Fun on the roller trainer
Is there an alternative to the trail? Yes! Biking within your own four walls can also be fun. Five tips to make roller training really fun.
It's freezing cold outside and dark early. Are roller trainers now an alternative to the trail? Absolutely. Biking within your own four walls can even be fun. Here are five essential tips to make it really fun.
- PLAYING Treading water is stupid. Unless you successfully distract yourself. You can do this with the training platform, for example Zwift (15 euros per month), which is designed with a focus on road bikes and gravel. Hidden MTB routes are a beta test feature.
- COOLING On Fan is mandatory, better two. Otherwise salt lakes will form and the pedalling power will be brutally reduced by the heated body. Always wipe sweat off your bike! The bodily fluids are worse for some types of aluminium than the salt spray on winter roads.
- DAMPING Wheel-on trainers are not the quietest. If you don't want to start a war with the neighbours, put a damping Mat and check at which tempo nasty resonances may occur and then avoid this area as far as possible.
- ADJUST The Wheel-on-Trainer clamp the wheel on the outside - depending on the wheel, this requires adapters so that thru axles and quick-releases can be clamped. Studded tyres do not work at all. Either shave an old tyre or buy training tyres for the roller (Tacx: 40 euros).
- TRAINING Indoor training is more than just a stopgap, keyword: High Intensity Training (HIT). HIT intervals twice a week will keep your legs going, even if the kilometres you cover are rather meagre. Tip: 2 series of 10 x 30 seconds each at 120-130 % of the FTP power (Functional Threshold Power)) followed by 30 seconds of easy pedalling.
You can find out more about roller trainers here:
Smart roller trainers up to 500 euros
Training in winter: More tips from the BIKE editors
You want more? You're welcome. We have put together a series of articles on the subject of indoor training with the most important tips and information for beginners and advanced users. Plus the latest roller trainer test and an overview of the products from the leading software providers. Click here for the Online special "Indoor roller training for mountain bikers" >>
How do you like this article?
