The trainer is a relentless a-hole training partner. It never gives you a break, no stop lights/signs.....just bzzzzzzzzzz. When you can get to the point you are doing the same time volume on the trainer you took on ourdoor rides you have become a monster. What used to take 3 hours to accomplish in my zones on the road suddenly took a bit over an hour. Seriously....when I went to the trainer I was shocked saying 'damn I have only been on here an hour and am whipped' and couldn't figure it out. It's pretty amazing how much time is wasted coasting, stopping and dodging on a ride.

i'm always struck by that. when I download a power file from a typical hilly endurance ride of say 4 hours, it always seems like there is an hour plus of of crap below 100w

I'm surprised it's only 25% of your ride! This would most likely be attributed to where you live, but for riding where I live it's 50% anyway of total ride time....spent picking your arse. That's why I do my 'business end' training at home so I can really get it on.

i am lucky to be able to ride pretty much every day without encountering a stoplight or busy highway. You made me curious so I looked at a random file for a bread and butter day of 2.5 hours and there was 1.03 of "active recovery" of 0-169w and 20 mins beyond 325, so it's kind of all over the board without a ton of structure.

If I'm ambitious I will test once during the winter (late Dec., early Jan.) and again in the early spring, but testing is not something I'm all that concerned with. I can get a pretty good idea of how well I'm going by how the workouts feel and by what I can do in early season races. If I'm doing my 2x20's at say 300 watts comfortably day after day and progress to 310 and then 320 I know that is a good thing. I can't necessarily link those workout wattages to a FTP, but I'm not that concerned.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

This. A thousand times over. Even more so if you have a trainer with an erg mode. Set that thing to x watts and there is no where to hide. Outdoor riding has its training advantages as well, namely that terrain forces some varied power outputs, but indoor riding is the real ass kicker.

i did this workout today, i really enjoyed it as it wasn't arduous but felt like good work. I was about 80% of ftp, I figure I'll try stacking a few days back to back and see how my body feels.

time in saddle

Does anyone else other than CT have erg modes?

tacx has a number of models, also saris powerbeam

Cool!

As long as you're not in my age group that is... :-)

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

it's essential that you have a bright and attractive place to train indoors like mine. Your garage just won't cut it. I've lead that panel box out for more sprints than I can count.

Sometimes I will do random length intervals by using songs, like two songs hard, one easy. It can be challenging especially if you have a really random music assortment. A 90 second punk song for recovery sucks big time.

Honestly Snyder2165, and not knowing anything about you, i'd focus on a few things this winter:
1. Weight - it's the most effective/guaranteed way to improve performance, assuming you don't take it off too quickly.
2. Set goals for the season - You need to know where you are trying to get.
3. If you ride on a trainer, try to make it fun and work on your pedal stroke. I've seen folks ruin themselves by May because they went way too hard during the winter and burned themselves out. Thinking about maximizing your pedal stroke makes the time go by faster.
4. Work on your position on the bike

Try it to AC/DC "Black ice"... It'll turn you into the sporn of Bradley Wiggins and Tony Martin come next season.
I do the preloaded 25mile TT on my bushido to it, I can go under the hour but my aim is to beat the CD before it starts from the beginning again. 55:38. Slim chance I recon!

This is an interesting stress on my body, I have done the workout for 3 days now, I did add a second workout on TU which was a evening cyclocross practice but kind of dogged it on purpose (I run it so am entitled) then yesterday extended it to 2 hours total, then today being a little tired stuck with the 1 hour. It's not so hard to hit around 80% without a lot of concentration.

My legs feel a little tired and heavy, I'm cross racing sunday so might not overdo the rest of the week. It seems like pretty low volume but I'm curious how it affects my legs, it's different from any sort of winter junk I usually do.

I'm doing this, too. Thought it would be interesting to see the effect on my legs. However, I've been hitting about 88-90% FTP for the 20' intervals, and I've thrown in some harder sub-intervals (FTP and VO2max), too. For example, in one workout, I did the last 5 min of each 20' interval at FTP. In another, I did the 20' intervals and then after my last rest interval, I added 5 x 1' at VO2max. I've definitely noticed a little residual fatigue, and I'm thinking this is telling me that my "tempo intervals" are a little too hard, particularly if I want to put a few short, hard efforts, too. Probably wouldn't be bad for a couple of weeks, but I can see this burning me out after a while if I don't throttle back just a tad.

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Steve Perkins

I don't believe anyone has mentioned Turbo Crank. It's a computer-based program that has about a dozen different types of workouts. It doesn't appear to be as comprehensive or as technology-centric as Trainer Road (thanks for sharing that link, btw - looks great), but for $20, it's not a bad option.

I've been using Turbo Crank on my Mac for the past two years and it's helped break-up some of the monotony. I set it up alongside the television and pedal away.

Sorry for the dumb question, I am new to actually thinking about my training in intervals term. When you say 20' @Tempo, you mean 20' at your 85% FTP (or whatever you picked for this), nonstop (+/- your 10-15 sec of standing up every once in a while)?

