What are the downsides of using a relaxed position for indoor training? I have a Zwift Ride, so I can quickly and easily add stack and lower the reach. Are there downsides to doing long Z2 rides like this? The big thing I’m thinking of is taking away that conditioning of being in an aggressive position. Doing 3, 4, 5 hours in position is going to take core strength. And being in a super relaxed upright position all winter takes away that workout aspect. But then again, if I’m just trying to get some longer indoors rides, doesn’t it make sense to do whatever I can to make that possible? Trying to play devil’s advocate here. What are your thoughts?
- How different is your proposed relaxed position relative to your aggressive position? These are ambiguous without some definition of each.
- In what way does it “take away”?
- Within reason I say ‘Yes’. My fitting axiom is “Comfort is King” and this is emphasized for indoors. I think at least a slightly more upright position makes perfect sense and extending that a bit higher may offer more benefit with minimal loss.
- As long as this is one part of a greater training & position picture that includes your proper racing position at the right times (hard workouts in particular), I think this can work well.
Coincidently, this topic is covered in a recent podcast (if you have access?).
- TLDL: They mention that there may be no significant losses and even suggest that there may be some advantages to a more upright position in some cases.
- Transistor.fm
Same saddle position. Like +5cm stack, -3cm reach. I’ll try to find before pictures and take some after.
1 Like
I usually do indoor endurance on the tops and sit up completely for portions–very upright compared to my road bike. I don’t think it hurts, but I am also only indoors for 2-5 hours per week out of a total 10-15, at least 3-5 of which are group rides in ‘race’ position. If I were in a climate that meant I was only indoors for the entire winter, I don’t think I’d want to spend months losing the muscle memory of putting power down in an aero position.
IDK. My road fit has the tops of my bars 10cm below the top of my saddle. I keep my old bike with that fit on the trainer but flipped the -17 deg 100mm stem, which raises the bars ~6cm, which feels about right on the trainer. I don’t think this compromises what I’m trying to achieve on the trainer.
1 Like
I don’t know of any downside to being comfortable when working out. Even if you were training in aero on a TT bike it would not need to mirror your out door setup nor hold position without break.
1 Like
My indoor position is nothing like my outdoor position. Significantly higher stack and slightly shorter reach.
Doesn’t impact me in the slightest when I get back outside and I need no transition period to adjust to my outdoor bike.
I don’t think it is much different in concept than adjusting your road fit to take on gravel, etc. You adjust the fit to reflect the discipline.
4 Likes
After I got a Kickr bike that made adjusting the bike’s geometry trivial, I think I went too far on the relaxed fit and ended up putting too much weight on my saddle. This aggravated my tendency to get saddle sores doing indoor workouts, which almost never happens to me outside. So in the last few weeks I’ve moved back to a fit that more closely resembles my outdoor setup.
1 Like
Good point. Maybe not too upright. Or at least not without changing the saddle position slightly.
When I was training for Unbound a few years ago, I did all my indoor rides in the drops, or aero position on the hoods. When I started initially, I’d have to take a break every 5 mins and sit up. But got to the point where I could hold a more aero position for 60 minutes at a stretch. It took practice for me to get there. Had I not practiced indoors, I wouldn’t have been able to hold that position outdoors.
3 Likes
Just coming back to qualify my post - within reason.
You still want the seat height the same, the reach needs to be similar, you don’t want to be hurting yourself by completely ignoring your bike fit.
Now I realise I’m assuming everyone has had a professional bike fit…so, if not, indoors is a good place to practice building a better fit. You might think “the bike shop fit me when I bought the bike” or, you don’t hurt on your weekend rides so everything is good. It might be, it might not. Start with that, try reducing the saddle height slightly, read up on heel drop, proper saddle position etc - it could be revolutionary.
@CaptainThunderpants you’ve done plenty of riding so I’m sure you’ve got it dialled but the general principle for long rides holding a position is nailing that saddle position - old Chad’s “seatbone” workout text was pretty good for that. If it’s something an athlete needs to work on then, yes I’d do some long indoor sessions with correct set up as well as outdoors.
I often set up fits on customers trainer bikes a bit more relaxed vs outdoor bikes but it’s close still.
Seat position same and bars 1-2 cm higher and closer.
Ronan from Escape Collective did a Performance Process podcast on adjusting indoor fit relative to outdoor fit on December 13. Worth a listen…dunno if it is a Member Exclusive episode or not, but it doesn’t look like it.
1 Like
Is it minor or major changes recommended?
This thread had got me thinking of packing the tri bike away and chaining up the roadie for winter at least.
“It depends”
3 Likes
I went from a specialized diverge to a mosaic gt-1 in October. On the specialized I had a bike fit and was overall very pleased with the fit. The mosaic was built 100% to my geometry and body based on the retul fit, but I wanted it to be more aggressive.
There’s a lot of similarities between the two, but the mosaic is much more aggressive. The day after picking up the mosaic I did a 105 mile charity ride - my longest ride to date by 20 miles. Overall I was very pleased with the fit but did experience way more quad fatigue than I have ever experienced, and a little hand numbness. On future rides I definitely have noticed that the more aggressive fit seems to engage my quads more, and I’ve needed more time on the mosaic to build up endurance in those muscle groups.
The intent was to keep the diverge as a trainer bike and mosaic for outdoors/races. Because I realized the fit was different enough between bikes, the mosaic is my trainer and outdoor/race bike now. I spend about 80% of my time on the trainer and know I would be lacking on certain items if I tried using the relaxed fit of the diverge for those trainer rides. The difference is enough that I didn’t feel there was sufficient carryover between the two.
Here’s a photo of the difference in geometries (roughly) with notable differences of the diverge dimensions in red and the mosaic in black.
1 Like
That’s like all podcast advice 2020 to date 
1 Like
I always used my road bike for training indoors and i’m convinced that helped me adapt my body to the lower position.
If it was me I’d set it up the same.
1 Like
i used to be anal about exactly that thing and setup all my bikes (kickrbike, gravelbike and roadbike) within mm of each other. as soon as i changed something on 1 bike i could not go to sleep until i copied the change to all my other bikes.
now after a few years of experience i appreciate miniscule differences and i simply dont care that much. i found that as long as the setback and the saddleheight are the same i can tolerate quite a big range in terms of reach and stack difference.
example: i have around 9cm saddle to bar drop on my roadbike (sl8) and was riding indoor with a 11cm drop without even noticing.
year to date i think a little variance across the fits is not hurting me and makes me more robust overall.
im not racing and only ride around 10.000km per year so it could be different for cat 1 racers who really look for performance.
1 Like
I spent a lot of time in a very upright position through the fall2023->spring2024 winter. On my first outside ride of 2024 I smashed a ~8min outdoor hillclimb PB on a completely different bike fit, and I’d thought I was in good shape when I’d set that segment PB.
1 Like