Anyone train in a garage/shed with no electricity?

dinyull

Used to use Traineroad up until about 5 months ago when I started commuting 5 days a week. Thought that I'd get by using alternate days for hard efforts/pootles but I'm missing the structure of TR.

Because of a change in circumstance the spare room I had my turbo setup is out of bounds so trying to work out if I could get something set up in the garage - only problem is it doesn't have an electricity supply and there's a road between the house and garage preventing use of an extension cable.

Does anyone have the same constraints?

I have an old iPhone I'd do the workouts on. Turbo is a fluid non smart thingy, so that's ok too. Only things I'm thinking of is not being able to use a fan, especially in the summer months and no lighting...although I could get some cheap battery lights. Is the fan likely to be a problem?

Any suggestions from people in a similar boat welcome.

daniel_b

That's a tricky one - is it the kind of road you could dig up to lay a cable, or a proper tarmacced residential one?

As you say, you can get by with all of it except a fan, I even need one of those in the depths of winter in my garage.

I guess you need to look at power supplies of one kind or another, be it a generator or a whopping great battery pack on wheels that you can charge up - sounds expensive to me though :-(

Could you run a lead out of an upstairs window to a wodden prop by the garage, so it stayed up high.......just for the duration of your turbo session?

Or why not get some of this:
http://www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk/external-budget-cable-protector#vat?gclid=CO2Eqbukx9ICFcSVGwodRQoGtw


Or it such a busy road that people would get upset?

If it's a cul de sac, or quiet road, you could always visit the neighbours, or pop a note through their door to say what you are trying to do, and that this is what you propose, and ask if they have any issues with it.

fat daddy

yes the fan is likey to be a problem .... I train at 5am .... on the cold days ie when its 1-5deg in the garage I start my warm up without the fan on .... anything above 160w and I start to over heat, so in a cold garage I need a fan above 160w

research 12v fans or running a fan from a car battery ... in "my" thery if you had a 12v 40a car battery should give you 480w/h .... so if your fan only use 100w, you should be able to run it for 4 hours
you will need a car battery charger and a converter though

dinyull

Tarmac'd residential street between the house and the garage I'm afraid.

Garage is probably 50m away from the house too, so would need to be a hell of an extension lead, and although a cul-de-sac there are probably 30+ houses I'd need to let know - so not happening.

I used to train without a fan, might give it another go.....but I did notice a big improvement with one!

mamba80

i ve seen some 10 inch battery fans on Amazon but only from the USA about $30, they get good reviews, 40 hours on batteries, 2 would be better than nowt.

MiddleRinger

I used to yes, a wooden shed out in the garden with the door open for fresh cold air. Cheap mag dumb trainer and powermeter for metrics. Put a battery powered fluro light on the ceiling. I'd have a plan going into the session (3x8 @ certain wattage or whatever) and just hammer it with some tunes cranking through headphones. Nothing fancy! It worked but I certainly don't miss it!

markhewitt1978

Does your turbo need plugging in? Obviously dumb trainers don't need to and some smart trainers like the Tacx Bushido don't, but most others do.

Obviously trainer road runs fine on iPhone, but as said a fan is the big problem not many that are going to run off batteries that would be much use.

Just a thought, what about one of these? http://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/ ... power-pack basically a car battery with an inverter and 230v plug socket. No idea if they are any good but should be enough to power a smart trainer and fan for an hours use?

dinyull

It's a dumb trainer so only need power for a fan and lighting....although could get away with a battery light.

That Halfords jobbie looks good, just not for £150.

bobmcstuff

I've often thought someone should release a trainer where the resistance is provided by a fan blowing in your face... That way it would generate more wind when you're going faster too.

cld531c

bobmcstuff wrote:

I've often thought someone should release a trainer where the resistance is provided by a fan blowing in your face... That way it would generate more wind when you're going faster too.

