The missus often reminisces about the days when we had an exercise bike at home.  And given my absolute inconsistency about getting up in time to get to the gym before work, I do wonder if it might be good to get one.  It’s her birthday soon too.  Note that a real bike + trainer is not an option (only a more or less permanently filthy full suss MTB or my pub bike, plus almost certainly not enough space).

So :

1) Any recommendations?

2) Of these are any smaller footprint ones ?  Space is of a bit of a premium because the house is full of other stuff (children’s toys mainly 😐 ).

What is your budget? Personally I would go with something like the wattbike atom that can be used with trainerroad/zwift/sufferfest etc so it will be used rather than being an expensive clothes horse. The concept 2 erg bike is also meant to be good. But they are both rather expensive.

What is your budget?

Difficult question, I’d rather spend more on something that’ll get used than

 an expensive clothes horse

I do have a personal preference for something that could use zwift etc, but orangespydermissus doesn’t GAS.  I’ll have a look at those.

EDIT : The bikeerg does look good.  I like their rowers.

The only bike I really get on with is the Keiser and it is pretty compact. No good if you want lots of features though – it’s a flat out spin bike.

But they are very speedy – second-hand ones are still £400+

Is a watt bike an option?

Absolutely no faff, just works. No doing anything to mine since unboxing it a year ago. Everything just connects and works. I just use my iPad to connect to the cadence and power meter, use Sufferfest for training content. Job jobbed as some may say.

Get the kids to share a room, sell their toys, all sorted for you. I’d say anything you have to get out and setup each time has the potential to become a faff.

Is a watt bike an option?

It might be.  The Atom isn’t available in France.  I’ve been looking at the Concept2 BikeErg (what a rubbish name) and it looks good, but it seems fairly big.  That might not be a showstopper.  The Atom looks fab too, but isn’t available so may end up having to get it shipped from the UK.

Did think about a plain old spin bike – the Keisers mentioned above do look OK, not sure how available they are in .fr – will investigate.

Any opinion on NordicTrack ?

EDIT : Or any opinion on Proform?

Well – as much as I like it the BikeErg ain’t gonna work.  My wife will want to use it @ 6am before the kids get up and I’ll bet they’ll be up within about 30 seconds given the noise.  Need to be a magnetic resistance one rather than air, I think, and there have been other concerns expressed at spinning type bikes due to the exposed flywheel that little fingers will almost certainly want to touch at some point 😐

Am googling alternatives.

We were in a similar position a few months ago – I did fancy a Wattbike, but even the ebay prices for well-used ones were pretty silly. In the end I found a barely used ProTour on gumtree for 300 quid – whilst it doesn’t have an actual power meter, it uses software algorithms and still feels pretty solid. The incline / decline feels pretty good too. I don’t have it connected to Googlemaps, but run Virtual Road app on the iPad

The NordicTrack GrandTour and original ProTour are near identical

Does it need to be a bike?

We’ve got a Waterower, yes, it’s long, but stands up on its end and is very stable.

Pretty quiet too, much quieter than a C2.

Does it need to be a bike?

I would actually rather have a rower.  “Other people” in the household don’t want one…

You said no turbo trainers, but with its back to a wall they make quite good bike stands, so it takes up minimal space.

Obviously that only works if your of similar enough heights to both fit the same bike, although butterfly bars and tri-bars would give a lot of positions to alternate between.

I’m looking at this also. Seems to be a distinct lack of connected exercise bikes vs turbo trainers.

Yesterday I bought a Tacx Vortex from my LBS for £300, ex-display. Rigged it up to a spare Apple laptop and a TV screen and did a quick 15 minutes on it, by the end I was sweating like a horse and breathing hard. It was easy to set up and I’m impressed by the Swift thingy, which gives enough choice of workouts that I won’t be bored while I recover from my broken collar bone.

If you use a direct drive turbo you can flip the bike upright around the rear axle and remove the front wheel, which makes the ‘packed’ footprint pretty small.

We have a cheap Boardman on ours with 2 seat posts.

Sized in between our two sizes.

Put a shorter stem in it so wife has ok reach and tri bars so I can stretch out. Used reflector brackets as depth stops to make swapping quicker.

If you’ve got deep pockets and can wait a couple of months…

https://www.tredz.co.uk/.Tacx-Neo-Bike-Smart_203102.htm

The Neo Bike sounds really excellent going by the DCR report. Clearly it’s expensive (you could buy a bike for that!) but then so is the trainer it’s based on. Plus there are benefits to not having an actual bike: no chain, cassette, don’t have to keep taking bike on & off, super adjustable etc. Probably won’t get one though as I already have a Neo!