Rodeman, in today's podcast, I'm gonna talk to you about indoor…
Rodeman, in today's podcast, I'm gonna talk to you about indoor training essentials. Let's cure the team song. Boom! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh, and welcome to the Rodeman Podcast. Welcome back to the Roadman Podcast, you beautiful roadman. Thanks for joining me again for another short form Roadman Boyd's podcast. Today I want to talk to you about indoor training. Guys and girls, the lessons I give to you, the pearls of wisdom I give on this podcast. They're not read on online forums. They haven't been learned from reading, cycling news articles. I've learned days and earned days from many hundreds of hours sitting indoors on tourbo-tryingers. Just feeling miserable, making an adjustment, feeling a little bit less miserable. And this process of iterating over and over and over again and most of the stuff I bring to you is that process. But today's lessons, as you will hear, are very much learned the hard way. Before I go any further, I'd like you to take one second, pause my soul tree tones in my meditating soothing voice and head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh. That way you can go buy me a coffee, buy me a beer, say thanks jolly chap for providing this podcast content which I'm enjoying ever so much. I do appreciate all the donations there, make all the difference between this podcast, living and breathing. So please jump on over there if you get a chance. Today I want to talk to you about indoor training and I want to talk to you about some of the home comforts that make indoor training just that bit more tolerable. Indoor training is a great tool. Yesterday's podcast we spoke about the number one mistake you're making on Zwift and if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, that's a whopper. You should go back and listen to that because It's a mistake I see repeated over and over again, and it's spending too much time in higher and training intensities. Now, following on from this, and you know what, actually the roadman short form podcasts have been a lot of that. It's been one podcast following on from the next. And yeah, I'm gonna try for a little bit, keep them like that. But I'm also very aware that it's Tuesday, and I'm also very aware that I have a fondness for the iteration. So this does have a tech element too. It's a bit of a tech Tuesday feel. So that may be a team that I continue in the podcast, sort of a tech Tuesday. Indoor Training is a great tool, but it can't be the totality of your cycling experience. We need to get outdoors, but Indoor Training is great for getting some specific stuff done. Now, there's obviously limitations which we talked about in yesterday's podcast, but assuming you have a correct training plan and you're looking to optimize your Indoor Training, There's definitely a couple of things that make your life and your experience a lot, lot easier on the indoor trainer. If you don't have an expensive indoor trainer, it's not the end of the world. But what I would advise you to get is a direct drive indoor trainer. That's your entry point into indoor training is direct drive, meaning you take your back wheel off and you connect your bike straight into the cassette on the trainer.
Now, The price points are higher on these
Now, The price points are higher on these. The one I do recommend, it's a Wahoo Kicker. If you haven't been listening to the podcast the last while, I've launched this resources section, which is no more than a shopping list of all the things I recommend. It's brand neutral, it's brand agnostic. I don't endorse any particular brand, just the best products. And there's an indoor training section in that. If you scroll down there, you'll see the trainer I'm recommending. It's a Wahoo Kicker. I've used Wahoo Kicker, I love Wahoo Kicker. It's a direct drive trainer and I'll tell you from somebody who's had the cheapest turbo trainers you can imagine. The trainer experience, it's day and night. Riding a direct drive turbo trainer actually feels like you're outside riding a bike. You can get proper efforts done. You can get proper training done. You can vary just hard levels down real big resistance, big ring stuff. You can get threshold efforts done. It's a proper training experience. I remember when I was in college and I used to come home in the evening. So my classes didn't finish till late. It could be 10 o'clock in the evening before I get home. I'd still be trying to get in my tour box trainer session. Clamp on the bike on with that indoor specific tire to stop your tire wearing out. It was one of the worst training experiences I can ever imagine. There's like a dead spot on the pedal and then it just like almost skips around. Clocous thing it feels like is pedaling in sand. And then I was just, there was no direct drive to urban trainers then so I had no choice. I bought a set of rollers and I remember one particularly memorable evening. Probably home from college even later. It could have been 11 p.m. and at a 60 minute session I was trying to do it and I was on the rollers and for anyone that's used rollers it is possible to crash on the rollers as opposed to your normal indoor trainer. So yeah, the long day in college definitely got the better of me that day and decided to close my eyes for just a little second. And yeah, that little second I didn't run out good. I ended up throwing my folks coffee table in the living room, smashed glass everywhere in bits in the ground and it wasn't a noise experience. But all that was the rollers I was purely using out of frustration of the indoor trainer that obviously added the extra danger element into it We don't have to do any that now the new trainers Wahoo kicker get it forget about it. It's great reset if you're worried about oh, it's a little bit expensive for a turbo trainer You can sell it on after if you're not you know a year from now sell it on their class They're amazing get one the next tip I got an indoor training is brilliant one and if you scroll back a bunch of podcasts to a podcast I done with Ed Ville where he done this with 24-hour world record. He gave a great point and it was a brilliant time for me because it was just before lockdown and Ed said you gotta make your training environment inviting to go into and the more I talked about this I seen a couple of days later I I was out on a rest day with Sarah and we were sitting at a cafe and I seen the weather was starting to get quite bad and I seen a bunch of cyclists going past and there are very much beginner cyclists and I saw they were dressed like beginners.
They were in shorts, jersey, no overshoes, no jacket, no baselares…
They were in shorts, jersey, no overshoes, no jacket, no baselares and I just taught to myself, you know, they're beginners and they're not dressing appropriately and because of that they're less likely to stay out now in this weather so they're not going to get the training effect because they're uncomfortable and they're miserable. Maybe if you're a hardman you can tolerate the bad weather for two hours, three hours if it's uncomfortable. But if you're wearing a noise kit, you don't have to worry about the weather being uncomfortable because it takes longer for the bad weather to get true so you can get the session in. You don't have to dig into your hardman reserves. You don't have to be a hero while training. That's very much what I was doing. I knew this because I've been dressing well on the bike for years. When I came to indoor training, I wasn't doing this. I had my turbo trainer set up in a grubby old shed, and it was going down to the shed, and it was training, and it was miserable. Moved my indoor training set up into the spare room and my apartment, got a nice big screen TV, stuck it on front, got a fan either side of me, got the nice turbo trainer, got the bike mounted on it, and it's just an inviting setup, and that's what you need to do. My last training tip to make it tolerable is a fan. You need to have a fan. I don't know if you a hoyl ago on the Wahoo Kicker fan. Don't buy it because it's a piece of shit. It's going to cost you a fortune and it's just a fan. Go get an Aldi fan, get a little fan. The big industrial ones, I've actually, I don't know if I, I'm going to stick a link right now after the show. So by the time you listen to this, there's going to be a link there. I'm going to stick a link to this big industrial fan that I have right beside my bike. I have two on the left, one on the right. This will blow a tornado for you. It's about 20 times more powerful than the Wahoo fan and it's about, I don't know, what is it? It's like four or five times cheaper? So yeah, ditch the Wahoo fan, get this fan. It's epic. So they are my tips for making your indoor training just that little bit more tolerable. Folks I've got a really exciting episode of the Roadman podcast coming to you tomorrow. Wednesday if you're not listening to this in sync on the day year it's intended to be listened to just check the episode after this because it's a timeless one but our very own Ronan McLaughlin broke the world Everest record on last Saturday detroned Alberto Contador at the very top of the list and I catch up with Ronan tomorrow we talk about tech we talk about nutrition we talk about pacing strategies and we talk about accusations that he's having to face on the line that maybe the record wasn't the most honest. It's a great interview at Rona, totally enjoy it. That's gonna be with you tomorrow. Until then, Roadman, enjoy your day and be safe out there.