first time with trainer - soliciting analysis/translations.suggestions

I wouldn't try to compare indoor vs outdoor speed - it's fairly irrelevant.  FWIW, I am always slower on the trainer.

No help on the fan as I have no experience with that kind of trainer. 

It's really tough to give a "right" answer, other than that they are just "different."  I've got a Cyclops Fluid 2, and am consistently much slower on the trainer (as measured by my bike computer) than outdoors.  I usually average 18-19mph outside, but can only keep the trainer around 16. 

For me, I just go by RPE and the amount of sweat on the trainer mat. 

Sounds like it.  Grab the tire and give it a good hard spin.  If it slips on the trainer, tighten it.  Otherwise, you are good to go.

I don't have one of these trainers, but it sounds to me like once you are getting up to speed something is just rattling around back there.  I doubt that there is a mechanism that is intended to 'kick in' above a certain speed.  I could be wrong.

That's the best way to use the trainer -- go harder for a shorter time.  Don't try to compare indoor and outdoor speeds.  Just go hard.  Three type of intervals that I like to do are 30"/30" (do 10 to 30 of those), 4'/1' (4 to 6 of those) and 20'/2' (start with one and maybe work up to three).   If you ride three times a week, do each of those once per week.  The effort on the hard parts should be such that you can make it through the last one feeling that yes, maybe, with a gun to your head, you could do one more.

Absolutely.

You aren't going anywhere--distance and speed are irrelevant. I've always found that the best way to train on the trainer is time and intensity.

I keep my trainer adjusted so it's putting pressure on the wheel enough that it squeaks for the first couple of revs and then warms up. It pushes on it a little; not squashes it a lot. If your wheel is whizzing like mad, it's too loose. If it's so tight you can't move or if it's trashing your tire, it may be too tight (or you have a crappy tire...but...). It's sort of hard to say off hand, but basically, eventually you'll play with it until you know when it's "just right".

+ whatever on ignoring speed, all indoor trainer setups provide only comparisons to themselves, not to other setups or outdoor rides.  Some trainers get a little closer to mimicking the outdoors, but it's still not the same.

You might want to consider doing an LT test on the trainer, which will give you some baseline HR zone data for your winter cycling workouts.

Yeah, and I live at the top of a PITA hill, too.  I just love finishing a 50 mile ride with a climb.

I use speed and distance on the trainer but only compare it to other trainer sessions.  For example, you can do your time trial intervals and determine what your distance covered in that interval was (or average speed) and track your improvement.  I know that I'm about 1 mph faster now than I was 6 months ago on most of my intervals.  The trainer is a fairly constant environment so it's great for monitoring your fitness as well.

Having said that, my trainer speed is always a few mph slower than outside - hence I don't compare trainer rides to outdoor rides.  I just know that if I am getting fitter on my trainer sessions, it does translate to being faster outdoors.  A trainer session is much more intense - I usually do around a 1hr workout (Spinervals) and on most days, I am more tired than a hard 2 hr group ride.  You don't get to coast on a trainer workout.

If you're just starting, might be easier to use time and effort (which you can also measure with a HR monitor if you train by zones).  If I'm just doing an easy aerobic workout (something I'll likely be doing in the off-season), I use it while watching TV (and use the commercials for harder interval efforts...though that's tougher with DVRs nowadays).

Make sure to put a towel on your bike to cover sensitive areas like the headset or holes in the frame where the cable routes because sweat is pretty corrosive.  You'll sweat a lot more so keep liquids handy.

Regarding resistance, I would play around with it.  Your cadence seems on the low side (though that's a personal preference).  You may want to have a low enough resistance where you can pedal closer to 85-90 rpm and see how it feels.  On some intervals with heavier resistance, cadence isn't important but in general, I'd try to keep the cadence in the 80-90 range (for most people). 

Have fun!  I know that the trainer is key for me retaining most of my bike fitness in the spring - especially as I focus on the run/swim more during the winter.

I set my trainer up to try to mimic what I do on the road knowing it won't account for elevation changes and wind.

To duplicate this as best I can I pump my tires up before every trainer session to the same PSI. I also put a notch in the adjustment knob so I know exactly how many turns it take to get back to the correct adjustment/resistance. I do use a cadence/speed sensor and my trainer workouts mimic what I can do outside fairly close. Outside I can only hold between 24 for about 6-8miles tops and can't hold that speed much more or less indoors. Which means it is probably a little harder indoors than out due to lack of elevation and wind.

