A bit of a strange one this... difficult to quantify or put metrics on...

Distance
Some Trainers (particularly the computerised ergometer ones such as the Tacx Genius and Wahoo Kickr) are pretty much 100% outside distance equivalent. Others are close (Tacx Bushido for example is mileage accurate until downhill sectors)

Other trainers are not speed or distance equivalent in any way really to an outdoor ride - i'm thinking Rollers and the fluid resistance ones here (and the incredibly old school wind resistance ones!), where the only way to ramp up the resistance is to change to a higher gear and pedal faster :laugh:

Others are sort of mid-way between the two - variable resistance mag resistance ones etc...

So - for an inclusive approach speed / distance as a metric is out.


Power
well, yeah, it's the ultimate metric for a trainer ride, but it's not exactly inclusive again, so that's out straight away.

Heart Rate
in itself it's not really enough to provide a full metric for a training run, especially as there would (or at least should) be warmup / cooldown periods of a ride, which will obviously be lower... However - it does bring me to probably the best compromise I've come up with...


Calorie Burn

Again, not an absolute measure,but it's a useful enough metric, and in conjunction with a heart rate monitor could be the best bet.

There ARE compromises though... we're all different, and there's also a fairly fundamental difference between men and women (no not that one... stop s******ing at the back!) in terms of calories burned...

But... I engaged the finest minds that were available on a Tuesday afternoon and set them on the problem...

FatDadSlim
Assuming a HR monitor is used then what about calories burned? 500 cals = 1 point 1000 cals = 2 points and so on? seems simpler than analysing zones?

Frannybobs
Cals burned is a bit difficult because you burn more if you're bigger, or if you're a bloke, so that puts us laydeez at a disadvantage. HR zones & time aren't a bad way. Maybe some points system for interval training based on time. Tricky one though TBY, no doubt about it!

FatDadSlim
what if you insist on a common website such as strava? then at least there is some consistency in the results? i don't think the smaller person is at any serious disadvantage though as they should be fitter than the larger person so the given intensity would be about the same, sorry you're the wrong sex though, i understand life can be very unfair for you in general! ;0)

TheBigYin
as far as the calories burn is concerned, size - well, let's be honest - weight, makes a ****load of difference!, but that's a good thing as I said above...

Frannybobs I could bust my gut for an hour but never get over 500 cals, a bloke could get double that and by bigger I mean taller as well - we need handicaps, lol !!

science bit

rides4sanity
Okay just as a support to Fran's case... The last race I ran, I had an avg hr of 179, with a max of 191 for 33:13, and only burned 364 calories. Just 11cal/min that is a max burn for me. Many of the blokes post much, much higher cal/min with much less exertion. Just saying...

FatDadSlim
As a comparison i dug out one of my closest runs to your time @33m:58s and burnt 519 cals (15cal/min) with an avg hr of 153bpm. A closer higher avg hr of 168 for 25m39s yielded a cal burn of 398cals or 15cal/min! so approx 25% difference in our results.

FatDadSlim
so in summary a F=375 / M=500 split would be fairer?

/science bit

So that's what we're doing.

Ride on the turbo, log it in as rigorous manner as you can.

So, for the VR Trainer boys (it will be boy's and our toy's I'm guessing :laugh), get a .TCX from the machine and post it on Strava/Garmin Connect if you can. Or if not, a TCX recorded from the Garmin / Smartphone (I know that I duplicate my rides recording on the computerised trainer and the Edge 800, just in case something dies on its *kitten*, as I really, REALLY don't like losing training data from the indoor trianer.)

For everyone else - if you've a outdoor recording setup, consider getting a cadence/rear wheel sensor for the trainer - not so much for this challenge, but for the benefit it'll have to your training actually being able to properly measure what you're doing. Again, if you can record outside, then you should be okay at least with the HR belt for working out a relatively accurate calorie figure.

And if you're really just riding a spinning bike at the gym, do what you can to perpetuate the evidence of the calories somehow. Be inventive, but don't sweat the details - there's quite enough sweating going on with the riding on the trainer I'd say...

Worst case, just put the total guess that MFP comes up with from their database... just for gods sake don't go and eat all the calories back in that case as they're probably overstated by anything from 20-50% :laugh:

so... to the actual entries.

Post your rides as follows...


Date, points, verification method...

so for example
29/11/2012, 1 point , http://app.strava.com/activities/91995979

or it could be
28/11/2012, 1 point ,


Points as follows (laydeez calories in brackets)

1 point - 500kCals (375kCals)
2 points - 1000kCals (750kCals)
3 points - 1500kCals (1125kCals)
4 points - 2000kCals (1500kCals)


and so on... no upper limit, other than your boredom threshold I guess...

Rides allowable from 2nd November 2013 to match up with the other 2 "Winter Series" challenges...