. Then you export the race as a Zwift workout (there's a button in BBS to do it) and then import it into Zwift. On a PC it's easy. Just drop it into your workouts folder in Zwift, open Zwift and there it is. You can load the workout and because the system is in erg mode, you will ride the course and your trainer will adjust its resistance to keep your power to the setting prescribed by BBS.

The benefit of #2 over #1 is that it is the exact power you will need to output at the exact time to get the result you stipulated (i.e., climbs are the correct grade and distance). The problem is, that it's not flexible. So it's a good way to train for an upcoming race, because you will be putting in the power you think you should and working your body the exact way it needs to be. But you will be stuck doing exactly what BBS prescribed. If you just want to see how fast you can do the course today, then either go back into BBS and give yourself a more challenging race workout or use #1.

Also, a downside to #2 is that you're not interacting with the world exactly as you might want which is part of the appeal of Zwift. For example, you might be going uphill in Zwift but doing a low power interval during the "race" and vice versa. It's not the end of the world, but if you get motivated by going up the mountain and hitting the top, then #1 might be good too.

I personally think the best is a combination of the two. Train with some race sim workouts, but then also free ride a course that simulates the race and see how you do.

Hope this answers your questions!

I can help you create the zwift workout file if you like; just send me a PM

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

I'm glad I'm not the only one...

I've never understood this line of thinking. Your position relative to the bike doesn't change so I don't see how it could significantly change the muscles you are training. The only thing it changes is the angle that gravity is acting on you, which doesn't seem like it would matter in any measurable way. Is there an evidence that this accomplishes anything? Not questioning you specifically because I know this is a pretty commonly held theory, even to the point the Kicker has designed a trainer around the idea.

I agree with all the other posters - a watt is a watt. 90% of my training this winter was on Zwift (10% mountain biking) and recently when I finally got outside, I PR'd all my local climbs. And I don't have Kickr Climb either and I have my Trainer difficulty set to 0%. So my recent experience is yes, even without a Kickr climb and the easiest settings, Zwift will make you a better climber.

But as other posters mentioned, and it's important to note: An Increase in FTP and a decrease in Bike Handling skills can be very bad. My buddy who I introduced to Zwift boosted his FTP this winter from 225 to 264. This weekend was only his 3rd ride outside and he crashed into me once (luckily neither of us fell). But then he fell 3X!! Twice while clipping in and once while stopping; and when he took turns it's was sketchy, and he was lacking confidence on any downhills. And this is a guy who's been riding. Tri bike for 10+ years. If you don't use it, you lose it real fast.

I made it a point to get in mountain biking, and I have a local Bike Path with tight corners I practice on. If you're 100% on Zwift and you go straight to racing, it's a recipe for disaster. It's easy to forget how unbelievably twitchy TT bikes can be. So do schedule in at least a half-dozen rides before your Race.

Any reason you chose 0% on Zwift? I know it doesn't make the climbs any easier in terms of energy required, but it does take the low-cadence sting out of those 10+% climbs like the radio tower.

I myself love super steep climbs, but I may have to turn down the intensity from 100% since I'm unfortunately finding it may be flaring my ankle arthritis - I know a lot of folks have similar problems with knees on steep lo cadence climbs.

This is what killed me at Whistler last year. I used BBS to put together a ride simulation (I live in north Texas where it's pretty much flat). I knew where every climb would be (based on timing) and race day played out as expected. Almost. BBS predicted my max wattage required to climb at less than 180 (yellow is power over 200).



Most of the climbs required +200W. I had put my correct weight / etc in BBS but with those grades my minimal required climbing power was more than BBS had predicted. By the start of the third loop I was smoked (also bombed my nutrition and it got really hot, but we're talking power here). Wound up walking two of the final climbs.



I think it's possible to train almost entirely on the trainer IF you know your minimal required climbing power. Find a nice long climb (6-8%, that climb up Callaghan is no joke) somewhere and see what it takes you to get up it. Use that to tweak your trainer workout. That should be a recipe for success.

Good advice, thanks. I was also wrecked after the Whistler bike last year despite being in really good shape and doing a lot of good outdoor climbing. It was just hot af and for the first time ever, I couldn't handle it.

Thanks. Bike handling should be fine. I am riding 70-120mi outside every Saturday - just not with the volume of hills I have added in past years. I'll do a few hill days outdoors before the race just to get some fresh descent practice but based on the comments here I'll plan to do the bulk of my climbing indoors.

I climbed a literal *fuck*load last year training for Whistler. While it likely helped a bit, I don't think there is much you could do to really train for how that day turned out.

You know Callaghan which looks to be the worst of the climbing, and there is a bit less in 2019. I would not hesitate climbing alpe du zwift and the volcano a few times, with a few longer outdoor hilly rides, training for it.

Sorry I missed that in my original reply.

I’m jot sure what the “it” is. Do you mean following a BBS plan or just riding around on the climbs? Either I would think no (mostly anyway). If you have climbs of any significance I think you’re gonna have some power variability. It will be hard to keep you VI at 1. But you will be able to keep it reasonable by being judicious if you’re free riding without a workout or by putting the right settings into BBS.

I have thought so much about how and why that course killed me last year. I finished the 106 degree Coeur d'Alene with no issue whatsoever but Whistler had my number.

Looking forward to Alpe du Zwift. I believe another thread said you have to be level 10 and I am nearly there.