Gravel riding is by its very nature an outdoor sport and half the fun can be changing surfaces, variable weather and a new view around every corner. But if it’s the middle of winter and the weather outside is appalling, or you’re limited on time or you have a very specific goal in mind, then using a smart trainer, even as a gravel rider, makes a lot of sense. Olly considers the benefits and ropes his wife in to help figure out if a smart trainer might work for you too. 

The radio alarm goes off at 5.30am. It’s the middle of January, pitch dark and I can hear the remnants of last night’s storm battering itself against the bedroom window. None of these factors would inspire me to get out of bed. In fact, I’d be tempted to put some earplugs in, pull a duvet over my head and try and go back to sleep. But my wife Abby, is much more dedicated than I am. She climbs sleepily out of bed, pulls out her cycling kit which she carefully laid out the night before and pads downstairs. I hear her tensioning up the ratchets on her SPD shoes and the clip-clopping noise as she walks across our wooden kitchen floor, unlocks the back door and heads out into the dark.

Luckily for her, she isn’t going riding outdoors, she’s going to use her smart trainer, which we’ve set up in a space at the end of our garage. Going out into a cold garage to train before she starts work takes a heck of a lot of mental resilience and focus, but in the middle of winter it can be a lot more pleasant than going riding outdoors. Even so, getting up to go training at 5.30 am requires strong willpower and this is where having an end goal helps. Luckily, she had a good one - we had booked to spend a week riding out in the Italian Dolomites on a half road/half gravel riding holiday. With the mental carrot of some sunlit Italian mountains as inspiration and the thought of potentially thousands of meters of daily climbing as an additional motivator, a smart trainer and a dedicated training programme seemed like the perfect plan.

Before we got Abby’s smart trainer set up, I chatted with Jeff Hoobler, a strength and movement specialist and a coach at Wahoo Fitness, who gave me some great insight into how to get the best out of a smart trainer. You'll be able to read the transcript of the interview soon on Gravel Union and I highly recommend it – it’s chock full of great insight and tips. 

If you’re considering using an indoor trainer as part of a training plan, here are Abby’s pointers for things that you might want to think about:

• Indoor training isn’t for everyone, but it’s convenient, safe and weatherproof. I find having a plan to follow motivates me and I’m more likely to put the hours in and get more out than if I was just hopping on the indoor trainer for a spin now and then. It’s also easier to follow a training session and hit specific targets indoors because you don’t have to worry about other road users, having to stop to open a gate when you’re partway through a sprint effort or whether your ride companion will enjoy riding with someone who insists on doing sub-threshold/sweet-spot efforts every 10 minutes.
• If you’re considering buying an indoor trainer, do you have some dedicated space for it? The less barriers you have to using your trainer, the more likely you are to actually use it. Having to dig out your trainer from a cupboard under the stairs might be the reality, but if you have the luxury of enough space to have it set up permanently (even in a cold garage), then that will help motivate you to use it more frequently.
• You don’t “need” a smart trainer to use a training app. A standard turbo trainer will do the job (I happily used one for years), but a smart trainer can give you pre-programmed resistance based on your own fitness data and transmits your power, cadence and heart rate data so you’re riding to targets rather than just ‘on feel’. 

• If you’re buying a smart trainer, you may need to factor in some extra budget for the TV/monitor/laptop/tablet you’ll need to connect it to a training app, plus a heart rate monitor. 
• You will need a decent Wi-Fi connection to wherever your trainer is located. You might need to put in a signal booster if your trainer is somewhere far away from your router.
• A lot of smart trainers are pretty quiet (especially when comparing them to analogue trainers), but there will still be some noise and vibration. You might want to consider buying a rubber floor mat to put under your trainer if you need to keep noise/vibration to a minimum. They also have the added bonus of being sweat-resistant and anti-slip.
• Even in winter, in an unheated garage you will generate a decent amount of heat, so consider buying a fan to help keep you cool. In winter, a small desk fan may be enough, but if you are planning on using your trainer year-round, then a larger fan is a worthwhile investment.
• Setting up a smart trainer for the first time and getting it to play nicely with the other bits of equipment (heart rate monitor/app etc) was a pain in the bum. I spent a lot of time reading trouble-shooting guides about Bluetooth connectivity and emailing the Wahoo Support Team, but it’s worth persevering. I had problems trying to pair my existing equipment (a 10 year old heart rate monitor) with the new tech and in the end had to buy a new heart rate monitor. 
• If you have a digital bike computer, you can export a workout for use outside too.  This was straightforward for me as my bike computer and smart trainer are the same brand. It may be more complicated if your devices are different brands.

• You will need to allow some budget for a training programme/software. There are tons of different ones on the market, but I used Wahoo’s own ‘SYSTM’ app. It was fairly simple to set up and is comprehensive.  I was able to create a bespoke gravel training plan with a specific event in mind (you can also create one to build and maintain general fitness) based on the distance of the event and how much free time I had each week to train. I was also able to build some weekly strength and mobility sessions and some yoga sessions into my plan, which are included in the app and I feel have really helped improve my overall strength on and off the bike.  The training plan is flexible so you can easily move a session to a different day in the calendar, or even swap a session for something else in the library, which is useful for those days when you’re short on time or just don’t feel like the particularly brutal session the app has planned for you.  My training plan also included recovery sessions where I could watch a short cycling documentary while having a gentle pedal. 

So, was it worth it?

An indoor smart trainer isn’t going to make you a more skilful gravel rider. Only time spent outdoors is going to help you there. But having a good level of fitness meant I could take on longer and more challenging rides, ride on consecutive days, recover faster, have confidence taking on bigger climbs and even just enjoy the views on my riding holiday.  Now the holiday is over, I’ve created a new training plan to maintain my fitness so I’ll be ready for the next trip…