spelger

so i took friday off yesterday and decided to ride indoors as opposed to in the garage (too cold outside and in the garage too). weather stinks and since everyone was either at work or at school i decided to ride in front of my bigger screen and do a zwift session. the session was great but the lead up totally blew wind. i needed to make so many trips between garage and family room that it was totally not worth it...trips taken:

1. HDMI cable, Kicker Power cable, USB extension cable with ant dongle, shoes.
2. Kicker, darn heavy.
3. Bike
4 Sweat mat.
5. Laptop from office
6. Fan
7. extension cord for fan and Laptop
8. sweat mat
9. 3 prong to 2 prong adapter for laptop for extension cord.

it was definitely warmer but damn...way too much work.

looking forward to when my college student daughter graduates...sort of.

anyway, ride on!

Fred123141

Nice post bro

OldTryGuy

After all that how much time riding????

Me - ??? - I'm 2,900 miles ESE from you so yesterday ---

I kitted up

air in tires

popped on the computer

filled bottles and put on bike

grabbed some munchies

grabbed bike, opened garage door, went outside, closed garage door, hopped on bike, headed out

4 hours and 71.3 miles I was back home

DAMN, what a waste of a morning ----- NOT!!!

spelger

about 67 miles/3 hours.

ESE...guessing FL. Bet it is warm there but way too humid in the summer. Here in Reno the summer is high 90s low 100s with really dry air. Love it.

Enjoy your outside winter riding.

OldTryGuy

For sure the humidity makes riding much more challenging. 3 hours inside riding -- that's fantastic

jadocs

That’s a lot of extra gear your hauling. I ride inside as well to be specific, my living room in front of a 73” HDTV. The only thing I’m moving are my Smart Rollers, bike and sweat mat. I run Zwift on my Apple TV and use the companion app on my iPhone for extra BLE connections.

spelger

I normally ride in the garage but took the opportunity to ride indoors for once. after that i am not minding the smaller 40" TV and (much) colder temps.

zacster

I have my setup inside, but I don't have a garage either. The big screen I use is a 27" iMac. I don't feel I need anything bigger. It's nice because there are no cables to run.

Meanwhile my bike is on the wheels instead of the Kickr at the moment. I have this fantasy I'm going to ride tomorrow in the warmish weather (high 50s). If it rains it'll be back to Zwift or the Sufferfest or both.

DaveLeeNC

Good luck with that :-)

dave

DrIsotope

My forced Zwift sessions were in my unheated workshop in winter, and it was still too hot. Churning out +800W of heat is like having a heater aimed at me the whole time. It has to get desperately cold (or wet) to drive me indoors.

Seattle Forrest

I skied up a mountain for a while, then got some turns in on the way back down. Couldn't stop smiling. Cross training for the win!

We're desperately lacking snow, but there's enough up above Blewett Pass.

jpescatore

Yesterday, I rode in the basement - one trip carrying water and iPad down to my 22 year old Trek 520 that now spends the entire winter on the Wahoo Kickr SNAP trainer, in front of an old TV with Apple TV running Zwift. Didn't really even need the iPad for that setup.

I wussed out of riding outdoors, as it was 35 F outside and cloudy. I would have had to put on many layers, take some of them off because I forgot to put on my heart rate monitor, put them back on again, get the bike off the wall, pump up front and rear tires wipe off the chain and inspect the tires, get the bike backup on the wall, peel off all those layers, etc. when I got back.

I did punish myself for wimping out - I did the Alpe de Zwift climb ride (replica of Alpe de Huez) with some club group race ride - a 20 mile ride with the climb being 7.5 miles gaining 3400 feet at an average grade of 8.5% - hard to find that outdoors around here!

Riding in the basement is definitely far, far easier for me than riding outdoors in the winter. It is definitely not as much fun as riding outside, and the ease has made me softer - before having the Wahoo/Zwift setup, above 32F I was riding. Now, my wimpiness threshold has creeped up to 35 and sunny or 38 if cloudy or 40 if cloudy and windy...A few days before (38 and partial sun) I had a great outdoor ride.

