Aldi turbo trainer- worth £45?

Hi,

Aldi have their bike stuff in on Sunday .

There is a turbo trainer- for £45

Link

I had a turbo trainer in the past and used it 3 times before selling it. It was unpleasant and hard work. I bought a fancy elite one thinking I’d be more likely to use it if it was “better”

My son was sent home from nursery with a cough, diagnosed as covid buy the nursery, and we have all been stuck at home isolating waiting for a test result so we can go out again.

I didn’t use the turbo previously because I would rather ride in miserable rain than turbo.

I’m a teacher my son is 9 months old, the chance of another 2 week self isolation in the near future looks high.

Is it worth going for a cheap turbo?

I won’t comment on the trainer itself.

But i’d say yes. I hate the turbo, its not a replacement for going for a ride but a max 1hr hard ride in a spin style from the likes of GCN youtube channel scratches an itch nicely and probably actually is helpful fir general riding.

I have to have something spurring me i have no interest in planning and sticking to a plan. Get on get on, get told what to do, die a bit, get off. Sorted.

Three hours of misery or made up races sounds like such a waste of time to me.

Other half likes it too.

Any turbo will do in my opinion, it’s all just about making it useable! Aimless pottering on a turbo DOES NIT WORK in my experience.

Get a speed sensor so you can measure your effort.

Find a workout you like (e.g. the GCN 40 minute sweetspot workout) and try it a couple of times until you figure out what speed you can maintain during the efforts and still complete the workout (completely arbitrary example but on my setup I knew 36km/h for each interval was a ‘gentle’ workout but 40km/h was a hard session!

Set up somewhere with a view? I do sessions at the front of my garage looking out on to the street. An occasional attractive neighbour walking past gives you a wee boost! 😁

Get some tunes! I’m a chemical brothers fan but am experimenting with Youtube techno mixes

I took an Aldi one and an old.bike to my digs in Angola.

It was better than the alternative of …..doing nothing.

But as for being a turbo….it’s a horrid turbo. It’s inconsistent , it vibrates it’s self to bits and the resistance doesn’t seem to make much odds .

Wouldn’t bother worked for me as it minimised my losses when due to volitility I didn’t go back to Angola …

We have a planet X one that we used for group sessions . It was about 70 quid and is much more usable but still nothing like riding a bike

Now we have a kickr and it’s like going for an actual ride on a bike.

For that price you can try it, and if you don’t like it, or the trainer is shonky, you can flog it on eBay for twice as much

The last few years version got pretty poor reviews, the broke easily, weren’t consistent and made turbo work even less fun than it normally is. The upside is that Aldi will will give you a refund easily if it does break.

I have to have something spurring me i have no interest in planning and sticking to a plan. Get on get on, get told what to do, die a bit, get off. Sorted.

This is my view too. I want to hurt myself for 40 minutes get off.

broke easily, weren’t consistent and made turbo work even less fun than it normally is. The upside is that Aldi will will give you a refund easily if it does break.

Sounds like I should get it and have a go a breaking it by using it, then get a refund and hopefully lockdowns/ self isolations will have finished. If they haven’t I’ll try a better one.

For that price you can try it, and if you don’t like it, or the trainer is shonky, you can flog it on eBay for twice as much

Quick check of eBay and there is a bike mate trainer 2nd hand for £60 round the corner from me!

OP – where are you based? Have you checked your local FB marketplace?

With the move to smart trainers, there was an influx of decent dumb trainers into the second hand market, I was looking at a variety of fluid trainers from respected brands for between £50 and £75, got myself a nice Kinetics in the end.

I’m in Nott’s, I haven checked for any second hand stuff.

Would a fluid trainer make turbo training any less unpleasant?

Meh, not really sure, I went from magnetic to fluid, didn’t notice much difference, but they do generally appear on higher spec turbos, so the overall experience is probably better.

Also not dependent on resistance adjustment as the fluid better imitates real world increase in resistance as speed goes up.

I was interested in making turbo training kinder to my knees, bigger flywheels help but there’s a limit to what you’ll find second hand.

As Trail-Rat says, I think the only thing which makes a significant difference to the feel of the turbo is to go direct drive with a big flywheel, but I’m too cheap for that!

13thfloormonk’s idea worked for me. YouTube play lists are plentiful and any excercise is better than none I’d have thought. It really didn’t take long for me to notice a difference in fitness levels and I’ve managed to carry that on to real life cycling. As said, you can’t go far wrong at that money.

Can’t comment on the turbo but I’m still waiting to get some waterproof socks from there…hoping I haven’t missed them (or they are actually from Lidl and I’m looking in the wrong shop!!!)!

Actually just a thought, but have you considered rollers? You’ll get more for your money, possibly a more ‘engaging’ workout and I feel big improvements in my pedalling style after using them.

Downside is that they’re more of a commitment, e.g. you’ll find them frustrating and difficult the first few times.

Now though I’ll continue to use them until fitness/training dictates that I *need* the higher resistance of a turbo. As it is I can get a decent sweetspot workout (e.g. 20 minute British Cycling warm-up followed by 4x8minute intervals) just using the rollers and the highest gear on my road bike (50/11).

I can actually increase the resistance a bit by just lowering tyre pressure as well so have a good couple of months before I ‘outgrow’ the rollers I think.

I bought some second hand rollers today for £50. Much more involving than a dumb turbo; I still have my Bikehut one in case of emergency. That said, I do have a smart trainer.

Edit: beaten to it ^^^

Looks almost similar to my TACX one, works well enough, but you have to keep pedaling as friction stops the rear wheel quite quickly, its noisy so get a desk fan large and a sweat towel, also lift the front wheel up on a block,its also very heavy and appears well engineered. oh and its so boring