Recommend me a virtual trainer setup

disgruntledgoat

So for the last 15 years (man that makes me feel old), I've trained by heart rate on the turbo to a number of work outs of my own devising with the level of interaction getting no more sophisticated than a youtube video of a pro race or a couple of DVDs of American men shouting at me... However, I yearn for something more.

My friend has a Tacx trainer that allows him to "ride" several routes with the resistance automatically altered by the trainer to account for gradient etc. I don't want to invest in a new trainer, as I'm quite satisfied with the Kurt Kinetic I've got but I wondered if something similar was available (without the resistance adjusting) that would allow me to use my SRM to "move" the video along via ant+ or somesuch? I'm not so fussed about structured workouts a la Trainerroad as I've got a library of them, I just want to be able to pretend I'm doing them on the Gavia, for example.

Velo Reality looked like it did what I wanted, but it needs 64bit windows and I'm not buying a new OS for the sake of the turbo trainer.

davidof

I've started adding Power Meter support to http://www.WattzAp.com but am awaiting a mate to come around with his Stages PM to do some serious testing. Otherwise get WattzAp (or another system) and add an el-cheapo chinese ANT usb stick, about a fiver off fleabay and a Decathlon speed and cadence sensor and you are good to go.

WattzAp is extremely low overhead so will run on 5 year old netbooks and on Linux and OSX. It supports all the Tacx format RLV videos (hundreds of free ones out there) and Tacx TTS support is scheduled for the next release. There is also an open source edition if you want to contribute.

Personally, but this is just my opinion, I wouldn't bother with a trainer that adjust resistance. Unless you get the very expensive motor driven ones they can only simulate a limited gradient then do the same as WattzAp, trainer road etc and simulate the slope using virtual speed.