well, for me, it's hard to beat the new generation of "Virtual Trainer" setups that are basically a high tech electrical resistance turbo trainer coupled to a laptop and running some form of fancy software.

Personally, I have a Tacx Bushido and the VR Add-On, which consists of a Ant+ dongle for the computer and the aforementioned "fancy software" (TSS) which controls the resistance on the trainer, and also performs logging of all kinds of data... It picks up your cadence from pedalling strokes without a sensor, gets HR data from either Polar or Ant+ hr belts, and will even take "Real" power meter data from Ant+ enabled powermeters (Read SRM, Garmin Vector, Powertap Wheels, Quarq, Power2max and the Stages Cycling ones). That being said, even uncalibrated, my Bushido is pretty much within 2-3% of the figures from the Stages meter, close enough that frankly, I'd rather have the meter on the bike thats out on the road rather than wasting it on the trainer.

Software has "had it's moments" - Tacx is a pretty small company, in terms of it's actual userbase compared to mass market software like "microsoft office" say, so there are always going to be little niggles - every new release is a bit of a "should I install this one, it might fix problem a, but break 2 or 3 other things - I know, I'll wait a couple of weeks first..."

A overview of the software is here - http://www.tacx.com/en/products/software - I can't comment on the iOs app, as I don't have a Ant+ dongle that'll work with my only Apple kit (a iPad mini), but the pc based software isn't at all bad.

It falls into a few broad categories

Catalyst - pretty much no frills, pre-build your own training sessions based on time or distance, with efforts expressed in either slope %'s or by Wattage, or by Heart Rate. Annoyingly, you can't mix and match the modes within a given session, so say warming up using times in HR zones, followed by a series of hill repeats at increasing %'s, followed by a long steady spin out at tempo wattage to clear your legs and a HR based cooldown session would have to be built as 4 seperate sessions. Still - it's versatile enough to build some ferocious sessions - if Cloggsy comes in here, he may describe the VO2max/FTP session my trainer built for me which I sent a copy over for Clive to give a go at...

Real Life Video - here's where it gets entertaining. There are currently LOADS of DVD and BLUERAY quality videos of classic rides filmed for the Tacx trainers. These range from things like the spring classics - Milan San Remo, Strada Bianche, RVV etc. through to lots of the classic climbs of the TdF, Giro and Vuelta. There is even a complete EPIC ride - the Route des Grande Alpes - 3 blueray discs and something like 639km of virtual riding. For a quick idea of what some of these rides look like - have a quick glance here - http://vimeopro.com/tacxreallifevideo/tacx-real-life-video-previews. Now these aren't JUST videos to watch while you're riding. The trainer, via the TSS, links the resistance of the trainer to the slope on the screen. So, when you see the road ahead kick up, you feel it straight away at the back wheel. Even the downhills are emulated - for safety, you DO need to keep pedalling - otherwise you could get off the bike and leave it to ride down the alp itself on the "powered" units like the Genius, which could potentially be very dangerous to small children or animals - but basically, the brake turns into a slight "motor assist" to kick you up to the speed you'd get on a proper 12% 18km descent.. It's good, because you can spin out the hour and a half of climbing M Ventoux or whatever before hitting the next hill... The Bushido works similarly, but not being powered, it "goes virtual" on the speed/distance so the garmin may read you're pedalling at 20mph, but the screen registers 30+mph because of the "gravity assistance" you'd be getting. It's not ideal, but it's the price you pay for not needing a mains powerpoint (so you could actually use the Bushido for warmups out the back of the car at Time Trials, unlike the Genius for example)

Ergovideo - similar to the above, but the DVD's are generally produced in co-operation with a pro race team - so you find yourself on a training ride with Frank and Andy Schleck, or Cadel Evans, or Radio Shack, or Time Trialling behind Tony Martin... The rides can be ridden in the same manner as above, but ALSO they have an additional option - one of the riders you are following will have a power meter on, and the power developed is recorded. So, to ride at the same speed as them, you have to develop the same power. The brake on the machine alters the resistance to ensure you develop that wattage. Of course, we're not all Tony Martin, so there is an option to reduce the % of the wattage required.

So for example - the "Training With Cadel 2008" disk - runs for a total time of 00:41:45, and has a mazimum wattage of 483w, and an average of 244w. So, if you knew your FTP was say 220 and you wanted a tempo/threshold session you could run the dvd at a 90% setting, turning it into a session averaging 220w. Great for structured training if you're really getting deep into training with power.

Real Life Training - yep - this is the one where you can ride your own routes. Either routes you've recorded yourself on the GPS (handy for preparation for that big event, where you rode it last summer, and want to get a few sessions in on the climbs over the winter) OR, better still, anything you can either map yourself on something like gpsies.com, or download a .TCX from Garmin Connect or Strava say. It's great, after running the challenges on here for a couple of years, I've a library of interesting looking rides all over the world that'll keep me out of mischief if it snows all winter. You upload the GPS tracklog into the computer, and TSS handles the resistance and the hills, plus uses Google Earth to map where you are on the route. It's very interesting, especially in some cities where the 3D buildings on Google Earth kick in... I've even used it to ride parts of grand-tours - things like the prologue Time Trials are great fun, seeing just how slow you are compared to even the lanterne rouge on the peleton...

There's also a Virtual Reality mode, but to be honest, it's only really viable in the latest version software (V4) and I'm still on V3, so I can't really say much about it.

ah, that may explain why I didn't get Google Earth last time I got on the trainer...

[thread hijack]

One thing about the V4 software - I think they may have been working on the export routine now exporting to .GPX as well as .HRM... which would allow 2 exports, one of the HRM data, and the other of the mapping - easy mapped virtual rides :woot:

Though it seems it worked in 4.8.1 and is broken again in 4.8.4... typical Tacx software then...

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