Turbo Training and Sufferfest

hoosh1

Hello,

I am looking to buy a turbo trainer for the winter months. Have been using exercise bike in the gym but miss the feel of my own bike on the dark evenings.
Anyway after a few hours research I think I have it narrowed down to this one http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/tacx-blue-motion-satori-pro-replacement-/rp-prod86561

Was thinking about buying a cheap clarke one but i think the extra few quid for the Tacx could be worth it.

I use mapmyride when cycling on the road and find it invaluable for motivation to go faster and further each ride. I think I will need something similar for the turbo and have seen the sufferfest videos mentioned a lot.
Are these ok to use without any kind of link between how hard am I am actually working on the bike? Basically do I need to buy a HR monitor and speed/cadence monitor to get the best out of the turbo and the videos? Dont want to break the bank with all this

Cheers

Darkglasses

Tools like a HR and cadence are useful, but if you know yourself that you'll work hard when you're supposed to, I don't think you'll need them. Personally I work fine on the rollers without them. I'm not really into racing so maybe people aiming for A3/A2 racing wouldn't be happy with the results that I get, but it's fine for me. However if you think that you'd slack off and not give the full effort without having a specific number to aim at, a cheap HRM would be useful. I got a fairly decent one for ~35 euro lately.

I think with turbos it is worth spending a bit more, you do get a fair bit better product the more you spend, at least to a point. Better resistance levels and also having a quiet machine are pretty appealing.

G1032

hoosh1 wrote: »

Hello,

I am looking to buy a turbo trainer for the winter months. Have been using exercise bike in the gym but miss the feel of my own bike on the dark evenings.
Anyway after a few hours research I think I have it narrowed down to this one http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/tacx-blue-motion-satori-pro-replacement-/rp-prod86561

Was thinking about buying a cheap clarke one but i think the extra few quid for the Tacx could be worth it.

I use mapmyride when cycling on the road and find it invaluable for motivation to go faster and further each ride. I think I will need something similar for the turbo and have seen the sufferfest videos mentioned a lot.
Are these ok to use without any kind of link between how hard am I am actually working on the bike? Basically do I need to buy a HR monitor and speed/cadence monitor to get the best out of the turbo and the videos? Dont want to break the bank with all this

Cheers

A little off topic but try Strava instead of mapmyride. Compare yourself to others over particular segments of your rides.......

ROK ON

There are many ways to measure effort (power which is expensive but accurate, HRM which are inexpensive and quasi accurate or perceived effort which is free and diffict to gauge). To get the value from a turbo choose one and learn how to use it.

The second part - a cadence sensor is simply invaluable on a turbo - I think at the very least you waste the effort by not having one.

Why - on a turbo the conditions are the same. No wind, no bad roads. So for any interval an easy way to measure progression is to assess speed and cadence in a certain gearing ratio over a set time limit. This can be short anaerobic bursts to longer TT type efforts at threshold.
Either way a cadence sensor helps to track your input on a certain gear and measure the output - ie speed.
Speed in real life will be lower due to road surfaces and weather conditions.

If I didn't have a cadence sensor or a way of measuring effort I wouldn't use a turbo.
Ymmv

Ps - Sufferfest is great. Grat music and good intervals. Keeps mind occupied and helps you stay on the bike for the session.
I love the turbo - more so than cycling sometimes.

Ryder

Darkglasses wrote: »

Tools like a HR and cadence are useful, but if you know yourself that you'll work hard when you're supposed to, I don't think you'll need them. Personally I work fine on the rollers without them. I'm not really into racing so maybe people aiming for A3/A2 racing wouldn't be happy with the results that I get, but it's fine for me. However if you think that you'd slack off and not give the full effort without having a specific number to aim at, a cheap HRM would be useful. I got a fairly decent one for ~35 euro lately.

