Because outdoor doesn’t need any encouragement, obvs. Almost everyone who tries indoor struggles, we can show them how to love it and benefit from it and TR. Or we can tell them to give up immediately, don’t even try any of the things 99% of us here know are beneficial.
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You sound like my sister-in-law Jacque 20 years ago “you aren’t having fun, drink these tequila shots and you’ll love it!” and “you need to keep drinking shots with us and dance it off, woo hoo!” 
you can’t make or force someone to love something.
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I think i just get frustrated when i hear the refrain of outdoors = junk miles, blah blah blah.
Outdoors = interval training, just not in a specific pattern. However, outdoors, especially in company, allows you to go deep then further, then to the point where you’re shutting down, then a bit more, then into another world where just staying on a wheel becomes your whole existence, everything else fizzling away to a dot… Because you know that when you let that 2" drift to a foot then it’s game over, the session is done. There’s no back peddling, no dropping the intensity, it’s hang on or die.
I love riding my bikes ourside. I’ve done indoor training and loved that too, but not on the same level as outdoor, group training.
As for zone two stuff. Why clutter up your life with ac and fans and media to cool and distract you, when nature provides it all for free. Whatever the weather, if you dress appropriately, outdoors is simply stunning.
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After tonight’s feeble effort on the trainer, the OP was uncanny with his thread title, “I can’t ride inside” 
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It can be…but cars somehow have an impact on how stunning it is. Outdoor rides just after work for me are just dangerous.
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Yep. Totally acknowledge that. Hence why I head out at 4.30am when I’m trying to ride regularly in preparation for an event. Lovely quiet roads, beautiful sunrises, but it’s a behaviour that doesn’t fit well with the rest of society. You really do have to be in bed by 9pm to make it work.
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Maybe 0 degrees Fahrenheit in mid-February with two or more feet of snow on the ground and icy roads a little less so? There are a lot of us who live in northern climates where riding through the winter is impractical at best, and actively dangerous at worst. Especially when there are tons of other things we could be doing that are weather-appropriate and tons of fun like skiing (all sorts) or snow shoeing. A lot of the conversation here seems like people who live in warm climates telling people who live in very cold climates there’s no good reason to ride indoors.
I absolutely love riding in Northern New England where I live for most of the year, but given the choice between taking 20 minutes to get suited up for a mid-week, mid-winter fat bike ride in the dark in 0 degree weather (then another 10-15 to get undressed and warmed up after) and grabbing a cup of coffee then hopping on the trainer first thing in the morning so I can space out and watch a video, it’s not a difficult choice.
Basically, if I want to ride my bike in the winter I’m perfectly happy hopping on the trainer! It can actually be an enjoyable activity in and of itself.
If I want to do something outside, I’ll grab my skis or snowshoes and do something else that’s super fun and fully takes advantage of the winter.
Sample road here in winter, potentially any day between early November and late April.
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I’m sorry man, I’m being a dick.
I get carried away with the whole outdoor thing; I lived in the woods for 5 years, work outside, and riding for me is a way to spend time in nature.
BTW I’d love to live in snowy wilderness. I’d ski and hunt and live in a cabin…
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In the end you cycle for fun (assuming you are not a pro) so if you don’t like indoors riding don’t do it. Yes, maybe a bit less consistency, less improvement. But in the end probably no one will notice not care.
I like indoors, because it is more time efficiënt (on the sense that getting on and off the bike takes less time). I enjoy indoor VO2 work, and endurance with Netflix. But indoor threshold (especially over under) truly kills me to the point I really dread workouts that come up and me wanting to skip them. On the other hand threshold outside is hard but ok.
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Haha, not a dick! I’d love to be able to ride year round, but that would involve living somewhere else and we’re super happy where we are. So, just a different set of choices. 
It’s also pretty hilly here (1000+ft of climbing for every 10 miles in any direction) so the trainer is a huge help in being able to cope early season without feeling like I’m dying for the entire spring.
