Turbo trainer

socrates

I have the intention of using a turbo trainer over the winter for the first time. Reasons are twofold, a)on those horrible days when it is just not possible to get out and b)in the hope that it will improve my climbing especially as time out on the road can be limited on occassions. Is there any specific training plan that I could do to help with option b or am I wasting my time. Any advice would be gratefully received.

diamonddog

I use the turbo in the two highest tension settings (5 settings) for hill simulations, basically 30/40 mins or 50%/50% spin and climb simulation using mid low (spin) and highest two tensions (climb). I found it keeps the legs and cardio system in tune for when it is possible to get out on the road. Just get the iPod on and pedal I find the time passes OK.

socrates

Many thanks DD. Will give it a go over the winter

diamonddog

Change between tensions for the hill sims. after all not all hills have constant gradients. I usually change up and down the tensions and gearing for a bit more realism and keep as high a cadence as poss. Hope it works for you.

phreak

What kind of hills are you training for? Alpine climbs of an hour are different to short, steep UK ones of a few minutes. Best bet is to train for the kind of effort you want to get better at, so if the hills near you take 5 minutes to get up, train at improving your performance over that kind of time frame.

socrates

Training for longer climbs

phreak

socrates wrote:

Training for longer climbs

Most of my turbo work for European climbs consists of 1hr lactate threshold sessions to train for those kind of sustained efforts.

Time trials are probably similarly effective.

ric/rstsport

In general you probably just want to train your performance (power output) to increase over the durations that are important to you (e.g., when i race most hills i encounter are <5-mins long so you probably want to increase your ability over this duration as well as others such as LT, FTP and MAP).

You can't really train the specific neuromuscular demands of climbing on a turbo as your turbo is most likely level and a hill isn't (although when i was at university, i used to do a considerable amount of *bike* training on an inclined treadmill. your local gym may not be keen on this!!!!!!!!).

Ric

phreak

Ric, whilst not the same, I put an old wine box under my front wheel to lift it up a few inches, thus creating a false incline on the bike. Would that be a reasonable substitute?

For what it's worth, when I did the maths, it created around about a 5% incline, with the box being around 4/5 inches high.

imposter2.0

I remember completely messing up my pre-season training one year, by doing all my 2x20 efforts up a 20-minute climb. I thought it was a great idea. With hindsight it was a big mistake, considering all my races are flat. Specificity n all that...

ric/rstsport

phreak wrote:

Ric, whilst not the same, I put an old wine box under my front wheel to lift it up a few inches, thus creating a false incline on the bike. Would that be a reasonable substitute?

not really. your bike is static on a turbo and moving on a treadmill, inclining a turbo won't affect your speed/power, but if you ride up say a 10% grade on a treadmill you'll need to generate the ~same power as on the road up a 10% grade and you'll be going the ~same speed. i'd *GUESS* that if you could incline rollers that might work, but in all honesty when i attempted to try this myself i kept falling off the bloody things when they were inclined and so i never got to think anymore about it!

Ric

Tom Dean

phreak wrote:

For what it's worth, when I did the maths, it created around about a 5% incline, with the box being around 4/5 inches high.

How long is your bike?

phreak

Tom Dean wrote:

phreak wrote:

For what it's worth, when I did the maths, it created around about a 5% incline, with the box being around 4/5 inches high.

How long is your bike?

No idea off hand. Was sad enough to have figured it out a few years ago though.

davidof

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

i'd *GUESS* that if you could incline rollers that might work, but in all honesty when i attempted to try this myself i kept falling off the bloody things when they were inclined and so i never got to think anymore about it!

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here or what inclining the rollers is supposed to achieve?

However, if you want to simulate a 1 hour alpine climb you will need to put out the same power over that hour on rollers at a similar cadence as you would on the road. About 200-250 watts for most riders.

This piece of software I've developed will let you simulate an alpine climb on rollers or a turbo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVaYwOK_HI8

maryka

Imposter wrote:

I remember completely messing up my pre-season training one year, by doing all my 2x20 efforts up a 20-minute climb. I thought it was a great idea. With hindsight it was a big mistake, considering all my races are flat. Specificity n all that...

