An exercise in virtual training

It's a Tuesday night at a glass condo tower in Bloomington, the dark wilds of the Minnesota River Valley sprawling south from a penthouse view on the 17th floor. Spiraling custom-built chandeliers illuminate a space designed to epitomize modern living.

In the center of the room, Paul Krumrich is spinning on a carbon-fiber road bike mounted to a stationary trainer. A plasma TV displays a scene from the film "Ocean's Eleven," characters dashing onscreen in the midst of a casino heist.

"Let's switch this up," says Krumrich, the condominium's owner and a Twin Cities technology entrepreneur. He takes a hand off the bike and reaches for a button. He toggles through a menu, images and options blipping on the plasma display.

"Here we are," he says, an animated bike race loading onscreen. "The Ironman course."

As inventors go, Krumrich is difficult to figure. He is an engineer who runs three companies and an athlete who trains up to 20 hours a week. A 35-year-old bachelor, he is a geek with design sense, and he writes poetry on a daily blog.

This autumn, after two months of development, he unveiled a bike training system that promises to "encapsulate a rider in a bubble of technology." Its base price is $12,000, and it is unlike anything the cycling world has ever seen.

Krumrich grew up on the outskirts of Milwaukee, his parents both teachers. Dad ran a school's industrial-arts shop; Mom taught math. As a kid he tinkered and built projects in the family garage, constructing balsa gliders, remote-control cars and a coffee table with secret compartments.

"I was always scheming on something," he says.

A mechanical-engineering degree at the University of Minnesota led to jobs in the telecommunications and medical-device industries. It wasn't until 2002, when he founded a projection-display company in Minneapolis based on a 3M screen technology, that Krumrich's entrepreneurialism began to hit stride.

In the past five years, as Krumrich built the screen company, he and a partner founded a contractor business specializing in audio-visual installation. He formed a company to etch custom graphics onto iPods and laptops with a laser.

Triathalons and market analysis

His latest endeavor -- the $12,000 Turin Bike Trainer system -- is Krumrich's fourth business, although its origin stems as much from his obsession with triathlons as from market analysis.

"I could look back in 10 years and say, 'Why did I waste the time and money?'" he says.

But in a sport where participants might spend up to $8,000 on a custom bike, he believes the Turin can find its niche. Marketed through Sensory Environment Design, Krumrich's installation company (www.sedexperience.com), the Turin includes audio and home-theater components connected with a computerized resistance hub and bike-training software -- all assembled in a laser-etched metal case topped with a plasma monitor and flanked with fan outrigger arms.

Riders control lights, room temperature, fans, music, video, web cameras and a computer via a touch panel while watching movies, monitoring their heart rate and strength output, or simulating the environment encountered on a bike course outdoors.

At his Bloomington condo, Krumrich switches the screen to display an animated cyclist chugging up a hill. He shifts and starts to pedal, his heart rate climbing as his onscreen avatar speeds on a virtual course.

Like many riders nationwide, Krumrich spends countless wintertime hours indoors on a stationary bike. With the Turin, he believes indoor training can be more bearable and effective by keeping the rider engaged and entertained -- be it while watching "Ocean's Eleven" or pedaling a virtual Ironman race.

In 2007, Krumrich finished first in the Clydesdale division at Minneapolis' Life Time Fitness Triathlon, a class designed for men 200 pounds and up. Now 20 pounds lighter, he's training for his first real Ironman, a 140.6-mile swim-bike-run feat he'll attempt Nov. 23 in Tempe, Ariz.

At his condo, Krumrich tucks and pedals, the Turin's fans cranking. Lights blaze above to simulate the sun. In his head, he is racing, the plasma revealing a virtual course, the engineer and the athlete engaged, technology and aerobic training for a moment melded into one.