I had a 90 minute, Zone 1 / Zone 2 bike ride scheduled today.  With no hard intervals to do, I decided I would find something interesting to watch while doing the workout.  I ended up choosing to watch the 2012 Olympic Games Mens Triathlon.  I always like to see fellow Brits do well 🙂

Given that I was going to watch something on the TV screen, I decided to do this ride in ERG mode on my smart trainer.  ERG mode is where the trainer controls the power output and not the athlete.  I had a Zone 1 / Zone 2 workout loaded in TrainerRoad, so I just chose that workout, set the trainer to ERG mode, and started peddling.

I don’t normally ride in ERG mode. This is because I think it’s important that you do your rides at the power that your body will give you, on any given day.  If you are feeling strong, you would want to push above the target power.  If you don’t have it, then you would want to take it a little easier.  You can’t do this in ERG mode.  I normally ride in Standard mode and change gears to adjust power and cadence; just like you would on a regular outdoor ride.

Today however was a relatively low effort ride, so I felt comfortable with the trainer setting my effort for the ride.  It worked out great.  I was able to complete the workout easily and enjoyed watching Javier Gomez become the filling in a Brownlee brother sandwich…