Of course, climate change means fewer of those really cold days here - even after 3 years of having the trainer, I'm getting more outdoor miles in during December and February than 10-20 years ago.

zacster

You believe those weather reports? As we have learned, a Sharpie, even a digital sharpie, doesn't necessarily make them true. And yes it is indeed raining and likely to rain all day today and tomorrow, after which it will snow.

jadocs

Don't beat yourself up. If we are talking training, you are getting more benefit from doing it indoors vs. being miserable outdoors in adverse weather and dealing with traffic etc... If you are just riding for pleasure and not trying to maximize training benefit, then sure I can see the benefit to braving the weather and going outdoors.

canklecat

I'll probably do more indoor trainer stuff this winter too. In the past I'd ride in temps down into the 20s. But this year our few really chilly days, just in the 30s, were enough to aggravate my sinuses so badly I'd end up with headaches and dizziness from clogged eustachian tubes. It was so bad this weekend I nearly fell over backward on an escalator Saturday night. Some friends and I were visiting an art gallery and going to dinner, and on an escalator ride we noticed it was an open sky courtyard and looked up -- and I nearly toppled over.

So I've avoided riding outdoors on days when my balance might be impaired. I'm taking a ton of stuff for sinus congestion, allergies and asthma but nothing really seems to fix it.

On the plus side, on my outdoor rides the past few weeks I'm faster than I was this time last year. So whatever I'm doing in training, inside and out, is working.

Mostly I use the trainer for two things: base miles at low effort, usually 2 hours or longer while watching movies or binge watching TV series; and short HIIT sessions, usually 30 minutes at most including warmup and cooldown. The long sessions are also useful for combining neck and shoulder physical therapy. I can pedal while doing upper body mobility exercises. Helps on longer outdoor rides, especially on rough pavement where my neck tends to ache after a couple of hours.

Several friends Zwift but I'm not that motivated by indoor training. I prefer meatspace brisk group rides to challenge my conditioning. That's hard enough. If I got dropped in Zwift I could just change the channel and watch something else. When I get dropped in real life it's just little old lonesome me watching the other folks get tiny in the distance. That's good motivation, especially when I have another 12 miles just to ride home.

jpescatore

Very good point - I don't have power meters on my bikes and my outdoors riding is mostly for pleasure. I do have some boring local loops that I just try to do faster, essentially training rides but not really structured.

With the Wahoo/Zwift setup, I can train with power and have really enjoyed it. I did semi-structured training that way last winter because I was going to do the Seattle to Portland ride in July - worked out great. Zwift makes doing intervals much less boring.

But, for me, the magic happens biking outdoors on long rides - might only be junk base miles from a training perspective, but from an endorphin perspective can't be beat.

zacster

I always figure that an hour on the trainer is as much training as 3-4 hours outdoors, especially in NYC where you are constantly stopping. That is not true though when I do loops of nearby Prospect Park where I can do a good training ride in an hour but still be outdoors and never have to stop. It has become my outdoor trainer.

And as much as I say that I can put out more watts riding outdoors than indoors, when I did a structured ride in the park it felt exactly the same as indoors. 200 watts is 200 watts no matter where you do it. It always seemed as though I was putting out 250w when I looked at the computer even though it didn't feel it. But maintaining it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And unless you are completely stomping it on what appears to be flat, those slight downhills subtract 100+ watts from your output. I now know exactly where each of those is and ride accordingly.

caloso

I have the Zwifter set up in the unattached, unheated garage. Pros: everything is set up, doesn't matter how much I drip on the floor, I can run the fan and the music as loud as I want. Cons: suboptimal wifi, spiders.

bruce19

My garage and workshop are unheated and this is New England. So, I set up my rollers in my 10x10 office space. Put on some youtube vids and had at it. Much better.

Prowler 

My garage and workshop are unheated and this is Pennsylvania. I put off indoor cycling as long as possible each winter but I gave in yesterday. I have both a stationary and rollers out in the garage. It was 30degF there so I did not sweat any. Rode the Motobecane Super Mirage on the stationary for 25 minutes (6 tunes on the CDs player) then about 10 minutes of one legged riding. I layer up to start and shed layers as needed. Sucks but it's way better than being off a bike for too long. Keeps my legs, butt, neck and wrists stay in shape. I'll alternate between the stationary and the rollers thru the winter.

I also have a salty roads bike (genuine vintage barn find Sears Free Spirit) that I will ride in harms way, a 15 mile loop around the neighborhood as long as the is no ice on the macadam. Wash it off in the spring then shift it back into the loft.