My wife wants a spin/exercise bike to use in the house – my efforts at suggesting a turbo trainer in the shed have been unsuccessful, mainly due to the resident spider population.

So, can you get anything decent without spending more than around £300?

Make sure you get one with a clutch on the front wheel,  mrsbeanz has an older one which is  fixed- it takes a bit of stopping.

Most ‘spin’ bikes are fixed as opposed to exercise bikes which aren’t.

Why not a turbo in the house? Or rollers.

Space mainly – my turbo set up in the shed  takes up more space than a spin/exercise bike will.

I’ve always wondered about a proper spin bike vs turbo. Always find the turbo creaks / and the bike twists about a bit – so not got into it at all.

From doing spin classes back in the day I remember the bikes being really solid and you can dial the resistance up pretty high on them (although it’s a brake really rather than a fan / magnetic / fluid resistance).

Does your wife know what to expect from a spin bike, as being fixed with no freewheel they are quite odd to pedal and not really something just to play on occasionally.

I bought a cheapy £150 thing from Amazon ages ago, used it twice then it developed a obnovious squeak from the resistance system. It was also not very comfy and not that well built so it is sat in the garage gathering copious amounts of dust.

For under £300 I’d be tempted to look for a well looked after second hand spin bike, or if a regular exercise bike something from Decathlon might be a good start as you can sit and play before deciding.

The advantage of a turbo though is you can flip the bike up against a wall when not in use.

Also £300 on a turbo gets you something pretty mid-high end that’ll connect to zwift etc. £300 on an exercise bike is more like a sports direct BSO on a £50 trainer.

If you’re happy to go 2nd hand then you might get something decent for around £300. The fairly basic but solid and very usable spin bikes at our gym (keiser M3) cost around £1,500 new but their value plummets as soon as they’re second hand and a quick search on gumtree suggests they can be had for around your budget.

If you’re decide on new then I think you’d be best to go down the the route of finding a way to make the turbo trainer usable indoors.

If bike is going upstairs spin bikes are dam heavy, mine is nearly 80 kg

Turbo all the way

Similar position 6 months ago – ended up buying a barely used ProTour exercise bike on gumtree for £300 – it had sad unused for 3 years since new. Easy enough for the wife to use, but you can ramp-up the incline / watts if needed.

Cheers for comments. Just to reiterate – I already have a turbo set up in the shed!! There’s not enough space inside for one. She’s not planning doing major sessions – more like half hour x 3 per week as running gives her issues. So something basic is fine and as she’s not a cyclist I doubt she’ll mind it not feeling too bikey.

What about conkers?  Keeps the spiders at bay…

from my experience, spin bikes are an acquired taste. Like many have said they are fixed, heavy and have limited gadgets. We have a Nordictrack GX 8.0 which is an entry level spin bike with a 22kg flywheel. I love it cos its bombproof and very rigid but my wife bemoans the lack of a fancy screen and the ability to set desired distances, times etc. The friction screw on a spin bike is very simple as the work outs are different to ‘excercise’ bikes and you can’t have preset levels etc

Like many, we bough ours second hand from someone who didn’t use it and it was cheap as chips

But it does need to be somewhere that is easy access – a spider strewn shed is not an option for my wife either so we have it at one end of our lounge….

eBay for spin bikes, they’re pretty much indestructible and there’s always someone getting rid of one they don’t use.

If I had the space I’d pick up a cheap one, I just can’t be arsed setting up a dirty bike on the turbo in front of the TV.

They are all fixed though AFAIK, they normally have a brake for the flywheel though so you don’t have to keep pedally for a week until the wheel stops spinning

I bought a spin bike because we’ve just had a baby and I can’t see me getting out on the bike anytime soon. And my knee is knackered so when it flares up I can stop and hobble indoors rather than finish the ride.

Wasn’t expecting the fixed flywheel at first; nearly threw me over the bars!

I went for one with magnetic resistance rather than friction. Was a bit more than I had wanted to spend upfront, but figured I’d get it back in th longer term by it being one less thing to service. All good so far. Smooth and quietish.

I missed out on a mint one from a private sellet on ebay, so ended up getting mine from a dealer that resells used gymn kit, via ebay. Think they were based in Hinckley. fitkit-uk maybe? Huge unit packed to the rafters and stock seemed to turn over quite well when I was looking.