For exercising I ride my bicycle. I have talked about that before and how I enjoy it. Now that we live in Idaho there is a much higher likelihood that weather could prevent me from getting out everyday to ride. In AZ I rarely had issues riding everyday. I didn’t care if it was hot and it was never that cold. I would miss the occasional day due to rain, but those days were few and far between.
But here in Idaho it will rain more often. It will snow at times. It will be really cold. And there will be times where the smoke is so bad that going outside may not be the best thing to do.
As a result I decided to get myself an indoor cycling setup. I still have my bike frame from the bike I was in an accident with Superbowl Sunday and it seems to be holding up just fine. But my wife asked me not to ride it out and about. So, I have converted it to an indoor bike.
Here it is:
I bought a Wahoo Kickr Core off of offer up the day before the movers took all our stuff from the Chandler house. I had to buy the right 10s cassette and the mat to go under the bike.
I got it all setup a few days ago, and I used it just the other day. So far I like it. I found out that my Garmin app won’t sync/pair with the Wahoo so I am trying to find a good application to collect data. Once I get that data I can download it as a fit file and then upload it to the Garmin application.
There are a lot of applications out there. I tried the base Wahoo app, and it is pretty worthless. It gives data, but there is no dynamic changes. I have to control it all. That takes me away from the riding, and I didn’t like that. Then I downloaded a bunch of other apps to try out – Strava, Zwift, Rouvy, FulGaz, TrainerRoad, and Wahoo SYSTM. I have looked at Strava and Zwift so far. They both have monthly or yearly costs to truly get it to work the way I want.
I am starting with Zwift. It has a video game feel to it. It has animated routes to go though. There are other riders at the same time as you and you get to see them on the routes as well. It feels very video game like. I have used it once and while I didn’t like the video gameness of it, it did work well with the Wahoo. It got harder on the hill sections and easier on downhill portions. And I was able to download a fit and then upload it to Garmin without issue. I don’t get heart rate and intensity minutes doing this but it was pretty good. I will continue to test it out and see how it goes. It is a bit pricey though in my opinion especially since I only want to use it when I can’t go outside to ride.
I say that right now, but it is also true that I can use this system when I don’t have the same amount of time to get out and ride. I just used it the other morning because I only had 30 minutes and so I hoped on to ride inside. I could also see myself using it when it gets dark and I don’t want to head out at night/early morning. So, maybe I will use it more than I think I will.
After using it a couple times here is what I can say – I sweat a lot more on this than I do with riding outside. I even have a fan going and I still drip like crazy off my face while riding this setup. I was very surpirsed. I now have a towel in the room to use while I ride to make sure I don’t drip all over the bike, mat and floor.