Tell me about… Smart bikes

So, my wife announced yesterday that she might like a Peloton “or something”. Having had a look on the website, the money involved is eye-watering.

Next question is whether there’s a smart bike which will allow her to do solo workouts (I am extremely dubious that she’ll go anywhere near online classes) ideally without a sub, and which could double up for me on Zwift. Main stipulation has to be that it’s easy to set up which rules out smart turbo plus Zwift bike or equivalent.

Wattbike Proton or something else? If so, what?

Garmin tacx something something.

I have the most basic ‘smart’ one that they do and it works for both Zwift and the Tacx app, allowing me to hate my life for an hour or so at a time in places like Corsica, Sardinia and Taiwan.

Buy a fan.

An you not put her on a turbo trainer , put some tight shorts and a string vest on and encourage her to go faster ?

Isnt that what peloton is?

Can you not put her on a turbo trainer , put some tight shorts and a string vest on and encourage her to go faster ?

I was informed a Peloton isn’t just a connected spinning bike (which is what I’d understood it to be, and what the ads suggest it is). Also not sure she’d find my current set up of ancient Cannondale road bike, iPad and Kickr Snap to meet the ‘easy to set up’ requirement.

   Garmin tacx something something

Tacx Neo Bike? Do you need a sub for the Tacx app workouts?

Wattbike looks nice but nowhere we can go and see one set up apart from Nottingham.

Turbo Trainer and old bike would cost less than about £600. Probably less than £500 if you get a basic smart trainer.

Wouldn’t fulfil the “easy to set up” part of the brief though.

Go Outdoors, Millets and Blacks were doing the Saris H3 turbo for £299, great deal had one for nearly three years.

If you haven’t got a bike you could put on it, which could be easily adjusted for you both with a seat post tweak, have a look in the sales for something like a hybrid at Halfords etc.

I’ve got a Renpho Smart AI bike. Quieter, takes up less space than a real bike on a turbo and less of a dust magnet with no chain. There are a few peloton style workouts in the app and loads of other workouts that match resistance to your FTP.

Wouldn’t fulfil the “easy to set up” part of the brief though.

Only needs to be set up once. Then just hop on each time.

Humour me on this, but the turbo plus bike route won’t fulfil the brief here.

Decathlon do one for £999. Works with all the usual apps.

Humour me on this, but the turbo plus bike route won’t fulfil the brief here.

Which part of the brief does it not fulfil? You don’t need a subscription for workouts with a turbo. Plenty of options with garmin watches/computers, wahoo, fitbit, etc. Or even just manually.

Ask her which one she wants and just get that. Then it can’t be your fault and she’s more likely to use it.

Which part of the brief does it not fulfil?

I’d guess the easily used by two people with quite different proportions bit?  A smart bike will give easy adjustment of saddle height and fore/aft and the same for the handlebar up/down to and fro.  I’ve only used wattbikes and a technogym bike in the gym and they are great for the adjustment but you are going to be stuck sharing a saddle which may not work for both parties.  DCRainmaker is a good resource for reviews OP but they all look damn expensive to me

Could get 2 saddles and seatposts with a mark for the height on each post. Would take a few seconds to swap.

Or spend another £500+ on a smart bike that also needs adjusting for each person….

and what are you going to do about the reach to the bars and bar height?

Probably nothing. My turbo trainer bike is 2 sizes bigger than the bike I use outside and it males no difference. I just move my hands back on the hoods a bit. Its not like I’m sitting on it all day. Unless there is a massive difference in size between the two people, I’m sure you could find a bike that will work for both. It’s not going to be ridden outside anyway so doesn’t need to be perfect.

Whilst it might not matter to you a Peloton bike looks nice(r) than manky old bike strapped onto a trainer. Yes this is advertising but it matters more to some than others. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

What about a normal bike machine from decathlon- I’m sure the posher ones will have work outs. Smaller footprint, pretty cheap, much neater than a turbo set up. I was at my brothers last week, he has a peloton, I was surprised to see how basic it looked.

I am extremely dubious that she’ll go anywhere near online classes

Is she as sure?  This seems to be the main selling point of a peleton…..which is the thing she asked for. Also, a spinning class and a virtual bike ride are very different beasts – spinning much more high cadence at lower resistance whilst you do upper body exercises etc. And the spin bike ‘feel’ is totally different to accomodate that with the ‘fixed gear like’ setup. Actually not quite sure what you call a fixed/direct drive with variable resistance – whatever, it feels very different to ride to an outside bike strapped to a smart trainer.

