Turbo Thread

Isn't Paris Roubaix a sportive?

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I just did Carpathian road on trainer road.. not as bored as I thought I would be and defo a decent work out. The distance calculator is whack tho as sat on that bastard for 1hr 15 and says I covered 14 miles.

Best dumb trainer? Cyclops fluid 2?

Best I've used. Small sample size though.

What happened to your fancy smart trainer?

Rage against the machine?

The fucking thing fizzes when plugged in. I've plans to take it to a shop in Greenwich to get looked at (tacx distribution place). But. I train outdoors. Innit. Plugging it in in the rain seems dumb. Even by my standards.

It offers some resistance when unplugged but I don't think it should be used like that.
It's the exposure to the elements I didn't account for. I thought the cables and power leads could be sort of covered leave me outside still.

Dov is on the money here. w/kg only matters when going up. We live in SE England, there are no 60 min climbs here.

Might hop on the TR bandwaggon over the winter. Cheaper than a coach.

What's the deal with it? How many sessions does it give you do a week, and how do you fit road rides in around it etc?
The 6 week blocks look a bit short? If you did the 3x6wk blocks in a row, and started in Nov, you'd be peaking in April or something...

You can do low volume (3 sessions) or high volume (7 sessions) or mid (5). I think.

The general consensus is do the low-volume blocks and supplement with road riding 1-2 times a week to make it a mid volume block. I like to do one HIT session (Monday night HH) and one low intensity, high volume session (club run).

I find it hard to do 3 turbos a week, doing 7 seems like torture.

The trainerroad podcast is a decent. You can just have them prattling away about power curves and trainer accuracy whilst you work. I take in about 5% of what they're saying.

I think TR is best experienced with a smart trainer in Erg mode. Trying to do it on a dumb trainer requires you to be shifting gears and managing your effort so you end up clipping the intervals short all of the time.

Graham can take 15 minutes out of you on most descents.

You can use them unplugged. Makes no difference.

So can anyone.

The main reason I get strong when riding a lot is that I'm always playing catchup due to my shit descending and cornering.

True facts

So i did a trainer road 8min ftp as the start of a low volume block. So my FTP was up by 10% on the last time. Obviously I haven't improved but maybe I paced myself better. I reckon I could of got a higher pace but I guess that's experience.

Can certainly see the benefit of knowing what efforts you can put out over differing times.

How often do I calibrate?

you're not too bad at going down in the mountains. Different kettle of fish I suppose.

Pacing a test is a skill. You will get better at doing them without actually getting any better. That's cool though, it's a transferable skill for racing and ur... winning club runs.

Doesn't TR tell you how often? I used to do them once every two months or so. Mainly because I hate tests and for it to be a 'true' test you need to taper a little for it, which means backing off on riding or training.

I've never been #science enough to care about my ftp being 100% accurate. People get super obsessed about it, but at the level we're at (and especially if you've got a 1 sided PM), it's just a rough measuring stick (willy-waving metric if you're a that way inclined) and a guide for training.

I think TR does 9ne at the start and finish of each block.

Thought so hoped si. Tacx support said no though.

Totally agree. I just figured that a near enough number would help me get more out of the sessions rather than being off by quite some margin.

To be club champion Dov won all the club runs?

All this is for me is to get the most out riding with very little time available. Certainly not expecting to be a Dov or Nick but it would be nice to improve for myself.

Rather than get bogged down with all the numbers an ting, just get TrainerToad and do "base build plan", and then select specific plan you want afterwards and work through it. Stick to structure and get consistency in and worry about FTP for UCI Grand Fondo World Championship qualifiers later...

Also

Winter is coming