bobotech

I have a Cyclops fluid trainer that I got from a thrift store for 20 dollars this past summer. No wear marks at all on the roller.

Finally the weather has been so windy and cold that I took it out and setup my bike on it.

Is it me or is riding on the trainer harder than riding on the road. So freaking boring too but I am watching tv while riding. I notice that my trainer avg moving speed is higher than my normal 11mph average speed on riding the streets.

I get much more tired while riding the trainer. Is that normal? I can easily go 10-20 miles on the road (with breaks) but on the trainer, I'm dying after 3 miles and need a break. I am riding for 40 minute stretches and go about 8-9 miles in that 40 minutes.

The clock gives me motivation just to go that much father between breaks and seeing the speed and distance roll up feels good too but yuck.

Just wondering what others experiences are on trainers.

Willbird

I think it is boooooring :-).....riding an exercycle at the YMCA is an ordeal for 30 minutes. Easier to commit on the road too because there is no other way to get back home if you ride 20 miles out :-).

modelmartin

You can't coast on a trainer. There are no downhills! I think it is a harder workout for the time invested than riding on the road. Boring for sure - I put on headphones and listen to the radio.

Pakiwi

Yes very much harder.
while on the road you get to coast while on the trainer you are pedaling most of the time.
dont worry about the speed difference. You don't have the wind against you and things are not quite equal.
biking on the trainer can be boring. I bike to videos you can download online called sufferfest and they add variety to my trainer workouts.
Also there are some videos that are free on YouTube that have bike racing that you feel like your in the pack.
I also watched Cycling on TV Like tour of California.
I can now cycle two hours straight on the trainer.
allan

sdmc530

The only issue I have is its sooo boring like everyone else says. I get on and ride 45-60 minutes. TV is only good for a bit but then I hooked up the good ol' Wii last week and play on that while I ride, that is better but hate riding indoors all winter. Makes me want to move south just for that!

JerrySTL

Get a good size fan and have it blowing in your face or put the bike under a ceiling fan (watch your head!). I have a problem with sweating when using a stationary bike or a trainer and even getting overheated. Some airflow helps a lot plus you can close your eyes and dream that you are riding outside easier.

Jarrett2

No coasting makes the trainer harder. I have more respect for the fixie guys now for sure.

So far I've ridden mine four times while watching TV and I get bored in about 30 minutes. I need to try one of those YouTube trainer videos and see if that keeps me going longer. I can definitely see how it could strengthen your road cycling endurance though.

dagray

I picked up an interactive trainer that can be run from the cell phone (android or apple), a computer, and if you get a device like a Chromecast you can have the display on the TV.

This trainer adjusts resistance automatically based on the GPS data you feed it, or the pre loaded route you choose. The only downside is you can't coast, but you can watch the heart rate (if you have a heart rate monitor), speed, power, miles traveled, and with a cadence sensor you can see your cadence.

some of the routes are in 3D in the third person (you see your back and if others are on the route you see their back), or with a membership you can see the 3D view in first person (like you were actually riding).

That helps keep me from getting bored, and it is quieter than my other trainier used to be.

I am at 370-375 pounds myself.

Black wallnut 

I think for any given speed a trainer is harder. Boredom on the trainer well all I got to say about that is it is a personal decision to make it boring or fun, exciting, etc. When I want a hard workout I ride to a The Sufferfest video. When I need to do something less than that I'll watch race video on youtube or some other provider. Most of the time I would rater be outside but when it turns either cold or cold and nasty out the trainer works fine.

unabowler

I use my trainer a lot on weeknights, even through the summer. It's a rather inexpensive one, too, but still effective. I never see wear on the trainer itself but it's hard on tires.

It can be harder to ride it than riding outdoors because you don't coast. I'm lucky enough not to find it boring; in fact, I find it easier to focus on there and I do a lot of interval workouts on it. On the weekends I want to get out the door but after work I'm happy to avoid the rigamarole of prepping for a road ride and I'm happy to have the trainer.

rumrunn6

no. I used to be a regular commuter and I had a work friend who got back into cycling one winter using an indoor trainer. when he finally got good weather in the spring to ride on the road he commented how much harder it was to cycle on a real road. lots of real world things affect the ride, like traffic, obstacles and inclines. as a short distance runner it is much easier to do my time on an indoor treadmil than out on the streets, sidewalks or even the HS track

dr_lha

The thing is, riding a trainer is as hard as you want to make it. This is why stuff like Sufferfest and TrainerRoad are good ideas, because they encourage you to push yourself harder. You could spin in a low gear on a resistance trainer for an hour and not break a sweat if you wanted.

rideorglide

Guess it depends which trainer -- I had an old set of rollers from the 1980s, and the bike was clamped in. There was always some stiff resistance, it seemed.

I'm wondering what's a good-feeling modern trainer these days that isn't too expensive but which gives a decent variety of feels and resistance.

sstorkel

I use a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine fluid trainer, usually with TrainerRoad.com and Sufferfest videos.

