After never having exceeded 1.5 hrs on the Computrainer before, I just did my first 4-hr session on the CT yesterday (rain and cold wimp). I was wondering how many people do long sessions on the CT (3-5 hrs), what kind of wattage can you sustain, and how does your wattage on your long rides compare to your IM bike splits? My best IM bike split is a 5:18 and I only rode at 175 Watts for the 4 hr session (with about 4x5 min of 200+ Watt intervals for variety). Had a great run afterwards though : ). Just curious.
TriDi
Last year I was doing 2:30 - 3:00 rides on my spinning bike. Since I got my CT in October, I have been increasing volume on it, and did ~3:30 last weekend. I hope to do around 4:00 this weekend.
This is only my second season, so I don’t think I can make correlations between my race results and the CT at this point.
Overall, a ride outside is better, but this time of year, in this part of the country(MA), a ride outside is out of the question.
I did a 100 miler last year on the CT. My wife did 4 :(. I kicked her butt though when race time came. 
I haven’t been more than 4 hours. But I use the equipment more to stay in shape. I rarely go over 3 and only did last weekend because I watched the extended version of 2 towers. On the long ones it’s rarely over 180 average.
John
Living in western NY, I’m on the CT more than I’m on the road. I’ve never gone over 3hrs but have done that a handful of times in preperation for some 1/2IMs last year. In my experience, I am 2-3mph faster outside than on the CT. But I feel like I get just as much, sometimes more, from riding indoors.
100 miles on the CT seems insane but then again, so did the thought of an IM a couple of years ago.
To date the longest I have done is 7:45, but generally I top out at 6:00 and most long ones are more in the 3:00-4:30 range. Wattage is unremarkable and variable since I have been running a caloric deficit for the last year to get my weight back to what I consider normal. I think I wound up the 7+ hour one at 149 watts average due to the last 2 hours being in a zombie state barely turning over 130 watts (I started with 10,000 feet of continuous climbing so I am using that as my excuse).
Summer of 2000 during rainy season. I had a 150 mile ride planned but thunderstorms had me foiled (rain is o.k. with me but not lightening). Rented 5 movies and went through a stack of PB&J sandwiches and a stack of t-shirts. I rode 8 hours while my wife watched the movies with me. This led to a specific leg fatigue that I had never felt in 7 ironmans or 50 mile run. The workout sounds stupid but it was in my build up to my Ironman PR. Maybe I should head back to blockbuster.
7.5 hrs, 8 hrs, 10k of climbing, 5 movies that’s incredible. Those things just kind of happened, right…you really did not think ahead of time, “I’m gonna go 7-8 hrs on the CT this Sat.”
So this thread begs a question from us non CT’s. We really have no reference as trainer-slaves to the ride on a CT, do we?
I used to do pretty long hours on my CT with the unit attached to the computer, my PC monitor on the left and my TV set to the right of me.
Did two memorable sessions. Rode the entire IM Canada course once on Taiwan’s election day in 2000, and another time later in that season. Both times I put out an ironing board with remote controls and aid station fare. I actually bonked on the 2nd one, though.
Then I got a better tool than the CT: a reliable, motivated training partner. I used the CT infrequently until recently while training with him outdoors.
But now that he’s out of the tri game I’m back on my own and using my CT for mostly horrible weather days and on-the-bike strength work with PowerCranks in ergometer mode. Yesterday the highlight of my 55-min. session was 4x3:00 at 280 watts with 1:00 at 180 watts. I find it just as hard to spin on the CT at 160-180 watts with the PCs as grinding heavy wattage (for me), so I’m working on specific cadence and power issues. The CT is great for very targeted sessions, and if necessary I’ll climb aboard for 3-4 hour rides over the next few months of crappy weather and no training partner, but I’ll probably skip the PC interface and just shift tension with the ergometer while watching DVDs.