Me too. Tempted to try and mash up something from some ducting near the back wheel along the floor and up to my face

part time waster

B and Q have those cordless extension leads on offer at the mo !

bobmcstuff

cld531c wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

I've often thought someone should release a trainer where the resistance is provided by a fan blowing in your face... That way it would generate more wind when you're going faster too.

Me too. Tempted to try and mash up something from some ducting near the back wheel along the floor and up to my face

I was thinking of a belt drive or something.

redjeepǃ

How about one of these babies ?

http://www.abbeygardensales.co.uk/leaf-vacs-blowers/petrol-leaf-blowers-vacuums/showitem-C1-EB3410.aspx

and some bracket to mount it on or maybe get the other half to hold it and Bob's your uncle.

It shifts 5,000 cu metres of air per hour at 200 mph.

I'd advise eye protection.

dannbodge

I'm in a similar situation but with my garage being used for my car rather than training.

I got a car battery, some 12V LED strips off eBay and a bit of wire, switches etc and now I have a lit garage.

It's not bright enough to do surgery but for the odd bit of car maintenance I do it's perfect. Once the lights start to go dim/not work, I disconnect the battery, take it indoors and give it a charge.

Get some 12v fans to hook up and jobs a good-un.

redjeepǃ

On a slightly more sensible note than my previous reply, you would have a couple of other options. You could rig up some 12 volt fans to a battery or maybe try a mains powered fan to a battery using a voltage inverter.

For instance this fan is rated at 100w

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quality-Millen ... 8+inch+fan

and you could get a small power inverter like this one which is rated at 300w.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BESTEK-Inverte ... v+inverter

The only problem that I'd have with this is that it's less efficient than just using 12 volt fans, so your battery wouldn't last as long. I'd say you'd get about 4 hours from a car battery, however car batteries are pretty poor at deep cycling (i.e. being heavily discharged and recharged) and so wouldn't take many charge cycles before they die completely. You'd be better trying to buy a leisure battery and either a 12 volt car cooling fan like this one,

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/12-12-Inch-Slim- ... Sw4A5YvXDY

or else buy half a dozen 12 volt computer fans and mount them in a matrix format.

On a final note. If your garage has a window then you could try using a small 12 volt solar charger to keep it trickle charged. Something like these.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_no ... ar+charger

ifanthecat

A more expensive option I know but:

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/c/petrol- ... enerators/

mechanism

Leisure battery + inverter + trolley + charger sounds like the best solution although it'll cost a bit. There are calculators that will tell you how long the battery will last e.g. at 120W a 110Ah battery will last 4.5 hours.

step83

Un powered garage for me as well, Light is a magnetic light things stupidly bright, I bought two as they do take a while to charge an the burn times a little low.

http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk ... rch-375110

Fan wise, this works if you already have the other power tools from the range, but, cordless fan!

http://www.direct-powertools.co.uk/ryob ... 2x21035082.

dinyull

Step83 wrote:

Un powered garage for me as well, Light is a magnetic light things stupidly bright, I bought two as they do take a while to charge an the burn times a little low.

http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk ... rch-375110

Fan wise, this works if you already have the other power tools from the range, but, cordless fan!

http://www.direct-powertools.co.uk/ryob ... 2x21035082.

I have a Ryobi drill and that is much better priced than the other options. Brilliant cheers.

gcwebbyuk

I'm in the same boat.

I use a couple of cheap USB fans but they move very little air. I use a couple of UFO camping lights when training in the evening, and keep a head torch handy for locking the bike up after.

I've been tempted about one of the cordless fans - I'd looked at a Hitachi one - but the battery is about the same as the fan!

timothyw

There is a commercially available fan add on for Kreitler rollers:
http://www.kreitler.co.uk/Killer-Kool-Headwind-Fan

Setup seems simple enough that it could perhaps be bodged onto other fans/turbo.

Ain't cheap, so if bodging is involved might be worth crafting something yourself!

gcwebbyuk

I went for the Ryobi fan - so far so good!