When one trains on the indoor trainer, I am told an hour is roughly an hour and one half of utside riding. My question is directed to the computer trainer as I am entertaining the thought of buying one. All things being equal does this hold true for the cpmputertrainer also?
If you are riding a flat course on the computer trainer, is this easier than being on the indoor trainer? Or is it about the same as I would assume.
Thanks…
Wow, good question. I was wondering the same thing and have wondered it often.
There is no doubt to me that an hour on the trainer translates to more than an hour on the road. How much more is debateable.
I can tell you that after four hours on the Computrainer I am destroyed. It takes me 18 hours to recover from that ride. Also, the performance I am seeing is much worse than what I would have out on the road.
Suffice it to say you are getting a killer workout.
Thanks Tom,
I think I need to bit the bullet and get a computer trainer. I have been doing my cold weather training rides on the indoor trainer.
I would say maybe even more than 1.5 to 1 based on my average HR -vs- watts, miles on a trainer. Computer trainer may not be as high as the compu-trainer can alter the resistance based on computer terrain…thus, downhills are downhills. Still not coasting on a computrainer though…
Anyone ridden them new parabolic rollers yet?
For me, thirty minutes are thirty minutes; one hour is one hour whether it’s spent on the trainer, rollers or on the road. The only difference is the state of being bored -
This really depends on how you ride outside. If you do a lot of coasting and stopping for lights etc outside then yes the CT will be harder…but if you were to cover 40 miles in 2 hrs outside, on an unobstucted course, and later do it on the CT I think the CT would only be marginally harder at best. A watt is a watt and CT does a very good job of approximating the load.
The beauty of the CT, IMO, is it lets you focus entirely on pedaling - not cars, dogs and stop signs. And you have the display to make sure you don’t slack. Just as a treadmill can keep you running fast long after you would have slowed down at the track the CT can keep you pumping high watts - as long as you can push yourself. The feedback is right in front of your face. It is also great for intervals and repeatability. Save your interval/big-gear performance and use it as your pacer next week. If you are the competitive type that will refuse to let your last performance beat you then this is a very powerfull way for an athlete to train.
A Compu Trainer rocks - more then 90 minutes on there is hard - no question. There is no let up and no coasting which makes it tougher then being outside. How much one hour equates to is hard to figure but I think it’s about 80-90 minutes and 2 hours may be more like 3.5 hours. Like Tom said, the long workouts just destroy you.
If anyone is looking to buy one - right now I can offer them at $1250 - regular price is $1500 - I some dealer pricing I can do - so let me know if you are interested.
I love my computrainer, already rode it it this morning even; however only a totally insane person can ride it for 4 hours. You must be on some powerful anti-psychotic drugs to keep from going crazy on a ride that long. I am good for 2-2.5 hours but after that I would rather be hiding in Saddam’s spider hole hideout. Back to the question I agree with the others that because you can’t coast 60 minutes on the computrainer is more like 80-90 on the road.
David
Tom,
Do you use your regular bike seat? I love my seat outdoors, but it starts to really hurt after an hour and a half on the CT. I was thinking about swapping out for a big fat plush seat for long CT rides but am worried this might screw up my position/pedalling style. Thoughts?
Thanks, Andy
It is definitely true training on a CompuTrainer is like training 1.5 - 2x outside. The main reason for this is the quality of training. If you are on a trainer and locked in your “zone”, the muscles will get a bigger bang for your buck. Whereas outdoors, you spend much of the time uphill or downhill, or fighting traffic, wind etc… This all works towards making you go in and out of your zones. The key here is to know the exact zones. As I’ve referred to in past posts, I would recommend getting a lactate test done to pin point those zones. I’ve got 11 different zones to work with and and each was pin pointed during an assessment with my a lactate kit test.
that’s my 2 cents
Paul
Time isn’t really the issue here, it’s workload. For example, Is an hour on the road at 250 watts easier than an hour on the CT at 150 watts? What really matters is the loads you’ve put on your body. A powermeter on the road (SRM, Powertap, etc) will tell you how much work you’ve done (in KJ), as will a CT. Download your files into the Cycling Peaks software for analysis and it will normalize the power (controlling for coasting and such) and give you both a training stress and training intensity score. Voila, no guessing as to what the loads were from the workout, whether on the road or the CT.
4 hours !!!
Ouch, I love bike training but how do keep yourself amused for that long ?
I always assume that it’s about a 1.5 ratio but you can’t beat the benefit of having a hard workout but also having the isolation to concentrate on pedal stroke and cadence.
Christopher, I completely agree with you on the workload topic. However, no matter what power meter you have on your bike, it is impossible to maintain the same wattage all the time. That being said, if someone wants a specific training session (i.e. performance threshold), it is much more effective on specific watts which can be performed on the basic computrainer model.
Paul
Paul,
You are absolutely right about that. I think one of the advantages of trying to do some of your LT work on the road with a watt meter is that you can learn to ride as steadily as possible (steadily being defined here as maintaining a constant output) with changes in terrain, % grade of road, etc. It’s amazing how much better you can get at it with some practice, making your ability to meter out efforts smoothly on race day all the more precise.