re: Wife wants a Peloton, but open to knockoffs if they're solid. Any suggestions?

quote:

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Try replicating hill climbing for 30 straight minutes in Louisiana

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I'm not in Louisiana (and there's a reason for that).

FWIW, I have a sub-16 lb dura ace road bike in the garage AND magnetic resistance trainer bike in my basement. I know the advantage and disadvantages of both.

Look as I said, I used to ride THOUSANDS of miles a year. The best bang for you training bucks is NOT consistent up hill riding. It's interval training riding at 85%-95% of your VO2 max for 3 min to 5 mins and with 1/2 interval rest period.

If you look at a Power vs Speed calculator for a bike you'll see that the two biggest factors a cyclist most over come is wind resistance (Fa = 0.5 * Cd * A * ? * (v + w)²)
where

Fa is the aerodynamic drag,
Cd is the drag coefficient,
A is your frontal area,
? is the air density,
v is your speed,
w is the wind speed (positive for head wind and negative for tail wind).

and slope (Fg = g * sin(arctan(slope)) * (M + m)).

where
Fr is the rolling resistance,
g is the gravitational acceleration, equal to 9.80655 m/s²,
slope is the slope of the hill, expressed as a percentage (positive for going uphill and negative for going downhill),
M is your weight in kg,
m is the weight of your bicycle and any extra gear in kg,
Crr is the rolling resistance coefficient.

If you do the math, you'll find that both essentially have a logarithmic effect on power reduction.

So you don't need hills obtain that training levels. You need the commitment to hammer for those 3-5 mins. What most people don't have is that commitment to keep the hammer down for that long on flat roads (where a hill forces you to keep pushing). One of the hardest workouts I ever did was 10-12 intervals over a mile course into a raging headwind (And I once rode from sea level to 10,000' over the course of 35 miles on Maui). I will concede, that unless you have 1-2 miles of open clear road, it can be difficult to get those interval times without real world interruptions (stop lights/signs and traffic). When riding alone most people simply "ride" (tool along) at a base level somewhere between 50-60% of their VO2 max.

BUT, the reason I suggested doing both a stationary trainer and a road bike have more to do with physical fitness. There is the mental fitness aspect as well. There is something about being out of the house and on the road that cannot be duplicated on a trainer. Riding in a group with other riders is way better than riding in a virtual "studio" I know for many people that may not be as feasible than for me where I can jump on my bike and be riding in a national forest in 20-30 mins...

But as I also said, to the OP just go ahead and get the peloton and be done with it...