I can get a very good workout using the trainer, but it's a different experience from riding outside. In particular, for any given power output (measured by my PowerTap power meter) I'll end up generating more speed on the trainer than I would outdoors. Because my speeds are higher, I travel further during a trainer workout than I would if I were riding outdoors. So, in some sense, riding the trainer is easier.

I think that most Clydes will find this to be the case. Larger riders, in particular, use a lot of power just to overcome wind resistance. A simple trainer like the Kurt or CycleOps can't really tell the difference between a 100lb rider and 500lb rider, so it will never be a completely accurate simulation of riding in the real world. As a result when riding on a trainer you really shouldn't focus solely on speed or time spent to know whether you're getting a good workout. Adding a power meter or heart rate monitor will give you a better idea of whether your work on the trainer matches the exercise you'd get riding on the road.

With that said, if you're someone who coasts frequently while riding outside you may find that a trainer is much more difficult due to the inability to coast for more than a few seconds!

Pakiwi

I use the same setup too. There is no cheating your workouts with this setup.
i attribute some of my improvements to being pushed by workouts on the trainer.
allan

JakiChan

So I don't have a trainer but I do a couple of spin classes each week. And, if the class is hard, I can burn 1000 calories in an hour. I don't do that on the bike. I can push myself harder in spin class because I'm not worried about traffic, or the road, or am I gonna get home, or if the hill is too hard will I pass out and fall over. I can push myself to insane levels in spin class.

That being said, give me a real bike ride any day...

bobotech

Well I have spun so far 4 times this week. I notice that I am much more tired when I ride on the trainer than I am on the road. I try to push myself. When I setup the trainer, I tighten the tension knob to the point where its very hard to turn. I leave my bike in the middle ring and put it on the 13t-15t cogs in the rear. 13t when I'm feeling good, then I drop down to the 15t when I'm starting to get exhausted. I try to keep the same high cadence while pedaling. I is far from easy. I rode 10 miles on it one night and it felt like I rode 15 on the road. I did setup the fan and that really does help with the sweating. Yesterday I went on a normal road ride and I was surprised at how much easier it seemed to be compared to spinning on the trainer.

sstorkel

I'd be curious to know where you got the 1000 calories/hour number. It seems a tad... optimistic.

Black wallnut 

+1 well said sstorkel.

JakiChan

Via a heart rate monitor. I don't want to get sidetracked into yet another debate about the accuracy of various calorie expenditure calculation algorithms. I will provide the data from the apps that *I* use to track workouts that don't take place out on the road. If you want to say it's BS go right ahead, but it's the only reasonable way I have to track effort during a workout.

Also of note: I recently switched from the Polar H7 to the Wahoo TICKR X. First, the TICKR X rocks. Bluetooth and ANT+, which is great. Most spin bike computers that I've encountered do ANT+. The TICKR X also does motion analysis, and as you'll see in a second it can give you cadence during spin class. To me that's great because of the two spin classes I go to each week one of them doesn't have computers on the bike. And I tested the cadence measurement vs a spin bike that *did* have a computer and it was pretty accurate.

Anyway, I go to two spin classes a week, in addition to the regular cardio I do during a gym workout. The Wednesday spin class is at work, and it's usually neither as long nor as intense as the Thursday class I go to at 24 Hour Fitness. (The Thursday woman is insane. I threw up in her class once. But just a little.)

Here's an "average" 40 minute elliptical workout: Elliptical workout

Here's an "average" Wednesday spin class: Easy spin class

And here's where I almost died last Thursday: Hard spin class

I apologize for the wonky PDF nature from the Wahoo fitness app. It's not as polished as DigiFit. However, you can see lap data. The Wahoo TICKR X allows you to "double tap" it. (It's more like a double thump at times.) You can configure that double tap to do a few things, like "next song", or "lap marker". I use lap markers to kinda keep track of songs. For the classes with the right computers I do sometimes record the data and upload to Strava. As usual, Strava gives the lowest number in terms of calories, but given that the power meters on the spin bikes are not even close to calibrated I'm not sure I even trust it.

None of these numbers are ever going to be accurate, however. Even if you're wearing an indirect calorimeter during a workout (which, uh, not gonna do) you're still making some assumptions about how much energy the body is using. I try to keep things as consistent as possible so that I can more judge effort and performance rather than using it as an accurate input into my diet.

Anyway, hopefully that answers your question.

sstorkel

1000 calories/hour sounds like BS to me, which is why I asked. Heart rate monitors are notoriously inaccurate as far as calories burned are concerned. I'd divide the calorie number your HRM gives you by 2.0.

For future reference, 500-550 calories/hour or 30-35 calories/mile are good estimates for the number of calories burned when riding hard. The numbers I see from my power meter are generally within those ranges; maybe a bit higher for rides that involve a lot of climbing.

