I just picked up a CT on an eBay special. I have an older road bike that I use on the trainer now and also on rainy, nasty days. It has aerobars, but is not the race bike. I could put the race bike on the CT with an old rear wheel for the winter since I won’t be taking her out for 5 months. How much wear and tear accumulates from indoor sessions?
also, does anyone have any easy way to create 3dc files? I don’t need a course, but want to create a workout, x min at y watts , rest repeat
Personally, I keep my old roadbike on the trainer most of the time, just so I don’t have to swap things in and out and when I want to do a workout all I have to do is get on the bike.
I’ve had one of the continental trainer tires on my bike for at least 5 years and there is little to no wear on it. I’ve had no noticable wear to anything else on the bike either.
definitely use your race bike in the winter when you don’t need take it off for a while. You may as well train in the right position. Keep a towel over the steering tube/front wheel - sweat will corrode everything otherwise. With that in place and a different wheel/tire as you mentioned, I see absolutely zero downside to it - and good upside. I could see the road bike during race season when you don’t want to swap out as much.
just use any bike that gets you on the trainer.
after that, you can deal with which bike to use.
build a mock race bike out of an old bike that you hob cob your fit coordinates onto. it doesn’t have to look fast, it just has to put you in the right position.
Go to your LBS and buy a continental trainer tire. They last forever and probably a day longer then you want because thats how long it may take to actually get onto the wheel. But once you do its a great tire.
Buy ergVideo’s. I have had my CT for about 6-weeks now, i used the CT 3d ride 1x and switched to ergvideo and havent looked back.
I bought a really cheap used road bike and got the fit specs as close to my road bike as possible, put on a more comfortable saddle and Conti Indoor tire (no more slippage).
Go here for an easy erg file creator: http://63.134.234.143/tri/erg.asp. Use the coaching software (now a free download)
have you built interval sets with the erg videos? If so, which video do you get for that ? interval HD?
I tried the CT in erg mode this am. Works fine except the measured power on the powertap was 15 W lower than the CT load. I zero’d them both, but that may just be the offset. I gather that ERG videos let you design an interval set based on LT power and then you can adjust that number from the bike. Is this true?
For the 2 i have you pretty much have to edit them down to what you want for an hour+. Super easy, although you cant seem to create a workout from multiple videos at same time.
Intervals for MAP HD
Threshold Intervals HD
In your rider setup you set your FTP. The ride load is always based on a % watts of your FTP. So you can see the load and what that loads % is. When you edit the workout you can even adjust the overall % up or down for the whole workout.
Btw, also check out Sufferfest video’s. I havent tried it yet but i downloaded one and found a worksheet that can create the .erg file to use during the video while in CT coaching mode. Seems a bit cludgy to use them together but i’ll see if i can make it work to see both at same time.