Well a big part of my training is pulling a baby trailer around a 7 mile quiet road loop at 15mph, I've seen no adverse effects to my race watts from that. Unless you're climbing a 25% climb for 20 min, I fail to see how it was a mistake, unless you mean you did all steady-state SST/FTP riding and no bursty stuff? In which case, yes your road racing would probably suffer. Red herring there I think, to say it was the hill that was the problem.

Yes the inertia is slightly different between climbing and flat-road riding (see the Cycling Tips article here, http://cyclingtips.com.au/2013/09/climb ... -affected/) but it's not so great that you'd be more than a few % difference in watts on a flat vs up a hill, especially in a road race. TTing, where you've got your nose in the wind in a very aggressive aero position at 30mph for anywhere from 20 min to 4 hours, I can see why you'd need to train at those speeds and that specific inertia. But typical amateur road racing in the UK, no way.

ric/rstsport

davidof wrote:

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

i'd *GUESS* that if you could incline rollers that might work, but in all honesty when i attempted to try this myself i kept falling off the bloody things when they were inclined and so i never got to think anymore about it!

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here or what inclining the rollers is supposed to achieve?

However, if you want to simulate a 1 hour alpine climb you will need to put out the same power over that hour on rollers at a similar cadence as you would on the road. About 200-250 watts for most riders.

This piece of software I've developed will let you simulate an alpine climb on rollers or a turbo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVaYwOK_HI8

riding a bike on the turbo is different to riding on the road (pedalling mechanics can be altered). riding on level ground is different to riding on an incline. riding on an inclined treadmill is completely different to riding on a turbo. inertia and pedalling mechanics are different

just because you can ride at the same power on the flat as uphill doesn't make it the same.

some of the ideas i came up with in ~1995/96 about using the treadmill for training ended up being adopted by British Cycling (and some of their ideas about treadmill training i ended up adopting). if you search the web you can find images of BC riders training on an inclined motorised treadmill. (although BC fitted the riders in a harness, where as i PLF and hoped the fear of being thrown off the back was sufficient motivation to "keep going"!!!! :-D).

Ric

imposter2.0

maryka wrote:

Unless you're climbing a 25% climb for 20 min, I fail to see how it was a mistake, unless you mean you did all steady-state SST/FTP riding and no bursty stuff? In which case, yes your road racing would probably suffer. Red herring there I think, to say it was the hill that was the problem.

Riding at threshold whilst travelling at 12mph up hill is different to riding at threshold while holding 25mph on the flat. There's probably an explanation for it, but I don't have it.

maryka

Imposter wrote:

maryka wrote:

Unless you're climbing a 25% climb for 20 min, I fail to see how it was a mistake, unless you mean you did all steady-state SST/FTP riding and no bursty stuff? In which case, yes your road racing would probably suffer. Red herring there I think, to say it was the hill that was the problem.

Riding at threshold whilst travelling at 12mph up hill is different to riding at threshold while holding 25mph on the flat. There's probably an explanation for it, but I don't have it.

12mph up a hill that takes 20 min to climb is going to be ~6km at 5-6%. Again, not steep enough to make a difference in inertia imo. When was the last time you sat on the front of a bunch for 20 min at 25mph? Red herring.

imposter2.0

maryka wrote:

Imposter wrote:

maryka wrote:

Unless you're climbing a 25% climb for 20 min, I fail to see how it was a mistake, unless you mean you did all steady-state SST/FTP riding and no bursty stuff? In which case, yes your road racing would probably suffer. Red herring there I think, to say it was the hill that was the problem.

Riding at threshold whilst travelling at 12mph up hill is different to riding at threshold while holding 25mph on the flat. There's probably an explanation for it, but I don't have it.

12mph up a hill that takes 20 min to climb is going to be ~6km at 5-6%. Again, not steep enough to make a difference in inertia imo. When was the last time you sat on the front of a bunch for 20 min at 25mph? Red herring.

