Winter Riding

Having been born in California, I often times blame my warm-weathered beginnings on my inability to ride outside once the temperature goes below 50 degrees. And as much as I hate to admit it, I am definitely a fair-weather rider. Call me crazy, but I'm just not a fan of riding in the cold with frozen toes and lungs and my nose running like a faucet. So usually once November hits, I resort to riding inside. In the past, I would utilize the stationary bikes at my gym however after riding for most of the year on my road bike, I began to notice the vast discrepancy that exists between stationary bikes and real bikes. I just didn't feel like I was getting the same workout. So that's when I decided to look into purchasing a bike trainer for my apartment. I did some research, consulted Craigslist and wound up purchasing a Kurt's Kinetic fluid stationary bike trainer. Even though it sits in my garage for a large majority of the year, it is worth its weight in gold for how much use I get out of it during the winter months.

In order to keep my front tire in place, I purchased a CycleOps stabilizer. I know some people just put a few phone books under their front tire to make it level with the rear, however I like the added stability that comes with a tire stabilizer. The CycleOps one that I purchased is made with 3 different size slots for different sized tires. 

So whenever I get the urge to ride, I normally just set this up in my bedroom. That way I can play music or watch movies and not have anyone bother me or visa versa. One downfall of the Kurt Kinetic trainer is that it can be fairly loud. However, on the plus side, the noise it makes is very much so a "white noise" so it is easy to block out. One other down fall is that you really can't stand while you ride on the trainer because it puts too much strain on your gears and hub so if I ride for over an hour I usually get a bad case of Sore Butt Syndrome. 

Some of the pros of riding on a trainer are that an hour on the trainer feels like 2 on the road. So I feel like I can get a great workout in a short amount of time. It is also really easy to set up and break down... I would say it only takes about 3 minutes to do each. Finally, the weight that is on the right side of the trainer is replaceable so if you decide you need more of a challenge, you can purchase heavier weights to exchange with the weight that comes on the trainer. 

There are TONS of other trainers out there and my one recommendation before purchasing one is to do your research first! This website has some pretty good reviews on the top 5 bike trainers on the market: 

http://stationary-bike-stand.org/

Happy Biking :)