New to turbo training. Advice please.

Stu01621

Hi all

Could anyone please tell me how I can track the distance I have travelled on each training session. I appreciate that this will be a notional figure but would use it as a gauge and training aid of sorts. I already have a Garmin 810 edge but am unsure how to integrate this into my turbo sessions. Advanced apologies for the ignorance and would really appreciate some guidance on this please!

Many thanks

Stu

homers_double

Stick the garmin on as normal, it then uploads to Strava (if you use it) as a stationary ride.

imposter2.0

All I would say is that tracking distance on a turbo kind of misses the point a bit, for two reasons: 1) you haven't actually physically travelled anywhere anyway and 2) tracking time spent at intensity is far more relevant in terms of turbo usage.

supermurph09

homers double wrote:

Stick the garmin on as normal, it then uploads to Strava (if you use it) as a stationary ride.

This won't track mileage though which was what the OP was asking for. What you need to do is stick on the sensors to be able track "mileage". But as mentioned above, time is probably a better indicator, I don't track mileage at all on the turbo.

A work around for this is to create a manual activity and enter a mileage figure based upon a rough guess.

buckmulligan

You need a speed sensor such as this or the more old-school GSC-10 (but these are harder to come by nowadays). Hook it up to your rear wheel and your Garmin 810 can use it to calculate speed and distance data in the absence of a GPS signal.

solstice21

BuckMulligan wrote:

You need a speed sensor such as this or the more old-school GSC-10 (but these are harder to come by nowadays). Hook it up to your rear wheel and your Garmin 810 can use it to calculate speed and distance data in the absence of a GPS signal.

This. But don't use distance travelled on a turbo for anything than to note dates of workouts if possible. You could have it on easy setting and do 25 miles sweat free, then do the next ride on hard and crawl off the bike after doing 16 miles. Heartrate, watts/vpower, structured workouts....that's what turbos are about.

homers_double

I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that the OP had a cadence/speed sensor.

markhewitt1978

The best thing you can do is either get a power meter or use virtual power on the likes of Zwift or Trainer Road, this then give you a training stress number you can use to compare your rides to.

ForumNewbie

I just set the GPS signal on my Garmin to off, and it works from the speed/cadence sensor. If you get really keen and are in training you might want a power meter, but if you are just trying to keep up a level of fitness, a Heart Rate monitor will do and it will show you how hard you are working. You can compare sessions and as you get fitter your average speed should increase. Nothing wrong with tracking your 'distance' as well if you want to.

Alex99

Solstice21 wrote:

BuckMulligan wrote:

You need a speed sensor such as this or the more old-school GSC-10 (but these are harder to come by nowadays). Hook it up to your rear wheel and your Garmin 810 can use it to calculate speed and distance data in the absence of a GPS signal.

This. But don't use distance travelled on a turbo for anything than to note dates of workouts if possible. You could have it on easy setting and do 25 miles sweat free, then do the next ride on hard and crawl off the bike after doing 16 miles. Heartrate, watts/vpower, structured workouts....that's what turbos are about.

If you don't have a power meter, speed can be useful as long as you leave the same settting on the turbo and use the same tyre etc...

That gives you a 'speed' measurement, which is just a number (not really your speed) to see whether you're getting faster, or not or to pace efforts.