JakiChan

And here we are with the "your heart rate monitor is stupid" debate that we've had before, that I was trying to avoid. Nevertheless...

I assume you've reviewed the posted data, especially looking at the average heart rate, zones, etc?

Yes, you've made that assertion before. However, always without any cited science or anything else to back that up. I'll just post this again, and leave it at that:

How Accurate is that Calorie Reading? - Training Peaks

I would suggest that the discrepancy is much less than you're suggesting. 10% - 20% is what has been demonstrated in lab testing. Certainly much more accurate than time/distance algos that some folks use. Also, the discrepancy between the HR calories and the machine calories is also fairly significant on the elliptical. And that, oddly enough, is giving me watts/kJs if I want them.

The "numbers you see from your power meter" are just estimates. All your power meter is accurately recording (assuming proper calibration and what not) is kJs. When you turn that in to calories you're making just as much of an assumption as anyone else. For example, the 24% number given is for athletes. I know I'm not one. Which makes me wonder - are athletes more efficient or less efficient? When I have a power meter and I want to be "safe" do I go for .2 or .3? Who knows? I suppose I wouldn't trust it as accurate without having a test done under lab conditions, with my bike on the trainer, and an indirect calorimeter hooked up for an hour. And I'm sure that's both expensive and not fun.

However, none of this is relevant to the OPs question.

My point, as stated, was that based on the data I've measured I can work harder during a 1 hr spin class (as measured via heart rate) than I do during a 1 hour bike ride. I'm basing this on heart rate alone. It's also more intense than other forms of cardio that I do, such as the elliptical trainer. I attribute this to the reasons I've mentioned - I'm not worrying about traffic, balance, red lights, bonking, or anything other than pushing myself as hard as I can. It's not a replacement for a real ride by any stretch of the imagination. I view it as a gym class/workout that meets my cardio needs better than anything I've found.

I'm not sure I'd do as well on a trainer by myself. I'm sure it's better from a cycling training perspective, but the spin class format works for me as exercise. Things like the Sufferfest videos try to get you there, so if I had a trainer I'd do those.

sstorkel

Yes, but they're decent estimates as opposed to the numbers that HRMs seem to generate. My various heart rate monitors, and every piece of gym equipment I've ever used, all produce calorie numbers that are disconcertingly higher than what the power meter shows. When I believed the calorie numbers from the HRMs, I didn't lose weight. When I started using the power meter, I rapidly shed 50 or 60lbs. Which, to me, says that the numbers coming out of the power meter are more accurate than the numbers from the HRMs.

And don't even get me started on how bogus the numbers coming out of gym equipment are...

If you'd said all that without throwing around the bogus 1000 calories/hour number, I would have agreed with you completely!

Willbird

I'm not buying 1000 calories an hour either :-).

But to each their own, and what one does with those numbers is what is important really, if you were to do a spin class every day, and eat back those 1000 calories a day for a week or two, my bet is you would start gaining weight :-). Currently I do not eat back very many exercise calories.....100 at most unless I am preparing for a huge ride, and the day of a huge ride, say a metric or a 75 mile ride for example. So the exact calorie "burn" is really inconsequential to me really. But I can see by not eating back that most HRM burn rates are "incorrect" for me anyway because I do not shed weight at the rate that the "burn" would add up to. I could see 400 calories an hour maybe in the weight loss statistics.

But for the most part I have not done any "insane" levels of output riding either, there is no training benefit for me to do so that I know of. I did do two separate FTP tests on Trainer Road about 3 days apart and that DID kick my butt physically for sure.

The first one was a 100% effort for two separate 8 minute burns plus some warm up and cool down, I did skip some of the warm up stuff because I was not yet able to ride for an hour straight, total burn 228kj.

The second was a 20 minute 100% effort with again some warm up and cool down....I did the full hour this time, total burn 380kj.

Both tests gave a similar FTP 118-122, first had LTHR at 150 or so, the second bumped my LTHR to 166. There is some "gaming" to these FTP tests too because until you do it at least once you have no idea what is coming next :-).

I am using Trainer road and my Sportcrafters resistance rollers, and Iheart radio is a nice addition, I just fire it up tuned to WJR in Detroit. The rollers are a challenge for sure I was able to stand in the pedals a little bit today, first time I have tried that, putting a water bottle back in the cage after a drink is still a challenge.

Today I just did a free ride 60 minutes, total burn 303kj. I need to work on one legged pedaling a bit too because many of the training routines in the Base training include that.

Black wallnut 

@JakiChan your 1000 calorie an hour number is troubling for several reasons. First almost no one else claims such calorie expenditure. Second your insistence on believing it must be impacting your goals from what I remember in other threads. we can just agree to disagree though as you didn't want to debate this.

The good thing is that by using HR data to compare rides to determine effort and relative output we all seem to agree that the specific numbers for that do not really matter. Given the distraction you have riding on the road where you live I have no doubt you are able to put out more effort on a spin bike.