Indoor Bike Trainer

Hi Michael, I was in the same situation as you about 2 months ago. I went about 3 weeks, just logging my time, but I'm a bit too anal to not know how far I'm riding. LOL I robbed the cheap bike computer from my old hybrid bike and rigged it to my rear wheel, so I can measure the distance, too. I had to rit the sensor up with some wire and spacers to move it close enough to the magnet on the rear wheel, but it works great, now. When I get a break in the weather, and I want to take it out on the road, I just coil up the wire and tuck the computer into my seat pack, so I don't have to re-do all my installation hard work.

After I had my distance logged for a few rides, I went back and entered an average pace for my previous rides to get an estimate of the distance. Other than my personal preference and curiosity, I don't think leaving out the distance will confuse anything. You won't be able to get pace data for your charts, but you can always estimate the distance if you have to.

I have done the same thing as the above with buying a cheap cyclo computer from say Walmart or something and hooking it up to the rear wheel. It worked great for me last year through the Northeastern Winter. Still use it this year. You can get a little computer with basic functions for about 10 dollars or so. Good luck with your winter training! :-)