Indoor Cyclists: Turn the fans off!

[mwglow15]

I still don’t understand why you’re saying more watts because of better cooling is bad. In many interval sets, more watts = more adaptations = more better. Okay, so if you have better cooling inside maybe you do 350W inside and 335W outside. So? Most likely that 350W indoor workout will make you faster in the long run so your outside watts turn to 340-345W.

Obviously if you have a hot race planned then you should get in some hot riding but that shouldn’t be done in a way that compromises your intense workouts.

Your cooling drops to near zero as you approach 80 - 95% RH.

What’s RH?

[WindWarrior]

RH is relative humidity

Lot of bro science in this thread LOL

[Chris1982]

@mwglow15 I’m not saying it’s bad at all, dude!

I’m just agreeing w OP on the point that it is something we should all be aware of, and account for.

If I always ride in that above situation I described w my insane-O cooling setup, and then go out into 25 C weather @ 80% RH on race day, I’m gonna have a very, very bad day!

I agree w you; sometimes maybe you want to push it as far as you can, and to do that, max out your cooling.

[Chris1982]

@WindWarrior what’s the ‘bro science’ part, my man?

I hardly think saying RH & temp massively affect cooling qualifies as monster-energy-drink-crushing ‘bro science’.

[mcneese.chad]

@Chris1982

Nice to ‘see’ you again!

• Ditto, been ages

@Chris1982

Don’t need anything to ‘back it up’, buddy!

• I disagree, particularly when a specific claim is made just as you did above per my quote.

@Chris1982

It’s as true as the sky is blue. You’re gonna crank more W with fans than wo. More / better fans = more Ws. A lot more.

• I generally agree that cooler leads to better power. No real news there. However, my issue is that uch of your new reply falls shot of your original claim above that inside power has been clearly EXCEED outside power (“dead clear”).

@Chris1982

As for inside vs. outside, that’s a variables salad I don’t want to touch with a three meter pole!!

• Odd when your “super cool F1” claim above seems to do exactly that, right?

@Chris1982

I’d happily bet ya that >80% of TR riders have very inadequate fan setups. Inadequate = nowhere near the cooling they experience outside. Hence the outside numbers being higher.

• Again, I agree with this and it’s why I cover that whenever we get people looking for resolutions between lower power inside vs outside. But all that is well short of your “over cool” stuff above.

---

Finally to the real meat of the challenge:

@Chris1982

And if someone [like yours truly!! ] has a best-in-the-world fan, 1 m / 3.28 ft from his face, and he cools that room down to 15 C = 59 F @ a crisp & fresh 30 - 35% RH, and then cranks that fan to a full-body covering, down under the chest AND up over the head & back airstream running at 100 km/h = 62 m/h, he is going to crank insane Ws, and there is no way in heck he could ever go that speed = achieve that kind of cooling, and so be able to generate those same Ws, IRL

• Maybe, just maybe that could be the exception that breaks the rule. But that example seems so far above and beyond anything I have ever seen or heard used regularly here. Most people that even have extra cold environments to start us little if any cooling fans on top of that cold temp. They simply can’t tolerate that extreme cooling and dial it back as appropriate to what seems like practical levels to me.

Your more defined and rather extreme hypothetical sort of proves my point that the quote I questioned above is likely overstated. That’s because I have yet to see anyone come even close to your example.

• I have one of the better setups out there and yet I alter as needed, like when the air outside is literally below freezing (all last week in fact) to the point that my window ducting floods me with skin chilling air. I close the window in those cases to avoid what you claim I could leverage to “over perform”. It’s a practical comfort thing for me at least, I only cool as much as I need to be roughly like what I get for normal rides outside.

@Chris1982

it’s dead clear some riders are smashing targets only because they’re doing so in an F1 team wind tunnel they’ve built at home!!!

• Far from dead clear, I think there is little if any evidence that we have many (if any?) people overcooling to any degree approaching your claimed best case scenario. If this is the “you” case that is one thing and an N=1 data point. Pushing that to a guess for others is a step too far for me.

@Chris1982

Amirite?!?!

