@WindWarrior what’s the ‘bro science’ part, my man?
I hardly think saying RH & temp massively affect cooling qualifies as monster-energy-drink-crushing ‘bro science’.
- Ditto, been ages
- I disagree, particularly when a specific claim is made just as you did above per my quote.
- I generally agree that cooler leads to better power. No real news there. However, my issue is that uch of your new reply falls shot of your original claim above that inside power has been clearly EXCEED outside power (“dead clear”).
- Odd when your “super cool F1” claim above seems to do exactly that, right?
- Again, I agree with this and it’s why I cover that whenever we get people looking for resolutions between lower power inside vs outside. But all that is well short of your “over cool” stuff above.
Finally to the real meat of the challenge:
- Maybe, just maybe that could be the exception that breaks the rule. But that example seems so far above and beyond anything I have ever seen or heard used regularly here. Most people that even have extra cold environments to start us little if any cooling fans on top of that cold temp. They simply can’t tolerate that extreme cooling and dial it back as appropriate to what seems like practical levels to me.
Your more defined and rather extreme hypothetical sort of proves my point that the quote I questioned above is likely overstated. That’s because I have yet to see anyone come even close to your example.
- I have one of the better setups out there and yet I alter as needed, like when the air outside is literally below freezing (all last week in fact) to the point that my window ducting floods me with skin chilling air. I close the window in those cases to avoid what you claim I could leverage to “over perform”. It’s a practical comfort thing for me at least, I only cool as much as I need to be roughly like what I get for normal rides outside.
- Far from dead clear, I think there is little if any evidence that we have many (if any?) people overcooling to any degree approaching your claimed best case scenario. If this is the “you” case that is one thing and an N=1 data point. Pushing that to a guess for others is a step too far for me.
- Not to my eyes this time, but it can be fun to posit stuff like this
@mcneese.chad LOL! Right on, man! 
There’s the banger, right there!
I think we agree w each other, just living in different enviros / seeing from different perspectives.
I’m up here in the Canada… ‘Eh’?!?! 
These [15 C = 59 F, 20 - 30% RH] ain’t extremes. That’s a relatively warm, brilliant riding day. I honestly prefer 14 - 18 C to >25. It’s not cold, you can dress for it, and then you get to stay cool and absolutely crank it, and not sweat bags and bags of liquid.
But ya, my fan is insane. That’s def an outlier. I only run it on speed 1/3.
Again… I think the inside guys that are really really crushing it have probably gone a bit nuts w the fans… but that may be incorrect!
EDIT TO ADD:
All spinning back to OP’s central idea, exactly as you said, @mcneese.chad ; you’re using your fans [and temp control] to try to replicate the cooling you get outside. Not necessarily to triple it.
I could be wrong, but I think OP didn’t mean to imply everyone should shut all their fans off forever, of course! [Not that you took that read, but some seem to have! ] , but rather he meant to say:
"Should we be turning our fans off? Shouldn’t we at least be thinking about it, and considering our rates of cooling, rather than just MAXXX BLAST EVERYTHING FOREVER!!! ? "
And on that, I definitely agree w them!
general comment, not directed at you.
@WindWarrior roger that, thanks for the clarification!
I’m also a big believer in serious indoor air movement, low temp, and humidity control to optimize cooling (I run a mini split AC and 3 serious fans, with my lasko the weakest of the 3). But more cooling is only going to increase wattage if cooling is your limiter. At some point, more cooling isn’t helpful and I assume it’s even harmful if you get too cold (ie - I doubt anyone is hitting power PR’s in the arctic while wearing a speedo). While indoor training can be helpful to standardize and optimize conditions, you can certainly get more cooling than you want outside on some days.
All that said, I can hold more power on extended efforts inside than I can outside because I’ve optimized indoor conditions (not just cooling). If I look at my “all time” power curve, my PR’s from 1-3 minutes are all in outdoor races, but everything longer (up to about 4 hours) is all inside. Some of that is just the nature of indoor riding training/riding (no coasting indoors, more consistent intervals, etc.), but I’ve tried to match some of my indoor numbers outside and I’ve always been a bit short. I don’t just attribute that to better cooling indoors, I think it’s also the ability to dictate cadence and spin/momentum at my ideal RPM’s the entire time. Outdoors you have hills, wind, surface conditions, etc. that are constantly changing the pedaling dynamics. I don’t have any science to back it up, but I assume the constant adjustments we are making for these things are taking their toll on efficiency and probably costing a few watts.
Outside workout guy, I have a Kickr at home but its often easier to go to the gym like I did a couple weeks ago:
That fan is massive. No sweat, even after doing some hard 4x30s and tempo. It’s really quite amazing what a single massive fan can do to make it more like outside.
FWIW, my best result on a ramp test was in 80+ degree (28C) garage and only 2 meager fans (Vornados). After a month of riding outside in 95-100F (35-38C) temperatures.
@grwoolf great comment! Agreed on all!
Also, you had me dying w “(ie - I doubt anyone is hitting power PR’s in the arctic while wearing a speedo)”
No, no no!! We Canadians don’t ride our bikes in our speedos when it’s below 5 C / 40 F outside!! It’s far too cold for that!!
We go scuba diving!
Yeah, a serious fan with low humidity is a game changer. Even if the room isn’t that cool, sweat will evaporate faster than it’s coming out as long the airflow and humidity is right. When I train indoors and running all fans, the only things that gets wet with sweat is the chamois of my bibs and my head cover. And I sweat a lot, can lose 5+ lbs during a training session.
a couple weeks ago the gym spin room was at 64F, and with that fan it was like riding outside in low humidity in the upper 80s. The fan was only 2-3 feet in front of me, as there was no class.
FWIW I see higher power outside, for various reasons. I embraced riding on the trainer for 2 years - it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Right? I am wearing a jacket at that temp
Was down in FL Mon / Tues…went for a ride Tues AM. Temp was ~55* (which was 8* warmer than the forecast the night before, so I was pysched!).
Was rolling south out of Clearwater Beach when a few guys caught me from behind (on their way to a group ride). They were BUNDLED up…LS jerserys, headbands, vests or jackets, full leg warmers, booties.
I was in a jersey, arm warmers and a vest…and really overdressed a bit. 
Ha! Yep, it’s all relative! At 55, unless it’s super windy, I would be regular jersey, vest, leg warmers, toe covers, and full finger gloves.
But for the inside of my house to be 65 degrees after my wife rolls out of the bed? NEVER. Not if I want to stay married, at least. She’s in a sweatshirt with a blanket over her leggings for anything under 75.
At 55F still wearing bib tights to protect the knees, no meat around 'em. But yeah, I come home and both my base layer and jersey are damp/wet from sweat. Yesterday it hit 69F, I rolled out in my summer kit for the second day, and it was 56F at the end. No problem wearing summer kit at the ride end.
1 Like
Turn off the fans? What could go wrong? 
This is not correct.
ETA: For example, an untrained individual can close the gap in muscle respiratory capacity to that of an elite athlete by ~1/3rd in just 7-10 d:
My suggestion is that you do a bit more reading before posting any more misleading statements.
The fact is that the body adapts quite rapidly to changes in demand, something that John Holloszy, arguably the father of exercise biochemistry, believed was an evolutionary necessity.
Did you know that it takes less than 2 wk to increase your muscle capillarization? (That’s the earliest anyone seems to have looked in humans, based on the research I did last night.)