As the days get shorter and winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, the transition to indoor cycling is upon many of us.
While nothing quite matches the benefits of cycling outside, like developing bike-handling skills and the health and wellbeing benefits of fresh air and natural light, indoor cycling brings plenty of its own advantages.
You still get all the usual benefits of cycling, from improved cardiovascular fitness and a stronger immune system to easier weight management, but with some added bonuses - greater time efficiency, more targeted workouts, and full control over factors like weather and traffic. There’s a whole host of others too, and all taken together, indoor cycling can be highly effective in helping you hit your cycling goals and stay focused through the winter months.
1. Easier to be consistent
Consistency is key, whether you’re building up to your first 100-mile bike ride, following a cycling training plan, or aiming to lose weight. In the northern hemisphere, bad weather can easily derail outdoor rides - rain, snow, ice, and biting winds all make cycling less appealing and sometimes unsafe.
Indoor cycling removes these obstacles. You can ride in (relative) comfort and safety without worrying about icy roads, layering up, or spending extra time cleaning road salt and/or winter grime off your bike afterwards. The convenience of indoor cycling therefore makes it far easier to stick to your plan and stay on track towards your cycling goals.
2. Fits around your schedule
Indoor cycling makes it much easier to fit a ride into a busy day, especially in winter when daylight hours dwindle and it becomes increasingly difficult to complete rides before the sun sets. You could use a set of the best bike lights, but we get it - dark training rides aren’t for everyone!
Unlike outdoor rides, you don’t have to worry about traffic lights, punctures, or mechanical issues when cycling indoors, hence adding to the time available to ride. An hour’s session really does take an hour…unless of course your WiFi cuts out…
Sessions can be tailored to your available time, and even short workouts can be highly effective. There are plenty of HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts which take as little as 20-25 minutes, providing a powerful training stimulus in a fraction of the time of many ‘junk mile’ road rides.
3. No interruptions
We’ve already hinted at this, but one of the biggest advantages of indoor training is the control it gives you over variables that can disrupt outdoor rides. Weather and traffic are the obvious culprits, but indoor sessions also eliminate the risk of being stranded by a mechanical issue miles from home.
Perhaps the most valuable benefit here is the ability to control your timing and intervals. Indoor cycling allows you to focus on riding in the right cycling training zone and hit the right intensity during intervals without descents, corners, junctions, or other obstacles interfering. While you can try to mitigate these on an outdoor ride, it’s not quite as controlled as when riding outdoors.
4. Riding with purpose
Without having to worry about the traffic or potholes on the road ahead, you can focus on specific areas of your cycling. From cadence drills to big gear efforts, these sessions can help you become a stronger, more efficient, and less injury-prone rider - many of which can be difficult to execute properly out on the road.
Indoor cycling can also make it easier to track your progress. Without wind, traffic, or changes in terrain affecting your performances, metrics like power, cadence, and heart rate reflect your effort more accurately.
Smart trainers and indoor cycling apps such as Zwift and Rouvy provide real-time feedback and session summaries, making it simple to track improvements over time. Structured workouts indoors are more repeatable so each session becomes a true measure of your fitness, helping you stay motivated and focused on your goals.
5. Stay motivated with competition
Many of us cycle for the social benefits of the sport, a side which for many of us can be the first to suffer when the weather worsens. Cancelled group rides, dwindling motivation and all kinds of excuses creep in but it is still possible to find cycling communities during these darker months.
Indoor cycling has been brought to life by the virtual roads and worlds of indoor training apps: Zwift, TrainerRoad, Rouvy and MyWhoosh are just a few of the best indoor training apps to find group rides, workouts and races to keep you entertained and motivated while riding inside. There’s also plenty of choice depending on the experience you’re after - from the gamified world of Zwift to Rouvy’s more realistic, real-world routes.
With a global community at your fingertips, you can connect with riders from around the world, join races, and push yourself against both real-life and virtual targets. Even top-level athletes use these platforms to challenge themselves indoors. Some apps, like MyWhoosh, even let you compete for real-life prizes.
Beyond racing, many platforms include social features such as chat rooms, leaderboards, and group challenges, helping you stay motivated, accountable and connected while riding indoors. (We might be biased but we’d say that the Cycling Weekly Wednesday night TT on Zwift is a great place to look).
6. It’s easier and comfier than ever
Indoor cycling is no longer just about pedalling on a trainer and staring at a wall - there’s now a whole ecosystem of gadgets and accessories to make your rides more realistic, engaging and comfortable.
Rocker plates, for example, are platforms that allow your bike to rock side-to-side as you pedal, mimicking the natural movement of riding on the road while helping you stay more comfortable and engaged. Wahoo’s Kickr Climb stimulates gradients, raising and lower your bike to match ascents and descents for a more immersive experience.
For convenience, setups like the Zwift Ride provide a permanent indoor training setup that’s always ready to jump on, making it easier to stick to your training routine.
And while smart trainers used to have a reputation for being very expensive, there are now very capable options for not a lot of money. For example, the Van Rysel D100 interactive turbo trainer with Zwift Cog and Click has an RRP of $299. Plus, you can explore virtual worlds and join rides without a paid subscription using apps like MyWhoosh.
If you’re riding inside, all you really need to get started is one of the best cheap smart trainers to attach your bike to, a set of cycling shoes and a pair of bib shorts - nothing more (even a little less!) than what you need for riding outdoors.
As you can see, there are an impressive number of benefits of investing in an indoor bike trainer and cycling indoors. That being said, you don’t get the opportunity to improve your bike handling and work on key skills that’ll increase your average speed such as cornering and descent practice. And not to mention how much pure fun it can be exploring your local area and breathing in some fresh (albeit crisp) air.
Over here we ran through seven benefits of riding outdoors, which you’ll miss out on if you train inside all winter! If you are planning on mixing up your winter riding with indoor sessions to reap the benefits detailed on this page, and outside rides too, these 20 hacks to beat the cold and keep riding through the winter are likely to keep you (and your feet and hands) a lot happier when you do so.
