Why I love my bike trainer: Trainer Road, Baby!

I must say that I am SO excited to write this review. Because it is THE (yes, singular) reason why I am able to account for such a massive improvement in my cycling fitness this last season. These guys are the BEST. A few months, ago, I emailed them tell them how much I love their product, how much it's done for me, and I that I'd love to be a face of their organization. I'm proud to say, I'm now a Trainer Road Ambassador!

Why am I so excited you ask?

Let's just say that a week and a half-ago, I participated in Trainer Road's indoor cycling challenge, "Tour of Sufferlandria", which is nine straight days of really intense cycling workouts. There is NO WAY I would have been able to finish that a year ago. But I finished, and finished STRONG. After taking some rest, I did another two-hour workout and had hardly felt the effort by the time I was done.

Just like fellow Trainer Road Ambassadors, Elise, and Becca, in less than one year, I've massively improved; going from a FTP of 200 to 365. (If you know anything about cycling fitness, this is HUGE.)

Read more if you want to know how it happened...

Some people may not be convinced. My wife, for example, was skeptical when I pitched the idea to her. She thought it was just going to be another training fad. Let's admit it - triathletes will try just about anything if you tell them it will help them PR, or get to Kona, or Nationals, or _______ (fill in the blank). We're a driven group of people with lots of goals!

One year ago, shortly after getting back from my extended vacation in Afghanistan, I needed to transition back into Triathlon training. I'd been fortunate to have access to a good spin bike, which allowed me to keep decent cycling fitness going. But after using nothing but a spin bike for 7 months, and then coming home to my road bike, I quickly realized that the spin bike had caused me to "miss" many aspects of proper cycling fitness. I was faced with two big problems:

1) It was winter, so I needed a way to bike indoors.
2) All I had was a borrowed spin bike to ride on.
3) I was in my second year of triathlon, but had a HUGE fitness gap in my cycling.

So I decided that I needed shop for trainers. A million google searches later, I also discovered Trainer Road, and decided that it would be the perfect training tool to teach me how to really train on the bike PROPERLY.

In reading many many MANY reviews, I also stumbled across methods of USING trainers effectively. I literally stumbled across Trainer Roads website, and I was sold on their product after reading about what they provided. I got a trainer, signed up, did some testing, and began spinning in April 2013. When I started, my Functional Threshold power was 200.

Guess what it is now, February of 2014, less than one year later....

365

That's right. It's not a typo. My recent test put me at 365, up from 275 in October. I was shocked. But Here are some screen shots to prove it:

Ok, so this first image was my first official workout. You'll see that the top range of watts is somewhere between 200 and 250. Let me tell you, I was sweating like crazy at this point. (It was also here that I realized my Lactate Heart Rate Threshold wasn't nearly what it needed to be.)

So now... 111 workouts later, spending 3.8 days on the trainer, my threshold power test looked like this. (Look where the "200" is NOW.)

You can't make this stuff up! You'll see the yellow highlighted part is the actual 20 minute threshold test. I was averaging around 330 watts for the first two-thirds. Then I decided to see what I could REALLY do if I left it all out there. I pushed it up above 400 watts, and I could hold it! Then for the last couple minutes I pushed it to 500! WOW!

There is no possible way I would have been able to maintain such fitness if I'd tried to just spin on a trainer during the winter months. The instant feedback that I get from Trainer Road as I'm training just can't be beat. Their interface is SO user friendly. The workouts are very challenging and motivating, and automatically adjust as your Functional Threshold power goes up.

For cycling, this is the ultimate indoor training tool. And it's so incredibly easy to set up.

This year, I hope to be on the Air Force Triathlon team. I'm also going to be doing some bike races this year - if I have time with grad school and all that. I know that cycling is going to be my new secret weapon this year. I can't wait to use it!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment to ask! If you're interested in Trainer Road, I HIGHLY recommend you go to their website.