Do you ride indoors? Maybe only under duress? Or maybe it’s central to keeping yourself fit and sane between rides outdoors? Mountain bikers don’t traditionally have a reputation for ‘training’, but we know from your chats on the Forum that plenty of you are at it. To help us demonstrate to brands that you’re interested, we’d like to know a bit about your habits – and if you’ve got a great tip for getting set up, or making it happen, head to the comments.
Amanda loves this sort of thing. Do you?
First of all, here’s a general poll question for you to answer before you move on to the more detailed survey below.
Now the more detailed questions
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Is this an image of progress, or torture?What bike? Wattbike8 minutes is plentyLook mum, no hands!
I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones.
More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments.
I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.
Please sort that form out, if you want useful answers!
I filled it in, ignored the “submit” button at the top (below the first question) & hit “submit answers” at the bottom. The page did something & the filled in answers disappeared. No idea if they submitted or not, but it didn’t look hopeful.
Tried again, answering the first question & hitting submit, thinking this might then prompt me to answer the more detailed questions below, but then got a ‘your vote has been saved’ message, but now with nothing below filled in.
WRT to this bit…. and if you’ve got a great tip for getting set up, or making it happen, head to the comments.
Permanent bike & trainer set-up in the garage with fans galore.
Zwift subscription & Xert for the training side of things. Keep it interesting with group-rides/pacer bot sessions on Zwift/meet-ups for workouts which help with motivation.
Plenty of Spotify playlists and podcasts to help with short attention span.
Only got into it with the advent of zwift (or similar). The virtual reality is needed to keep my interest, making it fun in its own right – otherwise I would never have the attention span or mental drive to spend many hours a week all winter doing something purely on the promise that it will make mtbing better in spring.
“why people go to the gym and ONLY use the treadmill – when it’s a nice day outside”
I suppose the answer to this one is partly habit, if you are used to going to the gym and find it easier to keep that habit – or you find that the places to you aren’t conducive to running like loads of unhelpful dual carriageways etc and you don’t have to worry about carrying drinks etc – or if you are doing interval or high effort training and don’t have the confidence/skills to do that. Also it’s fairly rare it seems to me that people go to the gym and don’t use anything other than a treadmill
anyway – back on topic, I don’t have space in the house so don’t have any kit but I will use the gym bikes during the winter to do intervals to stop my fitness levels completely evaporating, I also run in the winter rather than take a bike out as I’m time crunched usually
Slightly OT, but always makes me wonder why people go to the gym and ONLY use the treadmill – when it’s a nice day outside
as has been said – safety..convenience (you may wanna run 5km or feel up for 10km, but if you bail at Xkm, you’re still where you started!), pacing (it’s much easier to stick to 5min/km on a treadmill etc etc). Personally i hate treadmills, but see the logic.
I’m more easily motivated when I have a big event. Will do more over winter when the rides dont justify the clean up.
I’ve ditched my smart-trainer/old roadbike/trainerroad for a Renpho smart bike. Virtually silent, takes up less space and quicker to set up (syncing up all the sensors, etc drove me mad before).
Not interested in Zwift, I like watching films/box sets and glancing down to check I’m on the right power every so often.
I use a garmin watch for HRM/recording and the Renpho app to create the workouts.
MyWhoosh has been good for me since getting the JetBlack Volt in the Evans offer. Loads of structured interval workouts to go at and ride along with fake scenery and avatars like Zwift. Free, which is nice these days, and works nicely on my ipad. Either that or set a resistance and put some TV on.
Wheel-on trainer, and a spare wheel/schwalbe marathon on my hardtail. Dug it out again a few weeks back, to try and build some base fitness. Can’t do any zone 2 outdoors round here, it’s too hilly. Tried zwift for the first time recently, not sure it’s for me.
Slightly OT, but always makes me wonder why people go to the gym and ONLY use the treadmill – when it’s a nice day outside
Habit, able to set a specific pace, for women slightly less chance of men harassing them?, able to mess around with inclines etc?
Being in a pretty flat area I am thinking about spending more time on the treadmill or stepper during winter especially to get some training in for hills. Went to the lake district for week of riding and walking and suffered like hell.
For the op quiz. Outside of a vague reference under “other” doesnt cover go to gym spin classes and so seems to miss both choice of equipment, platform and motivation.
I aint a fan of indoor training but over the winter I find booking into a class regularly if not exactly motivating does make me keep my fitness vaguely up. Although if the local terrain wasnt clay/sand and hence an absolute quagmire trashing both my bike and the trails I would prefer to be riding a mountain bike. As it is the road bike and indoor compete and during the week evenings indoor just wins.
what ours me off is that it’s uncomfortable compared to riding outdoors. that’s not to say i don’t have an indoor trainer, it’s just the gentleman’s numbness that can put me off.
what ours me off is that it’s uncomfortable compared to riding outdoors
Just switch in your own saddle. I recommend one of these
More seriously switching positions regularly helps. One problem I find indoors is you dont have the constant subtle shifting of weight you have riding properly to avoid saying hi to a tree.
@LAT – usual advice about trying saddles, but I found a rocker plate made a huge difference to my ability to knock out longer inddor rides. I also flipped the stem on my bike a bit so I’m a bit more upright and I have a set of aero bars fitted so I have more choice of positions (and it gives me somewhere to mount the phone so that I’m not dripping sweat all over it 🙂 )
The last question could also do with an option of “when it gets too hot”.
I’m not a huge fan of indoor riding, but they’re good midweek workouts, and having done a bit of RGT racing last year I can see the appeal of that. Unfortunately RGT is now RIP, so not sure what I’m gonig to do this winter.
I am one of those people who actually quite likes indoor training- even before Zwift and even Trainerroad and Sufferfest I would be reasonably happy knocking out intervals from a plan ripped out the back of a magazine.
I quite like the feeling of smashing myself (or more accurately, the feeling afterwards) and this is quite easy to do on a turbo trainer. So, I am usually happy to do intervals on the trainer 2 or 3 times a week and just do a “proper” ride on a Sunday morning.
One thing that also doesn’t get mentioned alongside the obvious advantage for time crunched people is also location. I live in Manchester so for me, any bike ride is approximately 35-40mins of essentially commuting through Manchester and then suburbs to get to the country lanes- and then the same for the return journey.
This means that for any post work mid-week ride I am signing myself up to at least 60mins of city commuting (with half of that being in rush-hour) as part of any ride.
I think if I lived somewhere with easier access to country lanes I would maybe use the turbo less but as it is, I can’t always be arsed battling through city traffic for 40mins just to get to some nice roads.
Has anyone else substituted ‘spring knee’ for ‘winter knee’? Once it’s officially indoor training season I actually ride more frequently and probably harder during the week, cue sore knees not used to the effort!
Am sure traditionally this was a springtime ailment 🙄
I used to, when I worked on a ship and had a long commute. Since I started working within cycling distance of an office I gave it up. I’d rather be outside in the cold rain and mud TBH.
Maybe when I’m older. But then maybe I’ll just buy an e-bike and keep going outside….
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