BenMelb said:It is a Cycleops Fluid 2
I don't know that specific trainer, but I would recommend that you ignore your HRM and ride your workouts based on your speedometer. This is the protocol I recommend. Note that all rides should be done after you have warmed up the trainer (and yourself) ~10 minutes. As trainers heat up, the power required to ride at a certain speed changes. Hence, the importance of warming up the trainer. Also, you want to always use the same resistance, tire and tire pressure.
First, find by trial and error your maximum sustainable speed for 20 minutes. You can really work your way up to this number by feel. Start off at a speed that you could maintain all day. Then, increase speed by about 1/2 mph and hold it for at least 1 minute. Continue to step up speed in 1/2 mph increments until you get to a speed where you can feel that you're beginning to work a bit to hold the speed for 1 minute. Then, try to hold that speed for a full 20 minutes. The last few minutes should require almost full concentration. Your maximum sustainable 20min speed is not actually very strenuous for your muscles, so this is not actually a "hard" intensity. The only thing that makes it hard is the duration (20mins). You now have a speed baseline for 20min intervals.
I'd suggest that you use ~92% of your maximum sustainable speed for your 20min efforts. This is a bit of a guess because I don't know your specific trainer. It assumes that the relationship between power and speed is not fully linear. Try to do two of these 20min efforts, with ~5 mins recovery between the efforts just spinning easily. If you wear your HRM, you will probably notice a bit of HR "creep" (HR will increase during the course of the effort). Over time, these efforts will get easier and you can increase speed, a few tenths at a time.
