Mixing it up with Indoor Bike Training

Posted on by Andy Florint

Mixing it up with Indoor Bike Training

In preparation for the Ultra-Trail next May, I want to get more endurance and leg strength. I simple could try to run more than five days a week with TrainAsOne, but I fear that this will make it more likely that I injure myself. I don’t want to risk this. Inspired by the the amazing 1:06:33 half-marathon time at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship (Race Report), I thought that adding some indoor bike training is a good idea. Doing a serious bike training outside in the German winter is not very appealing to me and it is hard to sustain. At least that’s my experience from the distant past. So I decided to do it indoors with TrainerRoad.

Why TrainerRoad?

I looked at the some indoor cycling platforms, Zwift, Tacx, The Sufferfest and TrainerRoad. For sure there are some other, but I didn’t look any further. So why TrainerRoad? The first impressions counts. In my case I was looking especially for information on training plans. I could immediately find the plans on the TrainerRoad website, without the need to create an account or click through a couple of pages. Another main thing was, that with my equipment (see below) and the space where I can train (no electricity), I’m a little bit limited. In addition I just wanted it as simple and cost efficient as possible. No need for fancy equipment or the need to carry my laptop around for watching videos etc. Just me, the bike and a plan. The Sufferfest would be an option, but they don’t have an Android App at the moment. This doesn’t mean that other platforms wouldn’t fulfill my needs, if I would dive deeper into them, but TrainerRoad seemed to offer the best at the moment for my needs. The pricing is reasonable at 15 US$ for the monthly subscription, which I use.

Equipment

I bought the Tacx Booster second-hand for 100€ (~114US$) in very good condition and the rest I already owned. The Booster with 1050W is the most powerful basic trainer from Tacx. Not that I’m able to generate so much power, but I hope that the material is better and that the trainer will last longer. We will see. Speed and cadence is necessary, because the TrainerRoad App uses it to calculate virtual-power. All workouts are power based. The base is the actual FTP (Functional Threshold Power) value, which needs to be determined by an initial test. In one of the next posts I will dive deeper into the TrainerRoad platform and FTP based training.

Indoor training setup

Just to clarify things. I’m not working for any of the above mentioned companies nor do I get any money or any other benefits from them. It’s all my own opinion. If this changes I will state it clearly. Thanks for reading.