How do pros use indoor trainers?

Pros use trainers all the time, in a variety of ways. Elite, based in Italy, sponsors several top-tier teams in both men’s and women’s professional cycling. Among the men’s WorldTeams, Elite supports Bahrain-Victorious, Arkea-B&B Hotels, Groupama-FDJ, Decathlon-AG2R, Intermarché-Wanty, DSM-F PostNL, UAE Team Emirates, Cofidis, and Jayco-Alula. On the women’s side, Elite is a proud sponsor of FDJ-Suez, UAE Team ADQ, Fenix-Deceuninck, Roland, Canyon-SRAM, DSM-F PostNL, Cofidis, Liv-Jayco-Alula, and Arkea-B&B Hotels.

Pier André Côté, current national TT champion and rider for Israel – Premier Tech, uses his trainer in a variety of ways.

Coming from Gaspé, Que., he spent many winters indoors, where he used the trainer for the bulk of his training. Now that he’s less exposed to the cold living in Girona, it tends to be used to put the finishing touches on training, for rainy days, or as a proper warm-up before a time trial.

Heat adaptation

A big thing in pro cycling lately is heat adaptation. “Being a Canadian, I tend to not have great predispositions to be good in hot climates,” Cote says. “I use the trainer quite a bit to ride overdressed at the end of an outdoor ride. Since I am coming back from an outdoor ride, my body temperature is already elevated, so I add an extra layer of clothes and finish the session with half an hour of easy riding on the trainer.”

Riders like Pogačar use heat training regularly to get ready for the hot days of the Tour. And despite there being special thermal training chambers, many pros simply put on a winter hat, tights and jacket and overheat at home.  Heat adaptation training is a staple for most of the GC riders, and a home trainer is integral to the practice.

When the weather gets foul

Just like us, pros don’t always love going out in the rain.

Sometimes the energy of fighting the weather and having to clean the bike in an apartment post-training is just not worth it. For many pros, it can be a lot easier to just commit to the trainer and get the ride done, especially if the ride is shorter. During COVID-19, many pros who were stuck inside due to quarantine in Europe also relied on trainers to get miles in when they couldn’t leave the house.

When it comes to riding indoors, pros also use them in conjunction with platforms like Zwift or MyWhoosh. Mathieu van der Poel rides on Zwift, as does Tadej Pogačar with MyWhoosh.