And as a fellow lover of riding bikes long before any sane human is up, here’s a 5am ride shot of my own from earlier this summer.
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Looks like heaven to me.
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I have no idea how you guys are able to do those short repeated intervals outside. I’d prefer to train on the road but not sure I’d be able to pull that off.
Its got to be perfect conditions for me but for the short repeated stuff I tend to more go sound than screen. Reserving glances to the screen when its completely straight, I am far enough from the kerb and there’s no traffic. The Garmin Varia helps with the latter two. I quite often choose the road bike too, rather than the TT bike, as I am more confident in it.
Don’t focus on the Garmin?
I use the default workout screen if you have a 530 / 830 / 1030 for sprint intervals, a lot easier to glance down and see how its going if its short and controlled. If its max repeatable or max effort, well you don’t need to look at all - your legs and brain are in control of the intervals.
here is an 8x20-sec (1-min rest), sorry I didn’t take any screen dumps of short-short intervals
doesn’t require a lot of focus in my opinion!
When I was training properly, most of it was done outside, however it was coach led with descriptions such as: ride 280w for 5 mins then 90s max effort etc.
Max effort was a term used often at different durations and you got to know how to pace them out. I found it really helped me during races to know my rpe intimately and in training could usually guess my wattage to within about 5 watts.
I pretty quickly put a power meter on my cross bike (cross was my focus) and took to training around local playing fields. Must have looked a bit bonkers, charging around in the dark but I found learning to put the power down on inconsistent surfaces very beneficial.
After three years of dedicated interval training I achieved 21st place overall on our 2017 UK national cx series, something I’m very proud of, however even by this ‘dream’ season, I was burnt out, suffering from joint aches, fatigue and becoming more and more pain averse.
That was essentially the end of my racing. Took two years to mentally recover and despite dabbling in races since, my hearts never been in it.
Found myself again over the covid period when i started riding longer and longer. Now I see a 2-3 day off road adventure (with lots of food stops and interesting conversations) as my nirvana, and in back in love with cycling.
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If, and its a big if, I ever start structured training again for cross, I’ll use TR as it’s a superb platform. However you’ll find me back out on those fields capturing the spirit of the workouts rather than worrying about the exact outputs. I find displaying average interval power on the head unit useful for this.
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Think this is key for every outdoor workout. That 15 seconds coasting because of traffic or a corner isn’t going to ruin that 10/20 minute effort. With indoor training being al about structure its easy to forget that a good workout isn’t about it being perfect.
About doing workouts outdoor and being save. Took a maps screenshot of a typical road where I do them:
One of several dykes running along the rivers around my area. 20 to 30 minutes of roads with low traffic and little to no crossroads. Perfect for outdoor training.
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Do you have any experience with structured training? Because that makes all the difference.
You can just step on a bike and ride outside enjoying the scenery while getting some healthy exercise. If you ride indoors like that, it is not enjoyable.
With a structured training program, you have an exact program and you know in advance exactly what numbers you want to hit, trying to improve gradually every week. Training indoors is all about doing hard intervals, close to your limit. There is no time to be bored with being in your basement, because you are too occupied fighting the burn and trying to make it to the end of the interval.
I couldn’t tolerate indoor riding for so much as 10 minutes at first. Then I:
Got a good trainer
Got a TV
Took care of cooling
Built up a huge library of youtube videos to watch… Outdoor rides, DJ !ive sets, drone tours, videos shot from the front cabs of passenger trains in the Alps or elevated trains in Chicago/Tokyo etc… I can’t tell you what a difference these make combined with…
Spotify playlists. If i have a tough workout coming I’ll make one specifically for it so key tunes come in ar sticking points
Then I could do 30 minutes. Then 45. Then an hour and 45. It can be trained.
Now I’m getting in shape again after a long period of work craziness and training my tolerance all over. But I still have that video library!
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