Dealing with indoor training

I've been known to log a lot of miles inside much to the amazement of many of my friends. In the last six weeks I think I've only ridden outside about 5 times but have still managed to get in 13-15 hours most weeks. To me its all about the environment where you'll be riding inside.

Long ago I took over the basement for my bikes and music gear (lots of drums, piano, pa system---thats for a different blog). For the riding, I have a Cycle-Ops Indoor 400 which is truly an amazing indoor bike. Besides the usual current/max/avg cadence,speed and HR, it has the ability to set target wattage or slope from -10% to +10% or gearing from 1 to 22. It also provides training stress score, intensity factor and the best adjustment of saddle and bar heights on any indoor bike I've ridden. After 30 years of wind-trainers, magnetic resistance trainers,fluid trainers, CompuTrainers, shredded tires, and flat tires, I am enjoying the Cycle-Ops 400.

But does it make the indoor training go by faster? Not really but it has made it more efficient. The target wattage has been especially beneficial. If I want to hold 280-290 watts for some long tempo (this week it was 4x20 one day and 3x20 the next), I set the wattage and will be right in the zone as long as I keep my cadence steady.

How do I pass so many hours inside? I will note that I don't own even one indoor cycling training dvd, no Tour de France dvds,or really anything cycling related. Quite honestly I find watching bike races pretty boring. I'd rather watch a movie, a concert, a basketball game or listen to one of the XM radio channels while I read books, magazines and newspapers. I have a music stand that allows me to read quite easily on the bike. For certain intervals, I'll concentrate on just that effort but for longer efforts I've found that I can hold the power while I read or watch the tv. I've actually found that some of my best training occurs indoors given the consistent environment and efficiency of the time spent on the bike. My goal is to start the spring ready to go and not having to ride myself back to my race fitness. If you can train hard inside, you'll be able to ride even better outside.