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.
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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.
To be honest I only rode on my rollers until I could ride no handed, hop on/off and trackstand on the side frame. My wife gave it a better attempt and did a few ‘sessions’.
I think what killed it for both of us was a few goes on zwift using a wahoo gps and heartrate with a dumb roller resulted in a very sluggish and unresponsive experience on screen. The cadence would get stuck and no matter how hard you rode you’d be crawling on screen!
Gcn sessions on YouTube are good, I try to do one session a week over the dark months, this fits around my limited outdoor riding and 2/3 gym sessions. I have an older turbo but hate it, I use rollers now which are so much nicer to ride and also help develop smoother riding. I also have my 10 year old do 1/2 sessions a week to fit around his football training, football matches, cycling club training and cx races. Only takes about 45 minutes to get a real sweat up.
The way I treat indoor riding is the same as I treat the gym, keep it short and sweet but do it regularly. This way you limit boredom and will reap the benefits which will see you hitting the spring trails without the winter weight and heavy legs.
I’m certainly in the ‘bikes are for outside’ camp. Turbo trainers can be really effective ime but for me they’re a tool for fine-tuning fitness for something specific, they don’t replace riding outdoors. I’d rather be out in the damp and grey for a couple of hours than using a trainer.
I have an old trad trainer, a HRM, an over/under threshold session that get results if I stick at it once a week for 8-12 weeks and a playlist of techno or thrash metal that works. Simple stuff. But I need to be motivated by something in the first place otherwise my regular riding is enough to keep a reasonable form, I’d rather do hill reps or a hilly loop than an interval session and I reckon it’s almost as effective overall.
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