Windtrainer vs normal biking

It sounds like you have a lot of breaks during your outdoor rides due to where you ride. Drafting, as you know, also makes a HUGE difference in effort level. You don't have either of these luxuries on the trainer. I don't know of any conversion rate though. I've always just completed the prescribed workout whether I was outside or on the turbo trainer. I typically do all my riding solo and have the benefit of long rural roads with a good bike lane. I could ride 50 miles and never encounter a stop light or stop sign so I am pushing the entire time.

Mental fatigue is a real challenge on a turbo trainer. It gets boring and monotonous which in turn makes you feel like you are fatigued. Finding ways to keep your brain stimulated may help also.

Do you train with a HR monitor? If so, how does it read during your outside ride vs turbo trainer? You may need to back off the resistance on the trainer some or either try not to make your outside ride as laid back with drafting, stopping, etc.

If you have a power meter use TSS to assess the training load of the indoor ride vs an outdoor ride

 

Ya...I was thinking something along the same lines, but am pretty sure that you don't have a power meter if you are asking this questions.  As said above the difference between your outdoor riding and you indoor riding are 1) you get breaks out doors (i.e. stopping for traffic lights, going down hills, etc.) and 2) your intensity (i.e. when you are drafting you aren't working as hard as you would to go the same speed in the same conditions with out the draft, etc.).   The TSS is based on duration and intensity to give you a number that tells you how much stress you put on your body.  You are just measuring duration between your indoor and out door rides.  To measure intensity you need Power Meter (preferred) or if you don't have a power meter you could use a heart rate monitor (not as accurate).  If you don't have either of those then the guess work increases and the accuracy decreases.  Without a power meter or at least a heart rate monitor you should probably just go off of feel and over the next  half dozen rides zero in on how long and easy/hard you have to go inside to feel the same as an outdoor ride.   

Edited by BlueBoy26 2018-10-01 9:51 AM

I suspect he does. He's not a rookie.
If not, HR Tss is actually a pretty good metric as well. It's usually within 10% for power based TSS for me.

Sold my bike which had PM, new bike doesn't have one, don't have the $$ yet, so going on HR.

Well, let's say you rode 4hrs at 65% of FTP (rough IM pace), that would give you 169TSS points

To do that in 2.5hrs you would have to do 67points per hour which means riding at 82% of FTP

Tranlsate that to HR, you need to ride a bit above HIM HR for 2.5hrs for the equivalent of 4hours IM HR.

This is just to get equal training load. There are other factors to consider of course

If you want some real world data like speed and distance, pick up a speed and cadence sensor and throw it on your bike for the indoor sessions.

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