cminter

I say if you ride with the same intensity on the trainer as you do outside then count them. I count mine which seems to be a theme for those of us from Wisconsin.

For the "indoor miles don't count crowd" I have a question, If I ride a 200k hilly ride with 100k of climbing and 100k of descending how many kilometers count?

RT

I see indoor miles as strictly cardio miles as I have a nice computerized Schwinn recumbent stationary bike. I don't feel the burn in my legs like I do outdoors, but I'm certainly burning the calories.

Machka 

What you've got there is the equivalent of a flat 200K!

STEEKER

what about roller trainers , some like mine are hard work ,:edit I count the K's

ken cummings

I do not count the miles on a trainer.

StephenH

"For the "indoor miles don't count crowd" I have a question, If I ride a 200k hilly ride with 100k of climbing and 100k of descending how many kilometers count?"

It's not an issue of "indoor miles don't count", it's a matter of "stationary pedaling isn't milage". Milage implies a distance, a movement from place to place, which isn't happening. It's like counting time sitting at a desk as miles driven in your car; the effort may be the same in either case, but it would sure seem odd to count desk time as "milage". That doesn't mean you shouldn't train indoors or count the training whatever way you want, just that it seems odd to count it as miles ridden when you didn't go anywhere.

RT

Why exactly do you need to go somewhere? Put it this way: If I rode for 90 minutes on my trainer and you stood there watching (not riding on a trainer), I have derived a benefit, a physical benefit from this activity. You have not. Calories were burned, muscles were exerted, everything that occurs during an outdoor ride, except for going form a point A to a point B. The roadie crowd seems to be unanimously anti-counting trainer mileage. I assert that it is beneficial and counts for something. It is not a yes or no issue.

You cannot equate sitting at a desk and driving in a car as similar activities. At a desk, you're not trying to go anywhere. On a trainer, you're trying to do something, or why would anyone actually use a trainer?

As I've stated in this thread, I get a great cardio benefit from my trainer. Much more so than if I did nothing at all, so it must count for something. The miles may not be 1:1, but they are something.

Machka 

Oh yeah, count trainer time as exercise ... no one is disputing that there's exercise happening, and that you're burning calories, etc. But you aren't really going anywhere so counting them as kilometers or miles is a little strange.

I don't lump them in with my outdoor kilometers because when I get on my bicycle outside, I'm going somewhere ... I'm actually covering kilometers. But I do keep track of them for my own exercise reference, much like I keep track of other non-cycling forms of exercise.

Note that it is not just an inside vs. outside debate: If you rode inside a velodrome, or had a basement or barn big enough to ride round and round and round, you could count the distance you cover there as kilometers because although you're riding inside, your bicycle is actually moving forward and covering distance.

RT

I see your point, however I don't understand why going somewhere is actually important unless you're commuting to work, going to the store, competing in a race. I guess my reasoning is that the action is the same, but the environment is different.

If I lived at the South Pole, I'd have no choice but to count my indoor miles, but then there are some hardcore cold-weather-riders out there

Carbonfiberboy 

Hey, we need a new metric here: calories burned. When I'm doing the right thing: e.g. really improving my conditioning, I burn about 7000 calories/week according to my Polar. I think that's about a 1:1 for kilojoules. So maybe we need to forget the whole mileage thing and measure everything in calories. What's your this year's "calories burned" goal?

OTOH, my "real rides" and events mostly involve a lot of climbing. What really counts on my rides is not so much distance traveled, as elevation gained. So should I not count my flat rides, because I'm not going anywhere, meaning up and down? I mean, what's the difference between a flat ride and a trainer? Heh.

Machka 

The OP set a goal of 5000 miles. He is keeping track of the actual distance he covers by bicycle. If you're on a trainer, you aren't covering any distance, you're stationary ... your legs are spinning but your bicycle is not moving forward. So therefore I'm saying he can't legitimately count trainer time in his 5000 miles.

He can, however, count trainer time in "calories burned" calculations, or in a list of exercise he did that day, or record it in some other way because it is a valuable activity for keeping in shape, losing weight, etc.

znomit

Given that this is the "Long Distance" forum, I'd say no, stationary miles don't count.

But if you asked the same question in the "Indoor Training" forum then I'd say hell yes.

Six jours

What if he puts the trainer in the RV and has his wife drive him around while he spins?

IOW, I nominate this thread for "silliest of the week".

STEEKER

but if on rollers your still not going forward but your bike is still moving about and your still balancing and peddeling like a mad man interupted with moments terror now and then

znomit

Yeah but if he is pointing backwards you need to subtract the trainer miles from the RV miles.

If the RV gets stuck in traffic and he ends up doing more trainer miles than the RV covers, well thats negative miles, tough day.

lux41

lol some of these responses are making me roll on the floor lmol ,I dont count my miles but heh if someone wants to count there miles * why not * I think the most imp part is too keep the pedals turing all yr long ,but 4 hrs on a trainer can be ...

Steven

cminter

So it would seem that UMCA thinks you can cover miles on rollers since they have "24 hour roller record".

As for the easier or harder, my rollers are easier than my trainer kind of like a flat ride or maybe a tailwind but everyone still counts those miles the same if your outside. My trainer on the other hand can be set way harder than any road ride I can use for training near my house. I have access to plenty of hills but none that will last an entire ride while not allowing any break in pedaling.

I came across this statement on a different forum concerning the equivalent times.

Here's an interesting fact, I was a member of the Carmichael Training System for about a year. At CTS you don't ride miles, you ride time. All the workouts are "ride for an hour, ride for 2 hours," never "ride 30 miles." Interesting enough, when you had to do a trainer ride, the coaches said to cut the training time by 15%. This leans toward the theory that trainer miles can be harder. This advice comes from the guy that coached a certain someone to 7 TDF wins. Maybe they know something we don't? https://www.bikejournal.com/thread.as...4A}&numPost=11

In the end it really doesn't matter what counts or doesn't. I ride for fun and the challenge of doing rides that most normal people would not consider possible or sane. I will still be logging my indoor riding in miles knowing that I put in the same effort if not more than I would if I was outside.

RT

Ok, from another standpoint. Since this is the LD forum, it equates that you would have to physically go somewhere. I think instead of being a function of the rider, the mileage is a function of the vehicle. I'm just thinking from the former point of view.

TomM

Living in Florida I don't have to ask this question.