Well basically here it is. I just hate hometrainers. Spinnerbikes is another thing, 3 hours on one of those is ok but my home trainer. I only use it for 30-40 minutes tops (before boredom kills me) when my legs are really, bad to loosen up.
I must add to this that my home trainer is an 9 year old cheapest model tacx. Yesterday I tried one of those tacx I magic at the LBS and was hooked, the feel was nothing like the dead feel of my old tacx and felt like a spinnerbike. In order to spinn I need to be a member of a gym so 5 months of winter gym membership almost equals the cost of an I magic.
So any of you weenies own one? Happy? I can see starbike.com offers two kinds of I-magic rollers one regular and one fortius. Whats the difference? The tacx homepage does not mention the fortius so I was hoping one of you knew something. And apparantly you canrace others online, any of you doing that for training that sounds like real fun!

Also very interested to hear other's impression of I-Magic. It looks great, but the hassle factor could be high. Moving my computer in front of my trainer is going to be a real pain....

This year my turbo riding is better and more enjoyable than previous years - I think I'm just getting used to it. It helps having a TdeF video on, with the sound muted, and I've made up some tapes with favorite training music.

Once I'm through the first 20 minutes or so, doing an hour is not a problem. I normally spin for ten minutes, do a 10 mile TT as fast as I can, recover, go again, etc. Or just try to do 25 miles in an hour.

Once I've done that I can happily spend another 20-30 minutes spinning, winding down, etc, so 1.5 hours is OK. I'm doing this twice a week at the moment.

rico

It has been -32 degrees all week here. It has been between -22 and -32 degrees for 3 weeks in a row. I feel your pain. Tacx has come to our rescue with the Tacx Fortius.

Fortius is a new, eddy current brake trainer that incorporates live video (via a DVD-based download to computer) that simulates road riding. The eddy-current brake utilised by Tacx is apparently good for up to 1,500 watts. The Tacx video files are linked to a sensor that plays the video at the 'speed' you are riding at and automatically replicates the load that you would 'feel' on the road via the eddy-current brake, which load has been determined by a GPS altimeter recorded in conjunction with the video. Among the video rides currently available are: Galiber, l'Alpe d'Huez, the last 90km of de Ronde, the Gavia Pass etc. Putting the Tacx Fortius up in-front of a large-screen TV should allow three-hour rides!

The DVD's are available now on the Tacx website, the Fortius should be widely available in February.

I bought the tacx i-magic trainer last autumn ('03), assuming I would use it quite a bit through the winter. The thing is that is as boring as with other indoor trainers. I see a lot of people recommend it because of its different programmed courses. Well, after I've used it a couple of hours I don't think it is worth buying it.

Instead of buying an expensive indoor trainer, I would either buy some winter clothes. Also, I recently bought some boot warmers (hotronic), the kind of stuff with batteries. Pretty smart thing to have, especially here in Norway were we get a lot of cold weather now (0 to minus 10 celsius).