De Sisti

LittleArnold, try riding on rollers.

Kapusta

This can’t possibly be a serious question.

providencebikes

I feel the opposite , on the cheapo life fitness bikes its ruffer but easier to gain miles , on a keiser spin bike its smooth like butter but easier than a stationary trainer that resists you with a smaller fly wheel. For me i feel on a non windy day im faster on road i think momentum is the biggest difference other that aero drag .

TimothyH

Wind resistance has less to do with it than people here imagine.

You are not accelerating your body mass on a trainer, nor is energy required to keep that mass in motion.

It takes less energy for 150 or 200 lb to remain stationary than it does for the same mass to stay in motion.



-Tim-

General Geoff

Uhhh... inertia is a property of all matter. An object in motion stays in motion unless there is an opposing force to slow it down. In our case, that opposing force is mostly gravity (on climbs), atmospheric drag (wind), rolling resistance, and mechanical friction of the bicycle's drivetrain.

On a flat road, the biggest energy sink is drag, followed by rolling resistance, then drivetrain friction.

FBOATSB

The only mistake you made in your OP was using "miles" and "MPH" instead of just hours, resistance level, cadence, etc., provoking the ire of the "serious cyclists". Just keep riding no matter how boring. You will be better off come Spring. I hang my bikes up in the fall and ride an elliptical cross-trainer until warm weather. I spent the majority of my career working outdoors year around and don't feel the urge to ride outdoors in much less than ideal weather.

tobey

This question also gets asked for runners who cannot understand why they cannot run outdoors like they can on the treadmill. Air resistance! When I trained for marathons I would start out with the treadmill at 1-2 degrees and then increase as I ran. Same thing training indoors on bike rollers, always use a higher gear then you normally would so when you ride outdoors your pace won't suffer as much from the air resistance.

FBOATSB

I did buy a used mag trainer for this winter, but I didn't like the feeling of riding a bicycle in a vacuum. It's currently for sale.

Craptacular8

+1

I'm not sure where everyone is finding these "easy" stationary bikes....my spin bike at home is absolute torture...The resistance that beast has for nearly all of its "resistance" settings is ridiculous. I'd have thought it would simulate my typical ride, fairly flat but always in the neighborhood of a 24mph headwind, but it still seems worse some how. Maybe it's because I curse as I pedal into the wind, lol, and know that unless the wind is really fickle, that it will eventually be a tail wind.

Leebo

You're not going " anywhere" on a bike that that doesn't move. Just spinning in circles. Try head wind, actual gearing and gravity. Hybrid would not be a "fast" bike. Got some rolling resistance? I don't do trainers, VR, sit n spin or the such. Snow and rain? Got a rain jacket, studded tires and a big cup of HTFU?

La Tortue

Try the newer smart trainers connected to apps like Zwift. If you have the correct weight entered with properly calibrated power meters they will place you very much into the same ball park. Some will quibble over things like wind or you don't ride full power around curves but essentially if an accurate outside to inside speed is desired one can set the settings to achieve this.

Phil_gretz

You could re-calibrate your 'outside' bike computer to match the speed reading of the indoor exercycle by noting the % speed difference for the same perceived effort, and then adjusting the effective wheel circumference number that you input into the bike computer for your wheel size. That way, both bikes will show the same speed, and you'll feel better about it.

xodondum

because no stopping for red lights, stop signs, cars, pedestrians

Milton Keynes

Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.

Maelochs

I don't know how you manage it ... I have spent countless hours on a stationary bike and never travels so much as an millimeter. In miles per hour or any time/distance reckoning .... zero. every time. Then when I rode my bike home from the gym, even if I was exhausted, I'd average 14-16 mph. I can't figure out your technique.

TimothyH

Lots of people in this thread with expertise in how to treat others like pieces of ****.


-Tim-

blacknbluebikes 

watts is watts. you maintain 130 or 160 or 200 watts, that's your "engine"
imagine if bike #1 is carbon on new asphalt.
then bike #2 is fatbike on the beach
then bike #3 is whatever you're riding on a trainer.
same human engine, different speeds.

exmechanic89

This thread reminds me of one I was gonna start titled 'why do I get so many more flats when I ride outside vs when I ride my stationary bike?'..

smarkinson

This! This!

My last ride on Zwift I had a weighted avg power of 184W and an average speed of 34.6kmh. My ride this morning in the real world had a weighted avg power of 180W and an average speed of 20.4kmh. Turns out a lot of hills, wind, water, potholes, rough roads and stop start riding is not conducive to high average speeds.

The OP may not be able to afford a power meter but if he is interested in comparing his efforts between gym bike and outdoor rides he should be using a heart rate monitor and comparing his heart rate between rides and just ignore the average speed which is junk data on the gym bike.

littleArnold

I am starting to think your right. I been riding an upright stationary bike at the gym at a speed of 19-20 mph, but today I tried a recumbent stationary bike at the gym and only was able to go at a speed of 15 mph on it in an hour. Found it much harder, maybe because never ride a recumbent bike. It was closer to the bike speed I ride on my hybrid outside. The other stationary bike is built like a road bike; I hunch over the handles and put a lot more power into my peddling using more of my bodyweight, hips and legs which is maybe why I have an easier time with that type of stationary bike.

noimagination

Oh, it is. There are people who will quite seriously talk about trainer "miles" and include them in their annual distance totals. You can argue 'til you're blue in the face, and they still don't get the concept that "miles", "speed" etc. measured on a trainer are meaningless, and that all that matters is time and effort (or power).

There are even people who will spend unreasonable amounts of time trying to come up with formulas to translate power on the trainer to "real world" speed and distance. And then they'll actually take those numbers seriously.



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jitteringjr

Why do you even care what other people consider mileage? I can tell you I don’t care how many miles you ride no matter how you do it.

Personally as a dad who has to watch young kids that can’t keep up with me on a ride to where I get a work out, trainer miles is a necessary evil. My option is to only ride real miles and then not ride a good number of days at all or ride on the trainer. In the past I just didn’t ride the trainer, but now I just ride if I have too on the trainer. I can tell you my fitness level, power output, average speed are all better when I ride the trainer too. So is that time spent on the trainer worthless? Obviously not or I would not have made the gains I have. What does that mean to you worried about how how many miles other people ride? Who cares.

Back to the OPs question, I can say 16mph on the cycleops fluid 2 trainer is a solid work out for me but 16 mph on the road is an easy recovery day. An hour long ftp test on the road at 20mph would be a 5 min interval on the trainers at best at the same speed. I see about a 3 mph difference with the trainer being slower at the same power output. And the older and more worn out the trainer bearings get, the larger the spread. So wind resistance does not make a noticeable difference, it’s the resistance of the breaking method of the trainer that far outweighs wind resistance.

indyfabz

Ride the stationary bike outside in the rain/snow and see if it's harder. Just don't ride a stationery bike in the rain.

WNCGoater

19 - 20 MPH on a stationary bike.

caloso

No. Time and effort matter. That is the point, actually.