Pace: trainer vs. outdoors

Ok, so I am a total noob and got my bike only a few weeks before our roads went all the heck with snow, ice, sand and road salt.

Hubby and I did one leisurely 30 mile road ride just a week or so after I took possession of my bike where I comfortably maintained an average pace of ~13mph. This was before I had any degree of cycle-specific fitness.

For the last couple of months I have been supplementing my running with 2-3 cycling workouts on the trainer. And while I feel more comfortable going longer (I'm up to a whopping 15 miles on the trainer for my "long" indoor rides), my pace has not increased and is generally 2-3mph slower than what I was able to comfortably do outdoors.

Is this normal? Hubby says he is noticeably slower indoors, too, but his resistance on his fluid trainer feels pretty high to me...and he's still 5-6mph faster than I am. Poo. I have my ancient magnetic trainer set at 2 the second resistance level of 6.

Someone tell me that I'm really an animal in the saddle, but the trainer is concealing my skillz. :p

Trainer pace has little relationship to road pace. The trainer can feel much harder.

Lots & lots of potential reasons why you are slower on the trainer:

1 - what trainer do you use & how tight is the tire on the trainer? You can get crazy speed readings, especially high ones, if you have the tire on loose.

2 - most, though not all, trainers have small flywheels which equate with low interial load. It means your muscles have to work in a totally different way than they do outdoors on the open road. For instance, try coasting indoors and see what happens to your speed - it plummets, whereas outdoors in the flats, coasting for a few seconds doesn't slow you down nearly as much. Most people find it more challenging on the trainer. So it may take you a while to duplicate your outdoor pace, indoors.

3 - another biggie: cooling/ventilation. heat affects blood flow, which can affect the amount of work your muscles can do. In short, you need to have a lot of air moving in your training space to keep yourself from overheating. You can adapt to warmer training conditions, to a point, but it behooves you to have as big a fan as possible or use a non-heated room or garage.

4 - motivation! no open road, blue skies, green hills, or even another rider in the distance to keep you motivated. Occupying the brain is as big a challenge for most people on long trainer rides as the physical part of the ride itself - so music, videos, etc are very useful.

Good luck with your trainer, I find mine invaluable :-)

I have no idea how "fast" I go on the trainer. My front wheel doesn't turn so it doesn't engage the speedometer.

I just do the workout. I know I'm working hard and that's the goal.

Just one more voice about the differences in trainers. My husband and I have identical trainers (a year apart in age but same model) but for some reason the resistance on his is much 'tighter' than mine. He is definitely a much stronger rider than I am, but when we ride the trainer, I can always maintain a higher average speed which I know is not accurate.

For the most part, I don't worry about speed and/or mileage - I go by time in the saddle when riding the trainer and I do specific drills or intervals or endurance (steady HR) rides to keep my mind occupied.

Yep, I don't get a speed reading on my trainer either. But it is definitely overall a harder ride. Sometimes, I feel like I can hardly push the pedals. DH and I have the same trainer. One of them feels "easier" and one feels harder. We traded so I got the harder one this year!
I also use the trainer to do specific drills/training. The program I use never has more than about 45 minutes of riding. I couldn't deal with more than that. But, I feel exactly the same as I do when I do a long, hard ride outdoors.

My computer does give me speed on the trainer (rear wheel mounted). I am definitely slower on the trainer, and the slower pace still feels harder than a pace ~5mph faster would feel on the road.

FWIW, I am also slower on the treadmill than I am running outside.

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Originally Posted by liza

My computer does give me speed on the trainer (rear wheel mounted). I am definitely slower on the trainer, and the slower pace still feels harder than a pace ~5mph faster would feel on the road.

FWIW, I am also slower on the treadmill than I am running outside.

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Interesting, Liza. I have a Garmin Forerunner with the speed/cadence/distance sensor, so it's nice to be able to track my mileage and training improvement during these long Winter months. I'm hoping I see the same effect that you do from your bike computer.

