I work away from home during the week and this winter have the benefit of being in a flat instead of hotels (as I was last year) so I've been looking at direct drive turbo trainers.
I've got a conventional magnetic one at home but it's pretty loud and there's no way I'll get away with using it in a top floor flat with neighbours on both sides and below so how quiet / loud are these direct drive ones?
My roadbike is otherwise going to be pretty much redundant for the winter as I'm really not keen on the idea of road riding at night.
More specifically I've been looking at the lower price end of things and this Elite version
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/elite-turbo-muin-ii-fluid-direct-drive-trainer/
I's still too much money to buy and find it still causes a racket so any first hand feedback would be appreciated.
Ta.
depends on the construction of your flat I think... the biggest problem is vibration rather than noise, which when you're going for it is significant IME (even with a mat). Also if you have massive fan(s) on they are gonna be noisy (mine is way louder than the turbo). It was a definite no-go in my flat according to my downstairs neighbour 🙂
I tried one of those for the same reason. It was a lot quieter, however like zilog mentions the big problem is the vibration. Still significant...
I use tacx rollers. On concrete Garage floor, these are really quiet and reputedly amongst the quietest set ups.
Inside my old house, my *upstairs* neighbour thought the sound was from my washing machine. That was in a heavy Victorian house though, and my neighbours were Buddhists.
Im not sure you'd get away with them in a more modern flat though....
Got any spin classes near by?
These are for more expensive ones than you are looking at, but the noise level should still be ball park.
Get some gym floor matting, the heavy EVA stuff that you can drop weights on, that does wonders for deadening the sound.
And rollers are much much quieter than turbo trainers.
But if the noise is still an issue, then a winter of spin classes is probably cheaper than a turbo trainer anyway. Or join a local road club, they sometimes do turbo sessions over the winter in someones garage.
Or, just get a singlespeed, soak the chain in putoline and ride in the mud with mechanical impunity whilst destroying the rented washing machine.
New BKool is apparently going to be fairly silent: http://road.cc/content/tech-news/228981-bkool-release-two-new-smart-trainers
(And despite having two friends who work for them, I have to agree with the first (and so far only) comment, the software is pretty crap.)
Thanks all, pretty much confirming my suspicions that the noise / vibration will still be evident and that it's only in practice that I'll work out whether it's acceptable.
Spinning classes are an option and I may have one or two people at work for some moral support.
I've already picked up a cheap singlespeed to keep in the shared bike shed and I chose a flat close enough to the local trails but a winter of Bristol's Ashton Court / Yer Tiz (whilst quite enjoyable) is unlikely to help me maintain motivation.
Depends on the flat. The one I used to live in had thick concrete floors.
Yeah, I think if the flat has concrete floors a direct drive would not be a problem.
It's a converted church(!?!) and has timber floors. Fairly substantial but still just wood.
If you being upstairs can hear people downstairs going about their day to day, then one of those trainers, even though they are a lot quieter than others will sound like all hell kicking off above them. If you can't hear anything from below then I'd give it a go.It's a converted church(!?!) and has timber floors. Fairly substantial but still just wood.
For the above noise reasons I have a barely used one of these I'd sell, it takes 130, 135 and 142 x 12 so road and MTB. If interested drop me a PM.
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/elite-volano-direct-drive-b-trainer/
Got a kickr 2 and had the previous bkool and gym mats and a nice tarmac looking bkool mat + floor fan.
Not particularly quiet and as said the vibration seems to be the killer, dogs an wife seem to go mad(der)when It's cranked up.