I'm A Fan

It does not take long when training inside to find out how much heat can impact training intensity. I remember when getting into cycling and starting to take training more seriously with use of a power meter how much I would fade once my core temperature would start to rise. The more tuned into to those sub-maximal threshold efforts and higher intensities the faster the rise in body heat. A few years ago I was struggling with the heat in this room that I tried using an ice vest. That was a flop. As soon as my body temperature was up it quickly melted the ice packs and the vest trapped the heat in making it worse. I was amazed how quickly my body heat would thaw those frozen ice pack. 

Looking at a thread on the Timetrialing Forum regarding fans it reminded me that I wanted to add one more fan that is very focused and high velocity to my current mix of fans. In the two pictures I have been using a high velocity floor fan from Patton and a small oscillating fan aimed at my upper body and head. The floor fan has a very high CFM and covers most of my legs, torso and head. There is a wall air conditioner vent directly behind the Wahoo Kickr. This weekend I purchased a Lasko Pro Performance blower type fan that has that focused high velocity flow that I can direct right at my torso and because it is so direct and close to the trainer it does not cover else. There is also a ceiling fan that is in the middle of the room. So in all there are four fans and an air conditioning vent. 

Next up is adding some wireless plug-in outlets as suggested by a Timetrialing forum member. Big kudos to the members at that forum and on Slowtwitch where I find a lot of good tips and training advice.

Patton 18" High Velocity Fan - Amazon Newer Version

Lasko Pro Performance Utility Fan - Amazon

I am not sure of the CFM of the Patton on the highest setting, but it is certainly a high velocity than the Lasko and the air flow is wide spread. The Lasko is providing a very focused stream of air that I am able to pin point the location of the flow. Using it yesterday in a longer interval while using the aerobars, I was able to put that focused air right on my neck and head while the Patton was hitting most of my body. This really helped me from overheating as my core temperature was rising through the minutes. The Patton is also substantially louder and there is no way I can hear the TV sound across the room, but with ear buds the music overcomes the fan sounds. I also have a set of bluetooth ear buds that are paired with the Amazon Fire TV box so if I wanted to watch something I can hear it clearly while the fans are running. 

The picture below is how hot this room can get in the summer months. It is a little better now that we have replaced and upgraded our home's air conditioning system. 95 degrees (F) outside and 85 degrees (F) inside as a starting temperature. From there my body temperature would rise quickly once I was warmed up and into the first intervals.

Sounds To Drown The Misery

JBL Reflect Mini BT - Amazon
Sonos Play 1 - Amazon
Sony  MDRXB950BT/B Extra Bass BT Headphones - Amazon

JBL Reflect Mini BT

Sonos Play 1

Sony BT Headphones

Extensive Aerobic Training has started and much of my weekday training is inside using the Kickr with PerfPro on a laptop. For the background, besides the noise of the trainer and three fans, I have a HD large screen and usually streaming something off of an Amazon Fire TV box. For sound when the training is above L3 I usually stream music from the iphone Amazon Music app with a fairly intense beat to drive the pace. If the intensity is more toward active recovery I will use the over the ear headphones because the sound quality is a little better. If my wife is not home I can use speaker with the volume up.

JBL Reflect Mini BT

I purchased these locally at a nearby Best Buy and originally I went in to get the Jaybird X3, but one of the customer service representatives pointed to the JBL as an alternative because they had them on sale and were about $20 less. Not knowing much about them and listening to rep point out some of the attributes they seemed to be similar to the Jaybird so I took the chance. Overall the sound is good when the earbuds are in the ear tightly. I am not used to pushing earbuds in that deep, but after a few seconds it is okay. In deep the bass comes through and not in deep you will not get much low end. In terms of sitting on a trainer they stay in the ear and I can imagine would stay in with more vigorous movement. They paired up quickly with the iphone, but when I tried to pair with the Amazon Fire TV box I had to remove all other electronics using bluetooth from the room. At that point the Fire TV box quickly picked up and paired with the earbuds. I have destroyed other bluetooth earbuds with heavy sweat. These are rated as IPX 4 and noted to be sweat proof. Hopefully that will be the case.

Sonos Play 1

On a Slowtwitch thread the Sonos Play 1 was mentioned a couple of times and from this I read a few reviews and the speakers were getting great reviews. The bad thing though was not noticing a very important aspect of the Sonos speakers and that is they are not bluetooth. They are a proprietary system that uses wifi. My mistake was seeing that you can pair it with the iphone and I just jumped to the conclusion that they are bluetooth. Am I disappointed? Yes, to some degree I am, but not enough to return the speaker because it does sound amazing. After I got this setup on my iphone using the Sonos app that in turn links to various music apps on the phone I was able to use my playlist from the Amazon Music app. What I cannot do is pair it with the Amazon Fire TV box without having to buy some additional Sonos equipment or speakers. When my wife is not home I prefer to use an open speaker and turn it up and it this stand alone speaker easily overcomes the fan and trainer noise and with clarity and good range of sound. 

Sony MDRXB950BT Headphones 

Even though I have little to say about these over the ear headphones they are the best of the three in this list of new items in terms of sound and general pairing to devices. The Fire TV box picked them up instantly in the initial pairing and as soon as I turn them on it picks up the headphones. By the way, there is no lag in sound between the headphones and earbuds from the Fire TV box. The only drawback, as one could guess, is that these are not sweat proof and they get hot quick even at low intensity spinning. I can tolerate wearing them, but I have to remove them briefly now and then just to cool off my ears. They are nice though if I wanted to focus in more of a movie or TV show dialog to keep track of a plot. 

This was just a brief overview of some new purchases. There are plenty of good review articles to scan over if you are looking around for indoor training enhancement and to drown out any potential revolt or cries from the legs.