Getting hate for being on the trainer

Training
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Good one Chad!

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As someone whoā€™s cycling experience has included winning a state championship in BMX and thirty plus years later riding five double centuries inside 120 days and now spends most of his outdoor time riding mountain bikes, I concur and think those haters should go spit.

Donā€™t yuck my yum. Love CX. And gravel too.

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People - itā€™s training. Itā€™s work.

I try to not talk about work with people who donā€™t understand.

Haters NEVER understand. They just want to keep you in your place. Ignore them.

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I really underestimated the benefits of structured indoor training, until I compared my weekly group ride of 50 miles and 3000 ft to the 1 hr TR ride I had done the day before.
The majority of the group ride was not in the training zones I had needed, and the time in the desired zones was minimal. The 1 hr TR ride was by far a better choice. I donā€™t post my TR training on Strava, choosing instead to show the results on my weekly group rideā€¦

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I chose Indoor training mainly because it helps me being consistent, especially now that it is winter and living in the northern hemisphere doesnā€™t yield any daylight, at least for people with a typical 9 to 5 job.

My long and short-term goals are definitely getting fitter, not because I like to race but it allows me to explore more places in a shorter period of time on my bike.

Time is another thing. As a software developer my biggest time consuming activity actually isā€¦ learning and enhancing new skills which already eatsea big chunk of my free time.

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You gave the answer in your question

These are avid cyclists that have been cycling for years, yet in less than a year I went from getting dropped to dropping them, all thanks to TR and riding on the trainer for 95% of the time.

Thats why they hate you :slight_smile:

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109

Ellotheth,

Sometimes gates provide a valuable service. In this case it helps to define very basic terms. I stand by what I said. If you never leave your basement, you are not a cyclist. You may be an exercise enthusiast who uses a bicycle and an app to achieve fitness goals, but you are not a cyclist. Sorry, if this simple truth hurts your feelings. Your pain is not my intent.

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I am not sure that is a valid assumption, although it does depend on what the definition of ā€˜raceā€™ is.
Many TR users want to be fitter, healthier, be able to last longer on group rides etc with no intention of ever taking part in anything competitive other than a sportive/Gran Fondo.

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112

Ellotheth,

That was hilarious. Made me chuckle out loud. Truth is, winterā€™s grip is tightening, in NY, so Iā€™m starting Sweet Spot Base 1 tonight. LOL. Yes, I understand my own hypocrisy is measured, literally in this case, in degrees. Que Sera, Sera. Have a fantastic day and I truly hope that everyone in here reaches their goals. Cheers.

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This was a cathartic read. I mirror a lot of these comments. I get snide comments about the amount of my indoor riding sometimes. Iā€™m only here for positivity these days though so I find it easy to be a bit brutal with disengaging people who try to bring me down.

At the moment, the person who judges my inside riding the most, is also super supportive of my training in general and Iā€™m happy to take good natured ribbing over it lol.

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I get a fair bit of ribbing too, since I mainly train inside. This season was even more so because we have been particularly wet this spring and early summer. After I nailed my first outside event of the season this last Saturday, I had more than one person ask how I did it with only a couple rides outside before the race.

Different strokes and all that, but itā€™s totally possible to rip with an inside focus if you do it right. They can continue to rib me all they want as I ride right past them in the races to better finishes :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think itā€™s probably because riding inside on a trainer misses the point of riding a bike (because youā€™re going nowhere). I personally ride the trainer 4 out of my 5 rides each week. Itā€™s good exercise, but traveling on a bike is the joy of riding a bike (not spinning legs in place). I do it bc I live in a city tho and I cannot meet family / work obligations and get out for a ā€˜realā€™ ride everyday.

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Thereā€™s actually a real reason, though. Youā€™re missing all the bike handling development. Racing with high fitness and poor handling skills can actually be dangerous, especially in crits.

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I have a busy job that can have me working everyday of the week some weeks. I donā€™t have time to bring my bike places, get set up and ride. It can be too stressful. I donā€™t post my trainer rides on strava and if people are mad I use a trainer, thatā€™s their problem not mine.
I grew up riding bmx and mtb, going fast and wreckless. I could ride 2 months indoors and still feel like I have better handling than most roadies. No offense roadiesšŸ’œ

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None taken, we say similar about triathletes! :joy::joy::joy:

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119
  • That depends HEAVILY on the individual. What works and matters for you does not necessarily work or matter to me and others. Quite simply, I train inside to be better outside and thatā€™s what I get from it all.
  • Again, thatā€™s your specific view, not mine or many others.

  1. I fully admit I am likely an edge case (I routinely call myself crazy when discussing this with friends), but I LOVE training on the bike inside. There are numerous reasons I can share, but wonā€™t bore everyone unless they want details.

  2. And yes, I do LOVE riding outside too. It just happens to be in different ways than I do the training inside that I mention above. My time on the trainer helps me maximize enjoyment when I do get outside. I flat out destroyed my results in my event this weekend when compared to the same event last year. I was grinning ear to ear at the finish and had a blast despite heavy effort in the event, because I rode so well compared to last year. My time on the trainer with TR is what made that happen, and makes that time inside more than worth it to me.

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  • I donā€™t think any of us are advocating for no outside riding, so thatā€™s a strawman IMO.

  • I specifically mentioned building and maintaining handling skills and such in one or more threads related to discussion like this. It is more important for those new to the sports without many years of experience under their belts.

For me, I have been riding and racing a looong time. I specifically took two days of riding to focus on outside skills on my MTB to be ready for the race. Those two short 1 hour sessions were all I need to ā€œfind my skillsā€ again.

In the race, I was able to ride away from people with better fitness and full suspension race bikes on all of the technical and descending sections despite being on a hardtail. I got a few people mentioning it specifically after the race, that they saw me on that HT bike and assumed Iā€™d be easy to pass on the downs. They quickly saw that was NOT going to happen.

I only share that to show that everything is relative and subjective. I know others who have ridden exclusively outside on their MTBs and I still rode away from them as mentioned. People can come at this a number of ways that work, are safe and effective. Practice outside as much as you need, but donā€™t assume we are all starting from the same level, because that is definitely NOT the case.

ETA: Some of the posts where I covered this in various ways over the years.

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Two and a half years and a pandemic later, not much has changed :laughing: . I was hoping the pandemic and the increase in people riding (mostly indoors in 2020) would reduce some of the hate, but not so much in my area.

Iā€™m seeing 2 reasons for the increased hating on indoor cyclists:

  1. New riders with crazy-strong Zwift fitness butthurting (or physically hurting) traditional cyclists in races
  2. Riders ā€œeverestingā€ or pulling double centuries indoors. (I was witness to a particularly nasty exchange between a guy who did the Festive 500 indoors and a group that did the rides outdoors).

Personally I donā€™t care about the shade I get, Iā€™ve finally been losing weight and my fitness (mostly from indoor training) is starting to show through against guys that ride 10-15 hours a week outdoorsā€¦about 3/4 of which is coasting :joy: .

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Iā€™m thinking of starting a ā€œGetting shade on TR forum for doing 99+% of my workouts outsideā€ thread :rofl:

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