Yep. The 10', 5' and 5' easy sections end up at around 50-60% of FTP and the two 20' sections usually average ~85-88% of FTP. The three short breaks I take at 5', 10', and 15' to stand up are only 10-20 seconds long and the power drops down to maybe 80% and doesn't really affect the average.

The whole workout ends up averaging out to about 75% of FTP for 1 hour and burns about 1,000 KJs. It also has the added bonus of starting the day and knowing exactly how many calories I can consume that day if I want to maintain or lose weight. Can't count how many times I've come home during the summer with the idea of doing a certain ride, ate bars accordingly and then ended up doing something a lot lighter and wished I hadn't eaten so much!

It really is brainless for me. It just works out that I settle into a 50x16 @ 90-92 rpm. That cadence combined with the resistance characteristics of my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine dials in around 310-320 watts. I can pretty much close my eyes and daydream and hit that cadence and power. I normally spin more, closer to 100-105rpm on the road. I tried to hit my desired wattage in my 50x17 at the higher rpm's and that was hard. I had to concentrate at it and the RPE was higher, so I said, "screw it" and went to the larger gear and slightly lower cadence.

The important things are:

1. The workouts are physically hard enough, but not too hard.
2. They are something I can do day after day.
3. They are not something that make me dread getting on the bike (like say, 2x20' @ FTP would).
4. The workout is mentally easy. On Mt. Diablo, I'll do 40' @ Tempo or even FTP and that's not so hard mentally. 40' @ Tempo on the trainer would be harder mentally than 2x20'.
5. The 10-20 second stand up breaks at 5, 10, and 15' in each 20' interval make it much easier mentally and more bite sized. You're never more than 5' from a break.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

That sounds good. Thanks for the explanations. I like the "brainless" part, because honestly, I am an outdoors rider so I'm going to need something that does not require concentration to stay on. I just bought The Sufferfest's videos and hope those will be fun, but something mindless while I look at shows or try to read would be awesome. I'll try your recipe!

I am pretty much confined to a trainer for 8 weeks, this due to a broken and plated collar bone suffered in a road race crash.

I was competing in one of the hardest 7 day tours in tough windy / wet / snow conditions and was carrying an extreme amount of form into the race, I crashed out 45 minutes in to the second day. Days stages were between 137 and 181 km.

The first thing I did was organize the best trainer I could afford, I settled on the v2 of the Lemond Revolution trainer and fitted it up with my best 11-21 training cassette and put my V7 wireless SRM in the training bike. The first thing I noticed was how quiet the Lemond Revolution was (contrary to most of the reviews and feed back). I like this direct drive option as it saves on tyres (I have been known to strip out a rear tyre in a single trainer session).


I broke my collar bone, had surgery and was discharged from hospital in all under a day (30th October), I was out of town and had airfares booked for the 4th November, so stayed around until then.


I did my first Lemond Trainer session on the 10th November, I hate trainers, full stop, I would prefer to train in wind, rain, cold and prefer the most rugged conditions rather than sit on a trainer. I hour max is all I can mentally handle.


I focus on the 1 hour of power, I target a 100 TSS and a 1.0IF at a FT0f 385 watts. I do 6 x 1 hour sessions per week, either made up of long FT efforts or easy spin with supramax efforts, pyramids (1 minute very hard, 1 minute easy, 2 minutes very hard, 2minutes easy, 3, 4 , 5 minutes etc) or 5 minutes at 460 watts, 5 minutes at 300 watts doing this for 60 minutes or 440 watts for 60 minutes. I have 6 workouts on this them. The only common them is 100 TSS, 1.0 IF for 60 minutes and 96 cadence average.


I am looking forward to get back on the road bike early January - mid January at the latest, so until then it is 6 hours a week of 1 hour of power.

I only got a power meter earlier than year so I haven't been training long with it.
However, in the 4 months since I bought it my FTP has gone up from 30 watts (Up to 4.5 watts/kg)

Pretty much all I can do is echo most of the comments posted earlier in the thread.

In summary,

• 2 x 20mins @ 90-95% on the bike trainer is hard but effective (something I could only do 2 times a week)
• 2+ hours @ 85-90% is very effective in raising FTP (hard as hell though)
• Doing quality swimming and running sessions whilst doing the FTP and Tempo intervals is almost impossible.
• It takes time to improve so plan minimum 4-6 week blocks.
• Don't neglect rest and recovery!

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The Power of the Mind -
Triathlete, Cyclist & Medical Student Blog
http://willtruong.blogspot.com.au

CycleTEK Momentum1 trainer http://cycletek.com/ + The Walking Dead = one heck of a workout. Training for the zombie apoxalypse, nothing makes me pedal harder!

It is my understanding from the Cycletek facebook page that their power data was submitted to trainerroad, Cycletek should be compatible for virual power on trainerroad soon