I am usually faster on a TM, since I want to get it over with (I have never been able to do more than 5.5 miles on the TM...feels like 20 on the road). I don't mind the bike trainer nearly as much, but it doesn't hold a candle to being outdoors.

Thanks for all the reassurance, ladies. I can't wait until better weather/roads so I can see my persistence pay off! :D

I hate my trainer. ;) I work twice as hard on my trainer than I do on the road. I feel exhausted quicker and 30 minutes just about kills me. My hubby says he feels that same way and is a more advanced cyclist than I. I most time dread getting on the darn thing but I know that it helps, even if it is just slightly.

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Originally Posted by annielynn

I hate my trainer. ;) I work twice as hard on my trainer than I do on the road. I feel exhausted quicker and 30 minutes just about kills me. My hubby says he feels that same way and is a more advanced cyclist than I. I most time dread getting on the darn thing but I know that it helps, even if it is just slightly.

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Are you doing interval training on the trainer or just going all-out the whole time? I find that intervals make the time go faster and you work hard but also get opportunities to soft pedal and catch your breath.

I usually dislike the trainer. But the other night I was watching the tight-tied Saints-Vikings game and I barely noticed that I hated it and the time flew by.

I interval by clicking up (to a more difficult gear) two gears during commercials and down one gear after the commercial, gradually escalating resistance throughout my ride.

The game held my attention so that I barely noticed it.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who finds the trainer to be a challenge.

Hubby and I do "intervals" of easy riding with maybe 30-60 seconds in the highest gear and our butts out of the saddle every 2-3 miles. It keeps things interesting.

I'm not so fond of my trainer. I find I rock back and forth on it and it really bugs me. But I use it on days like today when it's ten degrees with 40 mph winds and a run just doesn't seem possible.

I do my intervals this way: I turn on my mvp player to random and during fast songs, I up the cadence and spin to the music for the full three minutes of the song. If that is followed by another fast song, I'll unclip one foot and do the best I can to pedal rounds on both sides to the end of that song. Slow songs I have to go into the big ring and get out of the saddle for the full three minutes, even if it is at a resting pace. I do this for eight songs, and then a half hour has gone by and I get off and go do weights.

Indigoiis...sounds like a great workout! Do you think that your trainer has adjustable knobs to perhaps even out an uneven floor/carpet? I thought perhaps that might be your rocking motion...:o

I put a rolled bathmat underneath the front tire and that seems to help. It's me, not the bike/trainer. I'm a rocker! I just hate it because it is so noticeable on the trainer, not so much on the road, though.

Indigoiis, I'm assuming that you are using the quick release that is provided with your trainer?

Some of the aftermarket quick releases don't fit into the trainer very well, and that could definitely cause movement.

Here in Maine, I live on mine for several months out of the year. I wouldn't say that my average speed is all that much slower, perhaps a bit...

Update...I think I figured out the REAL reason my pace indoors is so god-awful. Apparently there is a way to completely shut the GPS off on my Garmin Forerunner. I didn't find this out until yesterday. Up until now I have been plagued by a Garmin that randomly will connect with satellites, then my "speed" drops to 2-5mph for a few seconds, several times each minute. This was murder on my pace. So what should have been 14-16mph was showing as 12-13, most of the time.

zoom-zoom, glad you figured it out.
One thing that can sometimes affect the resistance on a trainer is the calibration of the brake. I use a Tacx Flow and it's recommended that you regularly calibrate the brake, to make sure the resistance is realistic.
Obviously this depends on the make/model of the trainer you're using.
Running on deflated tyres can also slow you down (as well as give you punctures!).
I tend to calibrate it whenever I have to unplug it, but it's often surprising how it can wander off course in between times.

On another note, I've been working on my cadence the last couple of months, and have now managed to increase it from the low 80s to the mid-high 90s. This has made a big difference in both my power output and my speed - so much so, that I'm shocked when I get to ride outdoors, just how much faster I seem! I now don't worry at all about my pace on the trainer, and aim to go for a higher cadence, as this is translating to a higher speed outdoors. No-one can see how slow I'm going on the trainer! :D