Whilst I’m a massive fan of riding outdoors - it’s invaluable for developing skills and bike handling, as well as the mental health benefits and sheer joy of riding outside. But for most of us, indoor cycle training on a turbo trainer is key to winter training because its far more effective and time efficient for building up fitness.
The number one key factor in building fitness and progress towards your training goals is consistency, and being able to remove the impact of the very inconsistent variable of British weather, gives you a massive advantage here.
Cyclists tend to split into 2 camps over the winter, those who ride outdoors and those who dont. If you're in the 'no way until I'm in short sleeves again' camp then a turbo or access to indoor cycle training is essential so you maintain consistency and dont lose your bike fitness.
But even if you're in the 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad kit' camp I would still strongly recommend indoor cycle training. There's probably going to be enough days when it's just not safe to ride outside because of ice or poor visibility. Or when it's possible, but even the definition of type 2 is getting stretched so far that quite frankly, is it worth it? For most of my clients in this camp they have an optional weekend turbo session - if the weather is good they go out but if they can' get an outdoor ride in, they have a turbo session to fall back on.
Even if you're regularly getting an outdoor weekend ride in are you realistically going to have time to do an effective midweek bike workout outdoors? Including time to find and put on all the layers and lights, and wash the salt off your bike afterwards? You can achieve a hell of a lot more in an hour on a turbo than you can outdoors, especially when you account for associated faff time.
Winter is traditionally the main time to build base fitness. As they say, winter miles means summer smiles. Usually when we talk about base fitness we're talking a good few hours of zone 2 (easy) training - but this isn't always possible when the roads are icy or its just too cold and wet to build up the hours. But on a turbo rather than just sitting indoors peddling away for hours we can do shorter, targeted training using a power meter to raise our threshold. I would still avoid high intensity over the winter in most cases, but some solid winter sweet spot work can be invaluable.
The turbo is also a great place to work on skills such as cadence and consistent power, and even mindset, which you can then put into use when you're riding outside.
And if you worry about riding outside because of punctures or fears of getting left behind or descending steep hill, you dont need to worry about any of this! Use the winter to build your fitness, so that once you're back riding outside you can work on your descending skills rather than just recovering from getting up the hill.
Even once the weather gets better, most of my clients will keep at least one turbo session through the summer as well. Unless you have a power meter on your bike and somewhere where you can ride whilst focussing on power rather than worrying about traffic and potholes and constant wind or gradient changes, then you'll struggle to get the quality intervals in that you can on a turbo.
The turbo allows you to do structured intervals where you hold a specified power for a certain amount of time, rest, repeat, building up the time you can hold at that intensity for increasing amounts of time, whereas (for most people in the UK at least) it’s very difficult to hold constant power, given the constantly changing terrain, wind and traffic, plus the fact it’s a lot harder to follow a structured workout when you’re busy looking at the road.
Many people have more access to data when training indoors, and this allows you to get used to what a certain effort should feel like, or for example check your heart rate at a certain power (if you don’t have access to power outdoors) to then apply to racing or outdoor riding.
It’s a great equalizer. On an outdoor ride people worry about getting dropped, having an accident and mechanicals. On a turbo there’s far less barriers to entry and because a set is based on your level of fitness, Tom Pidcock and my gran could both be doing the same session, and if I say work at 9/10 level of effort, whilst they’ll be putting out very different power, they’re both be working as hard as each other relative to their level of fitness.
So if you have one gathering dust in the garage dig it out now and get yourself set up with a proper structured plan rather than just riding round in Zwift or spinning in front of the tv. There's plenty of apps out there or
If you dont have one then see if your gym has a Wattbike, ask around in clubs and forums if anyone has one going spare (you'd be surprised how many are out there!), or look out in the January sales. If you have a 'dumb' turbo (without power) then consider buying a power meter which you can then also use for outdoor training.
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