Winter Indoor Cycling Training

Gene want to keep his hard worked for fitness over the winter and through the bad weather, don’t we all! He wants our recommendations for home training and with a special interest in hill climbing. We give Gene two suggestions as to what he should do this winter

Question: Now that we’re heading into fall, I’m looking for an indoor trainer. I’m especially interested in training for hills. Do you have any recommendations?

Hi Gene,
I have two recommendations, one is the Elite REALTOUR, it is a cycling simulator powered by your PC. When cycling on the trainer your PC displays a real course, the software automatically adjusts the resistance according to the gradient, speed and the rider. The images are co-ordinated by the PC to the trainer so that you feel what you see.

The trainer has a unique support structure which takes in to account the riders weight, just like reality. The resistance unit is magnetic and is electronically regulated, the roller is Elastogel to reduce noise and tire wear and increase grip. The trainer has a large flywheel for smooth pedaling.

The software for your PC is easy to use and has many cool graphics, 20 different courses are in the system and it gives you distance, speed, heart rate, power, cadence, slope, time and data saving.

The system can print a report on the course and history. All this can take the tedium out of home cycling training and give you all the details of your training regime. With this set up you can also participate in video races.

Elite REALTOUR

My second suggestion is the E Motion rollers from Insideride, which are great for climb training, the E Motion rollers are like old fashioned three drum rollers, but with some big differences. The E Motion rollers have a floating caraidge (That is three rollers mounted in one frame that rolls within another frame and in centered by rubber cords), they move with your bicycle. This means that the bike is free to do what you want, without it trying to climb off the rollers. The net result is that you can ride your bike exactly as you like, sit, stand, honk the bike from left to right, and sprint. Every thing except turn corners.

The result of this is that it is much more comfortable than a tubro trainer as the saddle is always underneath you, like when riding on the road, much more flexible than a turbo as you can stand and rock the bike. Things you simply cannot do on turbo’s or traditional rollers. Plus the bike is never clamped nor has stress exerted on it like that that is caused by a turbo clamp, which can be an issue with carbon frames.

You can not put resistance into a normal roller set up. If you do, the bike just climbs off the front. You can on the E Motion rollers. There is a fly wheel build into the system, which is belt driven from the middle roller. This along with the inertia / momentum of the bike wheels is enough to give a great resistance that is super smooth. It has no lumps like a normal turbo and is smooth right down to 7 miles an hour (and still stable) and right up to the 35mph + mark. That is with out the resistance magnet! The magnet has four settings and this allows you to really crank up the resistance. But still completely smooth.

It can go from a gentle spin warm up at 200 watts to climbing a 1 in 4 out of the saddle at 800 watts. 30mph at full resistance is 1000watts. The design was done to allow direct comparison between speed and power out put. With good 23mm tires inflated at 120 psi the attached power chart is a pretty accurate reflection of the power being generated. It is always consistent, as long as the tire pressure is good (and you don’t suddenly loose 2 stones). So power based training is possible with just your bike speedo and the chart on your wall!

Heavy anodized aircraft aluminum, stainless steel and brass. The drums are “very round” aluminum (It is hard to make drums of this size this that are this round and these are the best). Every bearing is a sealed cartridge bearing. The flywheel is balanced and driven by a spring tension drive belt (all fittings are stainless). Spare belts are available, but I doubt you ever need one. They will last for several life times and would be good for well over 100 000 miles.

So there is our choices, at the moment we are trying to get our hands on both systems to give them a thorough test, you should have a look at them, both are well made and helpful with your winter training in different ways. I hope this helps, Gene?