Ignore the haters. Trainer videos and DVDs, if excellent, are worth every penny.

I push harder on these videos than I do on the real road. (Lack of traffic and coasting helps.) Also, there is NO way I'd be able to go this hard in training without these videos, and I consider myself pretty mentally die-hard. Without the motivation, you simply won't/can't blast yourself the way you can with these videos.

Both Spinervals and Sufferfest are excellent. The Sufferfest ones have much, much better music, Spinervals gets the edge for having coach Troy yelling all your times and motivation into your ear nonstop - which is amazingly helpful since most of the time you'll be going so hard (with either video) that you won't even be able to watch the DVD for the second half since you'll be in so much pain. Sufferfest does have audio cues that are pretty good though for attacks and breaks.

Also - the Sufferfest "Angels" to me is the best-produced one. The "revolver" one isn't anywhere as good, in comparison, IMO, as the music doesn't change up as much and isn't as well picked and timed.

The "Suffer-O-Rama" Spinervals DVD is crazy hard. It's so hard that I actually dread doing it - but it's totally worth it. I climbed some nasty 20% grades today outdoors and while it was hard, I handled it well - all because of these videos, since I haven't ridden outside more than twice in the last 3 months.

If you've never done one of these DVDs, you have no idea how much pain you can inflict on yourself with a trainer. Far greater bang-for-buck timewise than riding on the road for a workout.