• Not to my eyes this time, but it can be fun to posit stuff like this

[Chris1982]

@mcneese.chad LOL! Right on, man!

@mcneese.chad

I only cool as much as I need to be roughly like what I get for normal rides outside

There’s the banger, right there!

I think we agree w each other, just living in different enviros / seeing from different perspectives.

I’m up here in the Canada… ‘Eh’?!?!

These [15 C = 59 F, 20 - 30% RH] ain’t extremes. That’s a relatively warm, brilliant riding day. I honestly prefer 14 - 18 C to >25. It’s not cold, you can dress for it, and then you get to stay cool and absolutely crank it, and not sweat bags and bags of liquid.

But ya, my fan is insane. That’s def an outlier. I only run it on speed 1/3.

Again… I think the inside guys that are really really crushing it have probably gone a bit nuts w the fans… but that may be incorrect!

EDIT TO ADD:

All spinning back to OP’s central idea, exactly as you said, @mcneese.chad ; you’re using your fans [and temp control] to try to replicate the cooling you get outside. Not necessarily to triple it.

I could be wrong, but I think OP didn’t mean to imply everyone should shut all their fans off forever, of course! [Not that you took that read, but some seem to have! ] , but rather he meant to say:

"Should we be turning our fans off? Shouldn’t we at least be thinking about it, and considering our rates of cooling, rather than just MAXXX BLAST EVERYTHING FOREVER!!! ? "

And on that, I definitely agree w them!

[WindWarrior]

general comment, not directed at you.

[Chris1982]

@WindWarrior roger that, thanks for the clarification!

[grwoolf]

@Chris1982

And if someone [like yours truly!! ] has a best-in-the-world fan, 1 m / 3.28 ft from his face, and he cools that room down to 15 C = 59 F @ a crisp & fresh 30 - 35% RH, and then cranks that fan to a full-body covering, down under the chest AND up over the head & back airstream running at 100 km/h = 62 m/h, he is going to crank insane Ws, and there is no way in heck he could ever go that speed = achieve that kind of cooling, and so be able to generate those same Ws, IRL.

Amirite?!?!

I’m also a big believer in serious indoor air movement, low temp, and humidity control to optimize cooling (I run a mini split AC and 3 serious fans, with my lasko the weakest of the 3). But more cooling is only going to increase wattage if cooling is your limiter. At some point, more cooling isn’t helpful and I assume it’s even harmful if you get too cold (ie - I doubt anyone is hitting power PR’s in the arctic while wearing a speedo). While indoor training can be helpful to standardize and optimize conditions, you can certainly get more cooling than you want outside on some days.

All that said, I can hold more power on extended efforts inside than I can outside because I’ve optimized indoor conditions (not just cooling). If I look at my “all time” power curve, my PR’s from 1-3 minutes are all in outdoor races, but everything longer (up to about 4 hours) is all inside. Some of that is just the nature of indoor riding training/riding (no coasting indoors, more consistent intervals, etc.), but I’ve tried to match some of my indoor numbers outside and I’ve always been a bit short. I don’t just attribute that to better cooling indoors, I think it’s also the ability to dictate cadence and spin/momentum at my ideal RPM’s the entire time. Outdoors you have hills, wind, surface conditions, etc. that are constantly changing the pedaling dynamics. I don’t have any science to back it up, but I assume the constant adjustments we are making for these things are taking their toll on efficiency and probably costing a few watts.

[WindWarrior]

@grwoolf

I’m also a big believer in serious indoor air movement, low temp, and humidity control to optimize cooling (I run a mini split AC and 3 serious fans, with my lasko the weakest of the 3).

Outside workout guy, I have a Kickr at home but its often easier to go to the gym like I did a couple weeks ago:

What workout did you do today? (2024)

Didn’t feel like riding in the rain, went to the gym and always love seeing new bests for the last 16 days: [IMG_4252] Humorous seeing ftp extrapolation from 4x30-sec at “hard” but nowhere near max efforts. Any extrapolation from 30-sec efforts defies belief. Whatever. Massive fan for the win. Fair amount of tempo after the 30-sec glycolytic work, nary a drop of sweat. [IMG_4248] One other person doing some spinning before the class that started 15 minutes after I finished. [IMG_4250]

That fan is massive. No sweat, even after doing some hard 4x30s and tempo. It’s really quite amazing what a single massive fan can do to make it more like outside.

