Dedicated turbo bike - any pointers?

[berty bassett]

I agree with this

It’s better to embrace your commute as part of your training rather than seeing it as a hindrance. From my own perspective I found it better to create my own training plan which incorporated the basic principles of the things I wanted to achieve.

I would say that using this principle I completely avoid attacking strava segements or targeting pb’s in general. Some days on the commute I’ll feel better than others but to maintain consistency in the rest of the training plan I’ll generally use the commute as base miles or recovery time.

zone 2 ?

 

[<Tommy>]

😄

If only they’d of took my advice in 2018 they might of saved a years worth of waffle !

 

[tom73]

A proper screen does not cost too much and you could mount is easily to the rafters.

even better use the white wall in the spare room

 

[JhnBssll]

Come on guys, where's your sense of adventure? The vinyl was cheap and the picture is perfectly good enough for my needs, plus it was a fun experiment. What more could you want?



Ok I admit it, a screen would have been a better solution

 

[CXRAndy]

Come on guys, where's your sense of adventure? The vinyl was cheap and the picture is perfectly good enough for my needs, plus it was a fun experiment. What more could you want?



Ok I admit it, a screen would have been a better solution

But would have blown all over the place with a fan running

 

[Deeble]

This thread is fantastic, that's an amazing set up! I keep meaning to upgrade mine but I suppose I've come a long way!

 

[JhnBssll]

The PC I use to run Zwift & Sufferfest popped the other day so I've just finished rebuilding it. I've made a couple of improvements to it to keep it fairly current - a new solid state hard drive should speed things up and I've tripled the memory from 8 to 24GB. It now boots faster than ever and runs Zwift nicely at 1080p Pretty good going for what must be a ten year old machine that runs 24/7!

The turbo bike had a service inc. new chain and cables last week during which I noticed some corrosion in a few spots. I've added a cheap sweat cover from eBay now so we're good to go again, although the vinyl projector screen could do with patching up

Still really pleased with this setup, it's done me very well over the last couple of years so no major changes planned

 

[JhnBssll]

Minor upgrade today with two additional fans added to the ceiling to blow air in from the sides. The little honeywell turbo fans are great but they don't shift quite as much air as my old one did, now I'll have 4 of them going it should help things along

I've not connected the new ones up yet but will try them out soon enough I've got the two front ones running off remote control socket adaptors and am waiting for another one to arrive to I can connect both side fans to it That will let me ramp up and down the airflow by remotely turning individual fans on and off

 

[theboxers]

Minor upgrade today with two additional fans added to the ceiling to blow air in from the sides. The little honeywell turbo fans are great but they don't shift quite as much air as my old one did, now I'll have 4 of them going it should help things along

View attachment 627052

I've not connected the new ones up yet but will try them out soon enough I've got the two front ones running off remote control socket adaptors and am waiting for another one to arrive to I can connect both side fans to it That will let me ramp up and down the airflow by remotely turning individual fans on and off

Head wind and Side wind covered. When are the tail wind ones gonna be installed

 

[JhnBssll]

Head wind and Side wind covered. When are the tail wind ones gonna be installed

But that would be cheating

 

[BurningLegs]

On a serious note, the cooling effect of a rear fan is remarkable and highly recommended!

 

[theboxers]

On a serious note, the cooling effect of a rear fan is remarkable and highly recommended!

I have a 30 inch ceiling fan slightly offset above my turbo setup. I never quite get to the point of over heating when it is running. I still sweat plenty but I am never bathed in sweat.

 

[JhnBssll]

I've just wired the two new fans in to the remote socket, all up and running now They add quite a bit of airflow, should be good. I've got a club Zwift sesh tomorrow after work so will try them out for the first time and report back 😊

I've also had a think about my audio setup - we use Discord on club Zwift sessions and until now I'd just been using my phone, but the quality is pretty terrible. I've just downloaded and installed the Discord PC app and logged in, I've got a mic arriving from Amazon tomorrow so I'll look at fitting that on the ceiling above and in front of where the bike sits. I hate the idea of having to wear a headset and it'd get pretty grim pretty quickly I'll run a USB extension lead up the wall and along the ceiling from the PC and connect up a USB hub to connect the mic in to. I'll probably relocated the ANT+ dongle up there too as my HR strap drops out occasionally in its current location and with it being quite low down it's prone to being knocked. I'm a little concerned this will cause the turbo to drop out instead though so some testing will be needed

 

[jowwy]

I've just wired the two new fans in to the remote socket, all up and running now They add quite a bit of airflow, should be good. I've got a club Zwift sesh tomorrow after work so will try them out for the first time and report back 😊

I've also had a think about my audio setup - we use Discord on club Zwift sessions and until now I'd just been using my phone, but the quality is pretty terrible. I've just downloaded and installed the Discord PC app and logged in, I've got a mic arriving from Amazon tomorrow so I'll look at fitting that on the ceiling above and in front of where the bike sits. I hate the idea of having to wear a headset and it'd get pretty grim pretty quickly I'll run a USB extension lead up the wall and along the ceiling from the PC and connect up a USB hub to connect the mic in to. I'll probably relocated the ANT+ dongle up there too as my HR strap drops out occasionally in its current location and with it being quite low down it's prone to being knocked. I'm a little concerned this will cause the turbo to drop out instead though so some testing will be needed

Cracking set-up you got there john with the projection into the garage door

 

[JhnBssll]

Cheers dude, it's constantly evolving thats for sure

I popped the mic on the ceiling this evening, won't be able to try it out on this evening's session though as the USB extension cable didn't show up. Never mind, should be here tomorrow so I can have a play and get it working nicely for next week I'll need to tidy the cables up too but waiting until I can get in the cupboard for that, my hammer is trapped by multiple sheets of plasterboard at the moment