I’m a 52 year old and started recreational cycling 2 years ago. No racing, no particular purpose except losing some weight. Needless to say, I lost some good weight and getting healthier but my cycling is going nowhere.
So bought a smart trainer 2 weeks ago… tried zwift and this morning subscribe to trainer road. I’m looking for proper training to increase my ftp.
But my situation is a bit a challenge. I’m working 300km away from my family. So 4 days a week I will be on my own with a MTB and a smart trainer and another 2 days (weekend) I have a road bike (just bought a power meter to be installed on this rb). Reason for this type of arrangement, the roadbike is for a nice 100km ride on a highway that is just near my family home. At my working place, there is not really a good place for cycling.
So my question is, how is it to train on a smart trainer with mtb? Will it reduce the effectiveness of my future workout with Trainerroad?
The simple answer is no, though I suppose you could say that if you have a specific position on your road bike, you will be training in a different position on the mountain bike.
You can use more or less any bike that fits the trainer. One issue here is gearing – does the MTB setup fit the gearing on the smart trainer?
I used a hybrid for several years on the trainer, and then rode outside on my road bike. I made good progress in terms of standard metrics – FTP, duration at specific power levels and such like. So different bikes is no barrier to improvement, at least for us newbies.
The differences that I found irksome were: [1] not having an aero position on the hybrid so it was difficult to do Chad’s aero exercises; [2] the mechanical efficiencies of the two bikes – the hybrid was just that much poorer drivetrain spec. So in the end I just bought a secondhand road bike cheaply, which had a decent drive train.
The thing to remember is that your measured power will likely be different between the two set ups. By the sound of it, on the trainer you will using trainer-measured power; on the road bike, you will be using a power meter. It is unlikely that you will find the the power output for given efforts is different on the two bikes. I have the same issue, which means that my personal records charts are not really accurate. This seems to be a common problem, from comments on this forum.
Finally, use this forum. There is a ton of useful information about indoor training in some of the threads.