In an earlier post I discussed my purchase and thoughts on my bike trainer, the Kettler Ergo Racer (link here). I mentioned in that post that purchased some training 
software along with the trainer called Netathlon 2.0 (NA). This software connects up with a number of trainers and stationary bikes and essentially takes control over the trainer’s settings, allowing you to have an interactive ride. There are a number of computer animated courses to pick from (you must purchase each course, but can preview the course before you buy) and NA will give you gobs of feedback. It shows you speed, power, cadence, heart rate, calories burned, elevation, distance, etc. It will will also save any of your rides so that you can race yourself in future rides. I have loaded 5 previous rides at once to race and had no problems. I have heard that you can load over a dozen, but have never tried it. Another great feature of NA is that is also allows for drafting, and it actually feels like drafting. I have sat in on a pack ride and actually soft pedaled to stay on the wheel of the person in front of me.
The courses offered are impressive. The Kona bike course is right on the money. The turns and hills are all where they should be and the scenery is accurate as well (you can pan your view and check out the mountains and the ocean on each side of you). I can actually see the hotel I stayed in when was there when I’m riding the course. Same goes for some of the other courses. They have an Alp’d Huez course complete with cheering fans that I’m actually a little scared to ride.
One thing that I have found particulary interesting is that you can connect to the internet and race/train with others. Want to ride the Kona course with your buddy who lives 2000 miles away? Hook up the headset (if you want to talk) and meet him online for a ride up the Queen K. This feature seems to be quite a hit as there are groups online that have regularly scheduled rides in which dozens of people meet up to churn it out. I’ve even seen links to racing leagues.
Having said all that, Netathlon 2.0 is not without it’s flaws. First of all, installing it was more of a challenge than I bargained for. It was a bit buggy, and I needed the folks at NA to reset me and help me a couple of times to get me up and running. It also (initially anyway) was buggy with the upgrades. Running Vista, I downloaded the latest 
patch and lost the graphics to the courses. After many attempts they got me fixed and it seems they have stablized their product.
The other issue I have with Netathlon 2.0 are the number of courses that are offered. I love the ones that they currently offer, but I haven’t seen a new course in at least 2 years. If the folks at NA were wise, they would create and sell an application that allows us the user to create courses and share them. If they did that you would see virtually every bike event in the world become available overnight. This thing could become a massive hit if they would just let it.
At the end of the day, I would recommend Netathlon 2.0 to anyone who has a trainer and can’t stand riding indoors. I would rather do anything than ride indoors and with NA I’ve had an hour ride just fly by. And who knows, maybe I’ll see you out on a cyber ride one day. I’ll be the guy sitting on your wheel.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, for you loyal Computrainer users, it’s fully compatible.
Before I get into my specific thoughts of the Kettler Ergo Racer, I figure I should explain my road that led purchasing it. First of all, I am not a fan of indoor riding or trainers. I have a pair of rollers and a magnetic trainer. Both are mild forms of torture to me, the trainer especially so. A couple of years ago though I was preparing for Ironman Arizona and would jump in a spin class when the weather was too cold. I didn’t really follow the instructor with all the activities, but enjoyed the spin bike because the heavy flywheel gave a more realistic ride, it was sturdy enough that I could really attack hills out of the saddle and it was much quieter than my trainer or rollers.
The bike itself is very sturdy, just like the spin bikes and it has a 40 pound flywheel, so the ride feels very realistic.
setup to triathlon bull-horn, or upside-down for a cruiser position. I found the bull-horn setup to be too deep, but am very happy in the road set up.
The only piece of this puzzle that was missing was the 3d simulation of the course you are riding. I really wanted this as it held my attention better than anything else I have tried. In my research I found that there is a product made by Fitcentric called Netathlon2. It allows you to ride courses (some famous) against yourself or others online and will work with dozens of bikes/trainers (I will review this soon). Underneath the console of the Kettler is a port that will allow you to hook into a computer. I got Netathlon2, plugged it into my Kettler and I am riding the Ironman Hawaii Course in 3D. Perfect!
I see the base phase of training much different. I think base building is the most important phase for endurance athletes. It is a very focused training period in which you train almost 100% of the time in a very narrow window of aerobic effort. This window doesn’t include easy aerobic training nor does it include anything at anaerobic threshold or above. Basically (outside of warm up and warm down) you keep your effort right at or just below your aerobic threshold(AT). For those who use a heart rate monitor this means constantly keeping your heart rate in a range of 10 bpm where your upper ceiling is your aerobic threshold and you never get to your anaerobic (or lactate) threshold . So lets say your AT is 155bpm, then you want to train between 145-155 for your entire workout. Note: this doesn’t mean that this is your average for the workout, this means that if your heart rate hits 156, you slow down. Likewise, if you heart rate drops to 144 you must pick it up. For those who train without a heart rate monitor, this is roughly your Ironman race pace.