I never said anything about sitting on the front of any bunch at 25mph. I used the speed as a rough proxy for effort, that's all - it could also be 19/20/22/23mph (delete as appropriate) on a different day, or on a different road. The point I'm making is (coincidentally) the same point that Ric made earier. Knocking out an interval on a hill is not the same as doing it at the same intensity on the flat, regardless of the actual speed you are travelling at - you simply ride in a different way - and usually at a difference cadence, I'm sure you know that.

It's possible that there could have been all kinds of things wrong with my training that year, but from memory, that's the only thing that stands out as being different. But I'm not here to ask you for training advice.

maryka

madasahattersley wrote:

Yep there is a huge difference between sitting up and riding at 85rpm up a hill and riding in an aero position at 100rpm. I remember back in Majorca almost 400w for a 20 minute climb, then coming back to Britain and assuming I could do the same in a flat TT. Obviously I couldn't even come close!

On a 5% climb, really?

I set my best ever 25 min power this year up a 5.5% hill but it was still only ~10w off my best flat fast TT power this year for the same duration. And I did all my training for the TT bike on the turbo, not on the road. A 12% hill is one thing but 5% isn't steep at all, and you should be able to do the same cadence and pretty much the same power up a shallow climb as you can do on a flat road.

2x20s on a flat road,a shallow hill or the turbo are all pretty much equal to each other. Obviously 2x20s done primarily at the extreme ends of the inertia spectrum (downhill/tailwind, or up a very steep hill) will improve your riding at that inertia, so if you're either a 30mph TTer or someone who does hill climb races, you're probably best to go specific. But honestly, 5% is barely a climb... when the national hill climb is held on something so shallow, they do it on TT bikes!

davidof

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

riding a bike on the turbo is different to riding on the road (pedalling mechanics can be altered). riding on level ground is different to riding on an incline. riding on an inclined treadmill is completely different to riding on a turbo. inertia and pedalling mechanics are different

Ric, I think you are making this overcomplicated for the OP. He wants to know if using a turbo will help him with climbing. He's not yet really looking at this marginal gains stuff that British cycling is looking at.

If he is able to ride his roller churning out 200-300 watts for an hour he will have a good idea what it is like to ride l'Alpe in terms of energy output but it is not easy to do those kinds of efforts on rollers/turbo without a power meter of some kind. I'm not suggesting that should be his training programme. Intervals, strength and cadence training would all be stuff he could do on his rollers and will all help in the hills. I'm sure you would have some excellent ideas for him.

ric/rstsport

davidof wrote:

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

riding a bike on the turbo is different to riding on the road (pedalling mechanics can be altered). riding on level ground is different to riding on an incline. riding on an inclined treadmill is completely different to riding on a turbo. inertia and pedalling mechanics are different

Ric, I think you are making this overcomplicated for the OP. He wants to know if using a turbo will help him with climbing. He's not yet really looking at this marginal gains stuff that British cycling is looking at.

If he is able to ride his roller churning out 200-300 watts for an hour he will have a good idea what it is like to ride l'Alpe in terms of energy output but it is not easy to do those kinds of efforts on rollers/turbo without a power meter of some kind. I'm not suggesting that should be his training programme. Intervals, strength and cadence training would all be stuff he could do on his rollers and will all help in the hills. I'm sure you would have some excellent ideas for him.

I haven't said that using a turbo isn't a good idea (i also haven't said it's a good idea). What i said was that there was a difference between the various activities when people suggested there wasn't a difference.

Of course, training at a level that increases your LT, FTP, MAP and other metrics is important. I'm just saying that even with improvements in those metrics if you (e.g.) train solely in one style you may have some issues transferring it to another style. (for e.g., it's well known that if you solely train on generally level ground and then try riding the turbo your turbo power can be 10 to 20% below your road power at the same effort - this occurs for many people).

The simple answer though, is if you want to be good at riding up hills, you should ride up hills. a lot. (of course there are other things you need to do as well)

ric

davidof

I understand your point, in fact it reminds me of a friend who trained for a Scottish munro bagging holiday on the local gym's step machine. He calculated he could bag each summit in 50 minutes of climbing (probably doable for a fell runner). It didn't turn out quite as he had hoped, for a start heath can be quite tiring to walk in.