Old MTB on a standard turbo trainer.

Interested in some sort of structure – with a basic setup Trainerroad and Zwift are out, so am I stuck with Sufferfest or is there other good stuff out there?

Turbo work – with no cadence sensor or power meter…..

…is an even more soul destroying, gonad numbing, perenium ripping experience than with those toys.

Chappeau if you stick with it.

Have you got a heart rate monitor? You could do some pyramid zone training?

have you got a hr monitor at least? before joining trainerroad i just did hr based training while watching uci re-runs

edit – beaten to it!

Yeah. Got an HR monitor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_scale

Sufferfest videos will get you through and hour a lot better than a HR/Power meter and no video. Borg scale is approximately heart rate/10. Why not have a good spin to steady-state and then take your heart rate and remember how it feels. Here’s a tip, you won’t be working as hard as you think you are 😉 . For me, Power = 2*HR – 80 at steady-state.

Or go to Lidl and buy a cheap HR monitor with bluetooth.

just do that tabata stuff ? short, painful, maximal efforts so no need for a meter

(it seems to me)

Put a large bowl on some scales under the cross bar and don’t stop until you have collected your target weight of sweat.

Goals with time are to reach that target in lower and lower times.

Some of the more recent Garmin units can be used to run workouts. It’s a while since I created any but I think you need Garmin Connect (good luck!) to do the actual creation and you then upload the workout or workouts to the unit. You can use HR as the guiding metric if you want.

…is an even more soul destroying, gonad numbing, perenium ripping experience than with those toys.

Chappeau if you stick with it.

Agree with that – I hate the turbo. Big time.

But, I’m going to force myself to use it this winter. I bought one last year when our little ‘un was born to try and get some spinning in but ended up loathing it. Even with a film on.

I just do it by horribleness. Intervals of awful interspersed with periods of grim.

Do you want the data, to be able to work with TR or Swift? E.g. For £50 you can get Ant+ dongle and both Garmin speed and Cadence sensors..if your turbo is then recognised by TR you have it all…

Don’t want or need detailed data, was just after a way to make it slightly less intolerable.

That Tabata stuff looks brutal!

Don’t want or need detailed data, was just after a way to make it slightly less intolerable.

sufferfest or trainer road (or both) imo

I’m with northwind. 30 min of brutal intervals, or until I pass out/ blow chunks. I just can’t motivate myself to do more indoors

Even with a film on.

Especially with a film on. Long steady distance is impossible for me on a turbo, it’s soul-destroyingly boring. Intervals or Sufferfest actually make the time pass pretty quickly.

I must be a deviant. I genuinely enjoy beasting myself with Sufferfest vidoes. From a cardio workout perspective they’re great – which then translates to better fitness on the MTB. Win, win imdo.