Ultimately, speed does not really matter. The best way to measure an indoor workout is through power or HR/PE.

New question then:

the consensus so far seems to be you all say two things that I have trouble putting together.

#1 - you go slower on the trainer.

#2 - your trainer workouts are more intense.

Huh?

for me comparing the outside and inside is very hard right now since I have nothing but rolling hills outside, and dead flat on the trainer.

I will definitely get the HRM going so I can do some better comparisons. A power meter is just out of the budget right now. Really. I went so far as to tell my wife that they're the one expensive thing that I won't be getting.

#1 one really does not matter. Its the quality of the workout session that does so don't get hung up on speed.

#2 sometimes it is a percieved thing. On a trainer even with a fan blowing right at you I tend to overheat much sooner than I would outside. At least I realize how much more I sweat as opposed to outside. Also, due to lack of outside influences (wind, elevation, w/e) most of us likely think the resistance is not enough so we crank it up probably more than necessary so  1 hour workout indoors you may have a lesser speed, less miles, higher HR. etc

The beauty of the trainer is the consistency you can get out of it since you have control of all the variable. For testing it is the best thing if you are doing any type of threshold test (power or HR). Don't over think it. Just get on and give it a try and you will find out waht works for you

#1: You're not going slower, because you have no speed. You are not covering any distance. "Speed" is irrelevant.

#2: You can make your workout as intense as you want. I have trainer rides that are far easier than some rides outside, and outside rides that are easier than some trainer rides.

Trainers have no coasting, no downhills, no stoplights...so your "time pedaling" is more consistent for, say, a given hour of riding. So in that way, sure, I guess it's "more".

Trainers are often more convenient for doing "intense" interval training--so for folks who rarely use their trainer except for this purpose, then that too, woudl make their trainer rides more difficult.

The idea of "Well, outside I ride 20 mph; inside 20 mph makes my heart explode, there for trainers are 'more intense'" though isn't the same thing, because you aren't actually going 20 mph.

Good points above. I have used a trainer a LOT in the past two years - enough that my sweat completely destroyed an ultegra front brake and nearly destroyed my headset (it wouldn't even turn), so I've definitely put it through the numbers.

- It's hard to compare outdoor to indoor speed. That's likely going to be a lost cause.

- Still, trainer speed is still be an EXTREMELY valuable number to compare workout to workout or to gauge efforts. Keep in mind that speed on a trainer is directly analogous to power - and we've all heard of how 'magical' those powermeters are. The same powermeter training principles apply directly to speed on a trainer. KK and Cycleops2 have speed /power conversion charts for planning workouts. Ignoring your trainer speed is ignoring the best feedback tool you have to compare workouts between trainer sessions. (You obviously have to keep the trainer settings constant if you have an adjustable one.) I successfully use the speed sensor on my Cycleops2 as a poorman's powermeter for the Chris Carmichael Cyclist training plans, which are heavily based on power - and the number/HR correlations are dead on for his recommended zones.

- On the same note, distance traveled on the trainer is a very valuable volume metric. Again, you won't get accurate outdoor estimations based on your trainer efforts - on the bright side, in general, if you can put up "X" miles on the trainer, you should be able to manage "X" miles outdoors.

-  You can definitely improve on the trainer (Andy Potts pro 70.3 champion used to use one exclusively, not training outdoors at all) but it is still difficult to precisely determine your outdoor performance without outdoor testing. For sure, I can manage a higher speed and HR outdoors vs indoors, and a lot of folks with Powermeters note a 15-30 watt discrepancy between indoor and outdoor testing which reflects this. Might be air movement, might be the fun factor, who knows, but it's real.

- If you are going to spend a lot of time on a trainer, I would highly, highly, recommend having a training plan of some sort. Like Jorge's winter training plan, or the Carmichael time-crunched cyclist plan, or some other plan. Trainers are not intrinsically interesting - riding to ride works for outdoors, but fails on a trainer. Riding for improvement though, can be very exciting, and will keep you slogging out those miles of pain on the trainer.

I do almost all of my riding on the trainer (June-September, probably 75-80% of it...the rest of the year, 100%)...and I DO ride "just to ride" on my trainer. In the last two years, I haven't done a workout, interval session, spinerval, anything...all I've done is ride.

It IS possible to ride decently, even fairly competitively, without using your speedometer or power meter or other stuff on a trainer. Not saying it is the most funnest way to train for everyone, but it certainly is an option.