Ride your favourite routes indoors with Minoura Live Training App

Minoura have released an App that, used alongside one of their indoor trainers, allows you to ride your favourite routes inside, and it can calculate your wattage too so you can train by power.

It’s cruel to mention it while the sun’s out, but autumn isn’t that far off. Sorry. If you ride indoors, Minoura’s new Live Training App could make life a lot more interesting. We first mentioned it back in January but it's available now. This is how it works…

First of all, you need a Minoura trainer. The Live Training App is compatible with any Minoura V-series or LiveRide trainer. The cheapest Live Training compatible model is the £199.99 V130.

You can use the trainer as a normal portable trainer if you like, or you can increase its capability by using it alongside the LiveTraining App. That gives you course simulation, speed, cadence, heart rate and power read outs on your iPhone or iPad. First question: will there be an Android version? We’re told that one is ready but it relies on the manufacturers having a standard platform on which to receive ANT+ data.

The App will cost you £6.99 from iTunes. You need sensors on your bike to take the speed and cadence measurements, of course. Trek Speedtrap and Giant Ridesense integrated ANT+ sensors work fine, for example. If you don’t already have ANT+ sensors, you can buy them separately.

Then you need a Wahoo dongle for your iPhone or iPad to receive the ANT+ signal. That costs £67.

The power measurement comes from reading the speed and knowing the level of resistance you have the trainer on. Minoura reckon it’s accurate to within +/-5%.

The other clever part is that you can ride any route you create yourself or import course data that you can then simulate. You can load your own ride files from another cycling app or from a GPS-enabled computer like a Garmin, or you can use a pre-loaded course or create your own route with mapping software. The App tells you when to adjust the resistance on your trainer to simulate the course you have selected.

Alternatively, you can set interval training goals on the screen if you like, or just use the system as a normal bike computer to record your performance.

The LiveRide trainers we mentioned earlier are new, by the way, featuring super-strong magnets that provide a wide range of resistance. We have one on the way so standby for a review on Road.cc shortly. For more info on the range, visit the UK importers Zyro.