Turbo boost

Cold? Dark? Lockdown? Better get your turbo den sorted

If you want well-structured, highintensity training sessions at any time of year, an indoor turbo setup is the way to go. Just look to the pros who have been cranking out the miles on turbo trainers during lockdown.

Matt White, directeur sportif at MitcheltonScott, recently said he’d never seen his riders so fit, and Lotto Soudal’s Thomas De Gendt reportedly got kicked off a Zwift session for producing what was judged an impossible average power – some 550 watts. Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, who rides for the CCC-LIV women’s pro team, claims she nailed a PB on the Rocacorba climb in Spain after weeks of being confined indoors and training on a turbo.

Admittedly most of us typically only dust off the turbo when it gets cold, dark and wet outside, but we should learn to love it year-round – lockdown or otherwise. As well as saving on cleaning and maintenance it’s an incredibly time-efficient way to train, and a lot safer than trying to smash out sprints on the open road. The trick is to get the setup right and bring structure to your workouts.

The main reason cited for people missing turbo sessions or giving up altogether is the time taken to set up the trainer, so we’ve brought together all the items we think make the perfect turbo den. You may need to make the kids share a bedroom to free up the space, but the improvements in performance will be worth it, at least for you.

It’s equally important to make indoor sessions structured and purposeful. Aimlessly pedalling while staring at a wall is only going to guarantee one thing: that your trainer will soon be gathering cobwebs. Fortunately the latest trainer tech and third-party apps mean it has never been easier to achieve all of the above. And who knows, you might even find that indoor sessions can be (whisper it) fun.