Kelly the Culinarian: My Bike Trainer Set Up

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

My Bike Trainer Set Up

I instagrammed a picture of my bike mileage this morning and got a ton of questions about my bike trainer set up, so I thought I'd address them here for anyone who's curious how I'm spending hours upon hours pedaling to nowhere this winter.

Here's my bike trainer set up:
During the summer, I had the trainer set up in the garage so I could open the door and get a breeze. Now that it's cooler, I've moved indoors to my own personal hurt locket in the basement.  I have a magnetic bike trainer Jenny gave me that has served me well in my training thus far, and I set it up on an old yoga mat for stability. I also have a cheapo bike computer attached to my rear wheel so I can get a mileage count indoors. I've compared it to my Garmin readout before and believe it to be accurate.
I also have another cheap bookcase nearby to put my phone, timer, water bottles and nutrition on and within easy reach. It's the perfect height for my bike.
My aerobars get the most use on my trainer as a Kindle holder. I have Amazon Prime, so I watch anything that's free when I'm sitting here pedaling for three hours. Because the trainer makes a lot of noise, pairing the Kindle with headphones is the only logical way I can watch anything without waking up my whole neighborhood.
Also, because I'm rehabbing a hamstring injury and constantly working on reinforcing my core, I have a little station next to my bike. This way, when I'm done with a ride, I have no excuse to skip my additional exercises.

As for what I do on the trainer, I have two basic workout structures: distance and speed. The distance rides are all about getting in mile after tedious mile. To break it up, I'll throw in short bursts of high-intensity pedaling using a timer on my phone. The speed workouts are far more structured. Typically, I'll warm up for 20 minutes and then do a pyramid (1 minute fast, 1 minute recovery, 2 minutes fast, 1 minute recovery, all the way up to 5 and then back to 1). Or, I might do sprints that are 1 minute long, followed by 1 minute of recover for 40 minutes. I vary the "work" and "recovery" times to keep my body guessing what will come next.

What are your tips for setting up an indoor bike station and keeping away the boredom?

6 comments:

Zenaida Arroyo said...

Great setup! I am thinking of getting one too.

Zenaida Arroyo said...

Great setup! I am thinking of getting one too.

Unknown said...

My trainer set-up is as follows:
-Yell to husband to grab my bike from the garage
-Husband grabs bike from our garage, two bricks and my trainer from the laundry room
-My trainer gets set up in our living room, right in front of the TV
-The bike gets stabilized by bricks
-I ride while catching up on guilty pleasure shows like Pretty Little Liars, with the remote held to my bike by a hair rubber band
-Yell to husband to put my bike back downstairs...

Losing Lindy said...

love it! I have Netflix, and Amazon Prime, but honestly never use Amazon Prime for watching videos, only for shipping.

Erin said...

I do miss my trainer set-up in my basement at our old house. Just no way I could keep it set up all the time in our apartment now!

Anonymous said...

I'm on the fence about a trainer for my bike .. I own a spinner, and clip into it.. After last winter I didn't feel like all the spinning I did helped with my bike fitness. But I won a spinner! Weird world. Your setup looks nice. Great idea to put it in the garage too, I get sweaty and gross in my livingroom.