Need a turbo, so I can reluctantly join in when I ferry daughter to training sessions.

Been looking on Gumtree for a while but nothing’s come up in area. Anyone got any experience of el cheapo – £50 – ones on e-bay shops?

Don’t want anything that will either fall apart instantly or make the whole thing even more unpleasant than it already is!

The cheapo ~£50 turbo I bought new was noisy and I couldn’t get it to give anywhere near enough resistance even in top gear on the bike.

I then paid £65 for a secondhand Elite Volare and on maximum resistance, thats enough to get a sweat on.

Got a Tacx Blue Motion now though and can barely get out of the small ring on resistance setting 6 out of 10. But that was over £100.

Got a el-cheapo, works fine.

probably if you’re a hardened roadie it might not be strong enough, but im fairly fit and its enough for me.

Most of the resistance curves are designed around standard road bike gearing. If you’re putting a mtb on there you might find the resistance a bit low. Or it may just have been rubbish.

I put the road bike on the cheapo one. I could spin like a mad man. Like rollers but without any of the skill or effort required to stay upright.

Go for a fluid resistance type. The Elite Crono Fluid Elastogel depends on the weight of the wheel on the roller for resistance and you simply change gear to increase or decrease effort. On a piece of carpet on my conservatory floor mine is “virtually silent”. No buggering about with resistance cables or whatever.

The frame has two mounting setups, easy enough to adjust, so you can use a MTB or a road bike. I had an old hardtail on mine with slicks and it worked fine.

About £140 new from Wiggle and plenty on eBay.

Have fluid ones improved over the years? I was once told to stay away from fluid ones, cos at some point they’re going to start leaking?

My Tacx one didn’t cost that much more than the cheapest options… Not to say that the cheap ones can’t be any good, I’ve not used one, but the difference amounts to not very much over the lifetime of the thing.

Have a Cycleops fluid one on the go coming up four winters now and and still works great – no leaks

I have a Cyclops fluid one too, seems to work ok for the hateful past time

I bought a cheap one off ebay, similar to this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Magnetic-Turbo-Trainer-with-Fan-Fly-wind-wheel-unit-Indoor-Bike-trainer-Bicycle-/221178702950?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&var=&hash=item337f472c66 alter resistance by changing gear and it works fine, just as good as the tacx one that I’d been borrowing. The sufferfest videos make all the difference to the whole experience 😀

Cheers for the comments.
Natrix like the price of that! If it is a fan type is it really noisy? Borrowed a fan one last year that was like a fire siren – everyone fought to be nowhere near me, plus it was too obvious when I backed off from max effort! Also do you know if it fits a road bike

Ah, that looks like the one I got and found the resistance pitiful.

Of course it fits a road bike – BMX riders aren’t going to want to hook up to it are they 😉

Ok, so I’m being a bit flippant, but turbo trainers are designed primarily for roadies I’d say.

lol