Camp Lynda...Skiing...er...

Winter training can be a challenge. I had planned to ride Camp Lynda this weekend, but the weather in St. George had other ideas.

Honestly, I've been too busy with work etc. anyway, and so haven't been skiing either, which is probably best since the hills are sketchy with avy hazard.

This has relegated me to the trainer. I have a computrainer, which Kim's bike is on right now, and a Tacx Fortius, which one of my bikes is kept on. I keep a bike on there so that I don't have to waste time setting it up and taking it down.

People often ask which is better - the Tacx or the Computrainer. Each seems to have its benefits. The Tacx software has more features, but I just end up riding in ergo mode all the time anyway, and its ergo mode works fine.

The computrainer ergo mode makes the wheel feel like it is stuck in goop, so I ride virtual courses that can be made up by the user. I really like that feature, which surprisingly Tacx doesn't have. My CT seems to have more consistent wattage than the Tacx, once it is warmed up, but it doesn't have the nice user-settable calibration constant that Tacx has, which allows matching to the power meter.

In the end, it doesn't matter much which one. Bart once said to me he finds riding indoors "is like burning a match" (cyclists all understand this). I almost agree. Both trainers are still boring and mentally taxing for anything over 90 minutes. This makes it hard to get a great workout, but better than conventional trainers, and worlds better than rollers.

As long as it isn't actually snowing (or raining), I ride outside unless it just won't fit in my schedule. I ride in the dark a lot in the winter. Maybe sometime I'll write about clothes for cold weather training. I've tried a bunch of things over the years.