I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but I've noticed a lot of people keep track of yearly miles. Does anyone count trainer miles in their yearly total?

https://www.bikejournal.com/home.asp

Some do, some don't. I dislike the trainer VERY much and live in WI as well were it's a necessity in Winter.

Miles don't count, only time.

Yes, but they must be done at an acceptably high wattage/effort and you should really only look at time on the trainer. You do need to de-rate the speed and hence the miles as they will be overstated versus what is done on the road with wind resistance.

+1. And this solves the OP's problem.

If people ask me about miles I often quote my mileage and then may toss in hours on the trainer. Like, "14,600 miles this year and 640 hours on the spinning bike". Yeah..that sounds about right.

I count my yearly miles... but just so I can keep track of maintenance. 3000 trainer miles still means I should check my chain and cassette.

Otherwise, what the others have said. Time is more important than miles.

Ever ridden a computrainer? Every mile on that thing is more work than an "equivelant" mile on the road.

This, for road & trainer.

I have never passed up a trainer on the road.

No.

Only if they are part of a Strava segment.

The time response is the correct answer for all riding.

I spend a lot of time on the trainer in the fall and winter - sometimes as much as 20 hours a week depending on the weather and my needs. How far I go is really irrelevant compared to how much time I spend pedaling and whether I am getting the proper workout in during that time. The same goes for my summer, outdoor riding.

That said, I do have a Garmin, and I always get a kick out of the map from my trainer rid; it looks like I have been zigzagging all over my house.

I count mine. Over half the year is spent indoors on a trainer where I live. And I defy you to ride a Trutrainer and say that the miles travelled on that bloody thing are easy miles.

Well...

The time response is the correct answer for "How much time did you spend on your bike?"
It's also valuable if you are trying to document physical efforts as part of a training regime, because (among other things) it allows you to count hours spent on the trainer.

But the time response is a red herring if the question is "How many miles did you ride?"
There's no such thing as Trainer Miles (sic) because miles is a unit of distance, and a trainer covers no distance no matter how many hours you sit on the thing spinning furiously.

You haven't seen me go off the side of my roller.

Plus intensity for the given time.

Last week, I spent 17 hours focusing on climbing in WV, but only covered 210 miles. Same time, with less effort, in Florida would have been over 350 miles.

Miles ridden is not a very useful measure.

No.

I like these easy questions.

...unless you want to know how far you've gone, and then it's kinda critical.

It's as useful(useless) as time. Either one should have intensity attached to be most effective in tracking effort.

Over the course of a year tracking time and/or mileage is a useful metric for volume. My trainer miles are harder than outdoor miles so I count them. They only represent about 3% of my riding so it's not a big deal either way.

+1

Miles on a trainer are sooo much harder than those on the road.

I even count the miles when the bike is on my car rack. Over 10,000 miles this year!

The example I gave shows why time is a much better metric for volume.

Given the variabilities of group versus solo, flat versus climbing, wind speed and direction, the same amount of time, even for a given effort, will produce wide swings in mileage.

Thus time is a more workable measure, and the reason training plans are almost always done on time rather than mileage.


Add in intensity, with either an hrm, or a power meter, and miles become pretty irrelevant.

I count miles on the road, and the burn in my legs over time for the trainer.