Cold Weather Training

Its not winter yet, but its been below freezing a couple of nights in a row now. Tomorrow should be warm for trick-or-treating, but in a few days it will return to some very cool weather which is not conducive to cycling. Sure, you can get cold-weather riding gear, but what about sweating while wearing layers? Gore-tex and other fancy fabrics are supposed to wick it away from you, but then you need to spend $150 on a cold-weather riding outfit... just to ride a few times when its not snowing or icy out. Nope... not for me. So what's the solution to get my biking fix? I need to get an indoor trainer.

Two options for trainers: a traditional magnetic (or fluid) resistance trainer or a set of rollers. The one type looks like this:



The way it works is you basically connect the rear wheel to the frame of the trainer and the tire is up against the resistance unit. They're usually adjustable (resistance) and some of them are magnetic based and others are fluid based.

The other type of trainer is the roller trainer -- here you have no fixed connection to the trainer and you must balance yourself on it at all times. This is said to help you improve balance in general, but others say its just crazy. I'd like to give it a go, but most people suggest wearing a helmet even while indoors as the risk of falling off is greater than normal riding! Here's what one looks like:



You can probably tell, but the rear wheel balances between the two closer rollers and the front wheel rests against the front roller. You can find bunch of info on roller trainers at the wikipedia site here. Wikipedia describes it this way: "Bicycle rollers are a type of bicycle trainer which makes it possible to ride a bicycle indoors without moving forward. However, unlike other types of bicycle trainers, rollers do not attach to the bicycle frame, and the rider must balance him or herself on the rollers while training. Bicycle rollers normally consist of three cylinders, drums, or "rollers" (two for the rear wheel and one for the front), on top of which the bicycle rides."

I'm hoping that on Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving when the big Christmas sales begin) I will be able to get a great deal on a trainer for my indoor winter biking/training. I will need to keep active in the winter in preparation for my planned tour of the Skyline Drive in 2009. You can read about those plans here.