Tracy---See the thread on riding at night & invest in a headlight/tail light!

I am an avid Spinervals fan but I resort to using them only when I can't ride outside. That means heavy rain, snow and/or ice. To be honest, the Spinervals are tougher than riding outdoors, so that helps me get up the gumption to bundle up and head outside when it's bitter cold.

BTW, you might want to look into the Hardcore 100, Coach Troy's indoor Century. You can break it down into shorter rides and doing the entire 5 hours is a great endurance test. You really can't go wrong w/any of Troy's workouts. The hill and strength-focused workouts went a long way in improving my ability to power up the hills. Hillacious has a high "fun" factor--good variety--even though it's a killer.