A story of sweat, fans, and towels
You’ll need to get yourself a turbo
No, I won’t be doing that, it’s far too boring – I’ll just keep riding outside through the winter
And as the famous boxing saying goes “everyone has a plan … until they fall off their bike on some icy corner”.
After an off sometime in winter of 2009 I decided to figure out what this indoor training was all about. This was very much a time without a proliferation of GPS units and definitely no power meters. I had a Polar heart rate running watch which I also used for the bike. A bit of research on the internet led me to buy the imaginatively titled “The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Cyclists”. Sounded ideal to me.
All of that combined with a “state of the art” Elite Super Chrono Trainer meant I was all set up in the spare room of our apartment. But my earlier comment about the dullness of this kind of training meant I didn’t really make the most of my trainer, or the book.
I could hardly bear to be on the bike for more than 30 minutes – even with some banging tunes on my headphones. It was hot, boring, and not at all fun – completely at odds with how I felt about riding outside. It really wasn’t working for me.
A couple of years later I discovered The Sufferfest videos. This was revelation for me and my indoor training. For those that don’t know The Sufferfest you can read all about the origin of the videos here. I finally had a structured workout (albeit still based around Rate of Perceived Exertion – RPE) some excellent music, and race footage to watch that matched the efforts I was making on the turbo. Back then the way to get a video workout was by emailing the founder of The Sufferfest, paying 10 USD, and then you’d get the video to download and store on your laptop. I think the first one I ever got was called Revolver and it was 15x1 min intervals with 1 minute rest between them. Brutal.
I moved my workouts out onto our balcony and I can only wonder at what our neighbours must have thought having a noisy, grunting, sweaty cycling workout going on at 0630 on a snowy winter’s morning.
Then in around 2014 I discovered the velodrome in Geneva and became a regular visitor.
The velodrome was a real blessing for me. Riding the track became almost meditative, following the wheel in front, swapping off up the banking, riding harder and harder as the group increased the pace almost imperceptibly lap after lap. That 166.666m loop was a perfect place to ride during the winter months.
One of the shortest velodromes around - only 166.666m (Olympic size is 250m)
We made a good group of friends at the track – and I am sure that training was some of the best kind I ever did through the cold months. This was before power meters and me having any real idea about structured training, but I now realise we’d be doing 20 min efforts at threshold without even realising, with some over/unders thrown into the mix.
It was also great to be able to ride in the winter without getting drenched in sweat and needing an industrial fan blowing to keep one cool.
At the time I was interchanging between velodrome and turbo workouts. The Sufferfest was acquired by Wahoo and became what is now Wahoo SYSTM. This change also got me into doing regular yoga which as I’ve got older has become helpful in preventing injury and minimising the old man sighs when getting into and out of chairs!
One package I had never used until about a year ago was Zwift. I think I was being a bit contrary as it became more and more popular, I pushed back against it and stayed true to my first love of The Sufferfest. I didn’t think I’d be interested in the social side, riding with people virtually just didn’t appeal.
But then back in September of 2023 I got a free year’s Zwift membership, and after some pestering from one of my riding buddies, got an account and gave it a try.
I’m not ashamed to say that Zwift is now my go to indoor training package. I’ve fallen for its charms and really enjoy and am motivated by all these “strangers” who I ride with regularly. Doing a group ride or workout is truly different from riding alone, and I know that I give it much more effort when there are other humans riding the same course. Strange I know, but clearly there’s something to it.
I’m not suggesting I’ll never go back to riding the Wahoo SYSTM, and I still use it regularly for yoga, but I’ve even got into setting up Borne Cycling weekly rides – there’s going to be a Tuesday FTP building session, then a Wednesday Tempo group ride, and a Thursday VO2 interval workout. You can join the Borne Cycling club by clicking here and you’ll be notified of the rides.
I also recently really went for it and splurged some of my bonus (when I was employed by someone else) on a Wahoo Kickr bike. Just being able to jump on the bike without removing wheels or similar just takes away another barrier to riding indoors.
So this winter, it’ll be once more all about the sweat, the fan, the tunes and some great Zwift workouts. Just don’t take of photo of me post ride – no-one needs to see that …
What I’ve been listening to while writing
Manic Street Preachers playlist
The Manics were once of my first real obsessions as a band when I was 17. My friend and I tried to see them whenever we could, and my sister and I collected all the CD singles and deciphered the lyrics. I learnt an awful lot about some incredible writers, important topics and just bloody loved this group. I even once met Sean Moore, the drummer from the band in a club in Leeds and he sorted me out some gig tickets. Going back to listen to these tunes brings back so many great memories. I’d have to say my favourite tune of theirs is Faster – which is appropriate for a bike rider right?