Chad Rides

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Over the last 18 months I have continually upgraded my indoor cycling set up, to improve the comfort of it, make it easier and more convenient to use and overall, just make it a more enjoyable experience.

Because if you enjoy something, you’ll do more of it!

Watch the video on YouTube or continue reading.

But of course this means that I’ve spent more money than I would have done if I’d known all this at the start, but you live and you learn!

Now I’m at the point where I think I can say that I’m completely happy with it, I want share with you the mistakes I made so you can avoid them too.

So, here are my top 5 recommendations for your indoor cycling set up.

Zwift Ride

Let’s start at the beginning, with the bike and trainer set up

More than 3 years I bought a Zwift Hub. I owned that piece of equipment for about 18 months and in that time I did….about 100 miles! The reason I didn’t use it was because every time I had to take the wheel off my bike to put it on the trainer and then put the wheel back onto my bike, result, it was all the excuses I needed not to do it.

I went back to running.

But then a knee injury meant that I couldn’t run anymore, so cycling went back to the top of the exercise pile. And with winter coming it needed to be indoors. I’d had a bad experience nearly getting knocked off my bike one morning in the dark, so it’s fair weather outdoor cycling for me now.

But having learnt from my previous mistake I tried a different approach. A wheel-on trainer and a dedicated bike. I bought both off ebay for about £500 and I was ready to go.

And that worked, for about 3 months. It was fine for group rides, ERG workouts but not so good for races, especially Team Time Trials where I found it really difficult to maintain a consistent power to keep in line with my team mates.

The power readings were pretty inaccurate and it was noisy too.

And that worked, for about 3 months. It was fine for group rides, ERG workouts but not so good for races, especially Team Time Trials where I found it really difficult to maintain a consistent power to keep in line with my team mates.

What to do? I knew I needed a dedicated setup and now I was looking for something that would quieter and more accurate.

I suppose I could have just bought another smart trainer and put my dedicated indoor bike onto it now I had one but the Zwift Ride caught my eye.

In the end I justified the £1199 cost like this.

I sold my Wheel on trainer and the bike and got my money back. So this paid for a fair chunk of the Zwift ride frame and I was buying a smart trainer anyway.

And of course the Zwift ride came with virtual shifting and controls that would make Zwift, easier and more enjoyable to use.

And honestly, to this day I believe it is the best money I have spent, certainly in terms of fitness equipment I’ve bought over the years. I’ve been consistently using it for over a year now and I could not be happier with it.

So if I was starting again, I would just buy that and save myself the £400 I spent on the Zwift Hub and the £500 I spent on the Vortex and the bike.

And you can get a benefit that I didn’t at the time I bought it, because there’s affiliate links in the description below which means you can save 10% if you fancy one.

Rouvy or Zwift

The next thing you want to do is decide which of the current virtual cycling apps you prefer.

There’s a few to choose from, Zwift, Rouvy, MyWhoosh, Training Peaks Virtual and more but I’m going to talk about the 2 most popular ones, Zwift and Rouvy.

If I was starting all over again, I would take advantage of the free trials offered for both apps.

Why, well although the essentially offer the same thing, a reliable fully developed online cycling environment, they do it in very different ways.

In case you don’t know, Zwift is an entirely virtual world with PC like graphics, Rouvy on the other hand is real life videos of real roads.

They both offer training programmes, racing, ERG mode and all the data you will need but the user interface experience is very different. And the only real way for you to decide which you prefer is to try them.

Personally I like them both for different reasons and because I have this channel, I maintain subscriptions for both but I doubt most people will want to do that.

Zwift offer a 14 day free trial if you sign up as a monthly subscriber or a 30 day money back guarantee if you pay for an annual membership

With Rouvy the standard offering is a 7 day free trial but you can get an extra 4 weeks, so a 5 week free tril in total, using the code chadrides during registration if you sign up for a single user on a monthly subscription. There’s more details in the description below.

Personally I use Zwift more than Rouvy currently but not because it is better or even that I prefer it, just that I started with Zwift and I race for teams on Zwift, so that means I spend more time there.

But you might prefer Rouvy, give them both a go and let me know in the comments what you think.

Shokz Openrun 2 – Bone Conductor Headphones

I like to ride to music, I prefer using speakers but that’s not always possible because of course it’s loud and sometimes that will disturb people. So headphones are a neccessity. Not only that but when I’m racing for my team I will be on Discord with my teammates, discussing strategy before and during the race.

I’ve tried over are headphones but they just get too hot, very quickly, I managed about 15 minutes with those.

Next up was in ear cuds, like airpods and the Galaxy buds, I tried both, but as I got warmer and start to sweat they feel less and less secure. My airpods fell actually out during a race that wasn’t great.

So I was looking for something different when I came across the Shokz Openrun Pro 2 bone conducting headphones. This isn’t a review video, I will do one of those in the coming weeks but suffice to say they have been brilliant. Nice clear audio, Excellent microphone, very comfortable, don’t fall off when I get sweaty, basically everything I need. If you want to check them out there’s a link in the description but If I was starting again, these would be what I would buy.

Omnirocker

I’ve don a whole review video on this, I’ll link it in the description but suffice to say a rocker plate is a great addition to your indoor cycling set up.

Mine is from a UK company called Omnirocker and it transforms the comfort and power you can put through the pedals.

But the comfort is the main feature for me because I get much less saddle sore as a result of the Zwift ride moving more naturally under me, much more similar to riding a bike outdoors. And less soreness means I can ride indoors more often and for longer and that has paid dividends for my fitness.

Initially I used a tennis ball hack, it’s covered in the review video, and honestly they were great but the rocker is a different level. Costs more of course but for me worth every penny.

So again, my starting set yup today would include a rocker plate.

Vacmaster & Cycplus Fans

Finally, cooling.

Indoor cycling gets hot and sweaty, the importance of staying cool cannot be overstated, so you need a good fan.

There’s lots to choose from, you could just use a stand fan like you would find in an office, I did to start with, but for me they just dont provide enough air to keep me cool. Really you want a fan that’s built for the job.

I have 2 recommendations, because I use 2 fans, one in front of me and one behind, I do get hot!

The first one is the Vacmaster Cardio 54. It’s a simple, but powerful fan. You can have iot on the floor and it is angled to blow the air up or it has VESA fittings, like on your TV, so you can mount it if you prefer. It comes with a remote control to manage it’s 3 speed levels and I’ve had min for well over a year and been very happy. The only issue I have had is the remote failing but I bought a new one for about £20 and that’s been fine.

If you wat to pay a bit more you could get a smart fan. I have the Cycplus Smart Fan, whic I use as my main fan now. It hooks up to your Heart rate monitr, power meter in your trainer and speed readings output by the game and then intelligently adjusts the fan speed to match your effort. ANd it works pretty well. Occassionally on climbs when the speed drops I manulayy adjust it upa nothc biut other than that I let it do it;s thing.

It’s a great fan, slightly stronger and quieter than the Vacmaster too.

Either of these fans would serve you well and I would happily purchase either of them, if I was starting again.

Final Thoughts

There you go, my recommendations for the key items you need to get going as you start cycling indoors.

Links for all of the products are in the description and where I have been able to get affiliate codes, so you can get a discount and the channel gets a small commission, I’ve included those as well.

Let me know in the comments what your perfect set up is, it’ll be great for viewers to see what else other cyclists recommend.