FWIW, my best result on a ramp test was in 80+ degree (28C) garage and only 2 meager fans (Vornados). After a month of riding outside in 95-100F (35-38C) temperatures.

[mrtopher1980]

@grwoolf

If I look at my “all time” power curve, my PR’s from 1-3 minutes are all in outdoor races, but everything longer (up to about 4 hours) is all inside.

I was just looking at mine as well to compare and noticed similar.

I would say I have decent but room for improvement cooling inside. It definitely isn’t better than outside. I finish outside rides dry and then start to build up sweat when stopped. Inside rides I’m usually wicking sweat off my shaved head and wiping my face on my shirt/jersey semi regularly. But like you my power records are mostly indoors.

Also like you I would attribute this to the decrease variables inside, I can hop on and not stop pedaling for a whole hour. Even when I lived a half mile from the C&O Canal and could hop and do plenty of mostly un interrupted riding, there were still always points of no pedaling, or slight downhills with power drops, or light upshills with power spikes. I can knock out power records inside because all I"m doing is pedaling and making power, nothing else. It isn’t the cooling, for me.

[Bbt67]

@Chris1982

More / better fans = more Ws. A lot more

You posts seems to show alot of ignorance, you keep spouting the same temperature rated comment that is simply are not true. You can say it as many times as you like, it is still false.

There is a sweet spot for performance in regards to temperature, you can equally be too cold as you can be too hot. More fans = more watts is simply not true.

But hey, you believe what you wish, I’m sure no one will convince you to change your belief.

[Chris1982]

@grwoolf great comment! Agreed on all!

Also, you had me dying w “(ie - I doubt anyone is hitting power PR’s in the arctic while wearing a speedo)”

No, no no!! We Canadians don’t ride our bikes in our speedos when it’s below 5 C / 40 F outside!! It’s far too cold for that!!

We go scuba diving!

[grwoolf]

@WindWarrior

That fan is massive. No sweat, even after doing some hard 4x30s and tempo. It’s really quite amazing what a single massive fan can do to make it more like outside.

Yeah, a serious fan with low humidity is a game changer. Even if the room isn’t that cool, sweat will evaporate faster than it’s coming out as long the airflow and humidity is right. When I train indoors and running all fans, the only things that gets wet with sweat is the chamois of my bibs and my head cover. And I sweat a lot, can lose 5+ lbs during a training session.

[WindWarrior]

a couple weeks ago the gym spin room was at 64F, and with that fan it was like riding outside in low humidity in the upper 80s. The fan was only 2-3 feet in front of me, as there was no class.

FWIW I see higher power outside, for various reasons. I embraced riding on the trainer for 2 years - it wasn’t for lack of trying.

[Joelrivera]

Right? I am wearing a jacket at that temp

[Power13]

@Pbase

it’s all relative. That would be a cold day for me

Was down in FL Mon / Tues…went for a ride Tues AM. Temp was ~55* (which was 8* warmer than the forecast the night before, so I was pysched!).

Was rolling south out of Clearwater Beach when a few guys caught me from behind (on their way to a group ride). They were BUNDLED up…LS jerserys, headbands, vests or jackets, full leg warmers, booties.

I was in a jersey, arm warmers and a vest…and really overdressed a bit.

[Pbase]

Ha! Yep, it’s all relative! At 55, unless it’s super windy, I would be regular jersey, vest, leg warmers, toe covers, and full finger gloves.

But for the inside of my house to be 65 degrees after my wife rolls out of the bed? NEVER. Not if I want to stay married, at least. She’s in a sweatshirt with a blanket over her leggings for anything under 75.

[Power13]

[WindWarrior]

At 55F still wearing bib tights to protect the knees, no meat around 'em. But yeah, I come home and both my base layer and jersey are damp/wet from sweat. Yesterday it hit 69F, I rolled out in my summer kit for the second day, and it was 56F at the end. No problem wearing summer kit at the ride end.