Wheel-on trainers should always be calibrated after a 5-10 minute warm up, to give best power data results.
Wheel-off trainers are often good with just one monthly calibration, if they are kept in the same environment & location. Notable or frequent changes require calibration at each switch.
Some trainers like the Neo and Kickr V5/6 don’t even require calibration.
And for riders using a power meter for data instead of a trainer, it’s not really necessary to calibrate the trainer at all. Just calibrate the power meter before each ride and ignore the trainer.
Much to the chagrin of my partner, stopping on the trainer is the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to develop bad habits for riding outside (where stopping is much more of an ordeal), and moreover my trainer sessions are nearly always less than 90 minutes so bathroom breaks aren’t needed and two bottles is sufficient. Plus I’d have to leave the comfort of my fans and walk around like a penguin on my cleats!
I ride 10 minutes (or so) and pause to calibrate (zero) my Kickr. I do this every workout. Apart from that, I may take a 1-2 min pause during a long (5+ minute) rest interval during a long (90+ min) ride. I’d only do that once a ride, if at all.
If I take a pause during a short (less than 5 min) rest interval, I make sure I rate that ride “very hard”. If I have to take a pause during a work interval, I rate that ride “all out”. These last two types of pauses have been, fortunately, pretty rare recently.
If a workout is 2hrs plus I simply have to stop for toilet break. For the young ones here: it’s simply a necessity for a sub 50 bloke. But I only stop during rest interval or immediately after completing endurance segment before next one commences…
Question for the TR team, or anyone who knows. I’ve recently had the workout pause due to signal dropout from the turbo. I’ve typically just carried on riding (albeit with some profanity when in middle of hard interval!). Is there anything in the signal between TR and the turbo that indicates it’s from a dropout rather than actively stopping pedaling? Just wondering in terms of adaptions that respond to pauses.
Some workouts have text that encourage you to take an extra toilet brake or extra refuel if that can help you make it through the next interval and when the text says that I often do but in general I try not to stop especially when the rest interval >0.4FTP or shorter than 3 minutes or when my heart rate hasn’t recovered to around 68% of my max heart rate (generally the lowest heart rate I get during rest intervals)
Rarely, unless something goes wrong. Occasionally on longer workouts I’ll need a bathroom break, but I try not to stop unless I have to (which means planning enough fluids in advance, towel on hand, laptop is charged, etc).
