Indoor Bike Training/Testing
Hi All:
I live in the cold tundra of wisconsin and therefore am about to be forced into riding indoors. I have two options and both will most likely get used on a weekly basis. At the gym - Cycleops 300PT which has all the power stuff and I am comfortable on. At home the airfoil on a trainer, only a heart rate monitor since I don't have power stuff and won't have until probably closer to racing season. I have never ridden a bike on the trainer before, except for my bike fit. So which would you do the testing on or would you do both?
Jennifer
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Comments
Or you can go the difficult/challenging route, and test on both - to use the equipment specific testing values for your workouts on those specific pieces of equipment. Test on the gym bike to use while you're at the gym, test with HR at home on the trainer for your rides at home on the trainer. Two different tests for two different sets of data! Mo data is mo betta!
This could/should also give you a very good "correlation" between watts and HR, for RPE, when you don't have HR or watts, or when equipment fails in events. It's all good!
So, FWIW, here's my n=1: #1) The fit on a spin bike, no matter how awesome/adjustable, can't come close to your OWN bike that's been set up specifically to fit YOU. Part of the time you spend on your bike is getting comfortable on YOUR bike, not a stationary bike in a gym. And #2) Spin bikes are calibrated very differently from each other (ie, no two spin bikes are ever calibrated the same) AND from a power meter. So when you DO get around to getting a PM, the numbers will very likely be off from what you're seeing on the 300PT, and if you were to use the 300PT, you would have to use the same one every. single. time. Finally, I have to ask how comfortable you are suffering in front of all of the other people in the gym when you do your FTP test... 'cause it ain't pretty a lot of the time! And if someone came along and disturbed me during a work interval for any reason... I'd probably kill them. I've come to like the solace of my pain cave!
When I was finally willing to realize that I wasn't doing myself any favors by NOT using my own bike and my own PM and I gave up the spin and started actually using my own bike/trainer/PM consistently when I joined EN, I immediately saw gains. Given my own experience, and the experience of a friend who did 100% of her indoor training for IMLou on a spin bike and almost didn't make the cutoff (despite being very fit), I have to say stick with your own bike and train with HR until you get the PM. When you get your PM, do an FTP test and carry on from there. You'll have the added bonus of being really familiar with your HR and RPE zones when you start training with power!
My guess is do one test use HR and move on. This will save you time and effort trying to figure out this bike vs. that bike...
Christmas is coming up , PT from Santa ? .... Nice
BTW.. welcome to EN
That is the key point IMO. I would also say that if you are already intending to invest in a powermeter (which it sounds like you are), you would be very, very wise to move up that expenditure and have it for the OS.
I prefer a real bike PM (e.g., power tap wheel) to a less expensive thing that only works on your trainer...because the less expensive thing is great now, but you will still want/need the real bike PM when you go outdoors...so (unfortunately) it's best to bite the bullet up front if you can.
Yeah; but my wife just walks on by, and heads off to her own cave to mess with her photos. I guess she figures if I were going to keel over, it would have happened by now.