I think with turbos it is worth spending a bit more, you do get a fair bit better product the more you spend, at least to a point. Better resistance levels and also having a quiet machine are pretty appealing.

agree with this. heart rate is almost useless for doing intervals on turbo/rollers. by the time it rises to reflect intensity, youre a couple of minutes into the interval, so you end up working off 'feel' either way. save the money and invest in a gps so you can take part in things like strava

ROK ON

I use the turbo a fair amount during the year and have never found my HR to be slow to respond to an effort.
Warm up gradually increasing the effort. Once Warmed up focus on the interval.
Now I find I can get up to threshold HR easily and can also get down to tempo and z2 HR quickly in recovery phase. I find this in the road as well as the turbo.
For the folks who find it difficult to get HR up - is it only on the turbo. If so the cynic in me would say you are not pushing yourself hard enough.
But as I said above YMMV.

Ryder

ROK ON wrote: »

I use the turbo a fair amount during the year and have never found my HR to be slow to respond to an effort.
Warm up gradually increasing the effort. Once Warmed up focus on the interval.
Now I find I can get up to threshold HR easily and can also get down to tempo and z2 HR quickly in recovery phase. I find this in the road as well as the turbo.
For the folks who find it difficult to get HR up - is it only on the turbo. If so the cynic in me would say you are not pushing yourself hard enough.
But as I said above YMMV.

cardiac lag is only going to affect short intervals.....about a 2 minute delay before the hr stabilizes and reflects intensity. its annoying more than anything else especially when doing intervals shorter than 10mins. I used to use a hrm but, personally, find rate of perceived exertion easier to use indoors.

DaithiMC

hoosh1 wrote: »

Hello,

I am looking to buy a turbo trainer for the winter months. Have been using exercise bike in the gym but miss the feel of my own bike on the dark evenings.
Anyway after a few hours research I think I have it narrowed down to this one http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/tacx-blue-motion-satori-pro-replacement-/rp-prod86561

Was thinking about buying a cheap clarke one but i think the extra few quid for the Tacx could be worth it.

I use mapmyride when cycling on the road and find it invaluable for motivation to go faster and further each ride. I think I will need something similar for the turbo and have seen the sufferfest videos mentioned a lot.
Are these ok to use without any kind of link between how hard am I am actually working on the bike? Basically do I need to buy a HR monitor and speed/cadence monitor to get the best out of the turbo and the videos? Dont want to break the bank with all this

Cheers

I'm looking into buying a turbo myself and can't give any input in relation to that. I have used a few bits of tech in the form of App though and would agree that Strava, particularly on spins is very good for keeping track of progress against yourself (like Mapmyride) and others. Its a bit of a laugh too with friends of equal ability to try to beat them in segments.

Another app with, IMO, the best interface of all the apps is Sportstracker (http://www.sports-tracker.com/). This is good for other workouts too but they also sell a HRM that works with your mobile phone (I think Strava does too) and keeps track of your HRM over your session. I coupled this with another app call Workout Forge that allows you design intervals and gives you a countdown on the screen and buzzes to tell you to increase effort. I programmed in a Russian Steps interval programme, ran it alongside Sportstracker with the HRM and got a very nice trace over the workout showing the HR going up with effort. You can input zones too and it gives a nice analysis chart of how much time you spent in each zone.

I did that a few times and was able to log improvements over time. I was also able to listen to music or watch Netflix with not too much disruption, i.e., I could still hear the buzzes and beeps!

This was on a spinning bike I bought but now am kind of regretting that as I probably should have bought a Turbo as I have a cadence sensor on my bike so I am procrastinating over buying the Turbo - maybe sell the Spinning bike to fund it!

couerdelion

I've found TrainerRoad invaluable for winter turbo training and really recommend it.

Basically it's a virtual power meter with trainig plans so you are always training at a detrmined effort and HR lag doesn't matter.

I did a short review of setting it up a year or so ago here

hoosh1

Wow a lot of info to get through here thanks for all the replies.

On the strava thing, mapmyride offers a similar competitive facility and is particularly handy for tracking your performance on climbs, i guess more people use strava though.

I looked at trainerroad today it looks quite good I think I might go down that route but first things first I'm going to purchase the turbo and get that set up. Will look into various monitors as I get going on the turbo.

For future reference does anyone know what kind of money I'd be shelling out for HRM and cadence/speed sensors? Maybe an all in one job, I've been looking at the usual websites and the choice seems fairly endless.

Cheers