Probably the wrong time of year to look but Facebook marketplace was littered with peletons going pretty cheap – being sold off by people cutting their losses and no longer wanting to pay £60pm for a subscription for their clothes horse.

Failing that – buy an actual spin bike (Schwinn used to be one of the big brands – that’s the end of my knowledge on the subject) and I’m sure there are a bazillion you tube vids to follow along to. Side benefit…..you now have a spin bike in the house which you can use too which’ll be a different way to humble yourself indoors to your smart trainer.

We went with a Wattbike Proton and over all we are happy with it. We didn’t want to have a bike in the house. Our bike setups are different enough to not be comfortable fore each other.

Pros: takes up about half the floor space against against a bike on a turbo. No chain lube grot dropping on the floor. No faffing with the correct cassette for the bike or adjust. Virtual gear ratios changeable in software so it can be set to simulate pretty much any gearing set up. Ease of adjustment between hers and my positioning. It’s not locked in to one specific software platform so there is loads of choice from the free wattbike app and training plans, control it with your garmin, zift and anything else that would connect to a smart turbo.

Cons: It is cheaper made than I thought it would be, crank arms could be shorter at 170(iirc) no option to swap them for shorter. Saddle clamp has around 6 degrees between angle position, neither of us found the standard saddle comfortable so have changed it but we are both quite picky.  It’s quite but still not as quiet at I hoped (seems to be an internal drive system noise rather than a rumble through the house.  Gear change buttons are under the hoods so you can’t change gear in the drops.

We’ve got a Kickr Bike.  Was a wiggle fire sale special though so we only paid £900.

wife is 5’6 and I’m 6’2 and we share easily, I changed the saddle to a Spesh power, that luckily we both use anyway.  It takes 30 seconds to adjust between our two positions, I leave it set in her position and then alter it to mine when I want to use it, then return it as I found it.

we adjust stack, reach, seat height and offset.  I also put some nicer bars/tape on it.  Cranks have 5 length settings, but require unscrewing pedals, so we just leave it in 170mm.

@convert She says she won’t use the online classes, and it would be in character. But it’ll need further exploring before I press the button on anything.

@K Thanks, that’s helpful

@jkomo Interesting you say that, I’d been led to believe that early Pelotons were essentially spin bikes with a tablet attached and you had to manually change the resistance when the aforementioned person in string vest said so…

@convert She says she won’t use the online classes, and it would be in character. But it’ll need further exploring before I press the button on anything.

Fair dos – so a peleton would definitely be a waste. But is she actually a cyclist? Imo a virtual cycle is a hard sell to someone who doesn’t actually choose to ride outdoors when they can. A spin bike type exercise machine is much more palatable to someone more inclined to go to a gym, even if they don’t actually go to a gym.

Writing this I’m finding myself thinking how some sort of indoor door bike that both me and Mrs C could use would be better in our office/workout space than my current summer road bike on a tacx neo that is taking up a shed load of space at the moment. Saddles would be the deal breaker on the sharing thing – we would never find a single saddle that we’d both be prepared to use.

Saddles would be the deal breaker on the sharing thing – we would never find a single saddle that we’d both be prepared to use.

For this reason, I’d only buy a “shared” trainer that used standard seatposts. It seems many use their own proprietary design, making getting an extra one a real pain.

@convert No (though given she rode a bike round Birmingham for three years as a student before she got a car, she’s done a decent amount of miles). She’d started running last year to try and get fit but then developed plantar fasciitis so stopped and now looking for an alternative.

The saddle issue is a good consideration. Fortunately we’re about the same height but as @blazin-saddles says above my plan would be to leave it set up for her as adjusting for me won’t be worse than getting current turbo set up…

Any of them take standard posts?

Kickr has a flat back post included with gradients marked, but a 27.2 round will fit the frame.  My plan was to have 2 posts originally but the power saddle worked for us, the original saddle was some sort of torture device.

If you get her the one she wants you will at least start with the upper hand in the ensuing arguments when she doesn’t use it.

Main stipulation has to be that it’s easy to set up which rules out smart turbo plus Zwift bike or equivalent.

Does she have a bike already? It’s not like wheel-off trainers take a load of setting up. If you were prepared to leave her bike on it and simply swap on your own bike when you want to use Zwift and reverse after you’ve finished, then she’d have minimal hassle and the advantage of using a dedicated bike with comfortable saddle etc and no messing with seatposts, saddle heights, bar position etc. There are some very decent budget smart trainers around now, so it wouldn’t necessarily be an expensive buy.

Obviously you’d need to have compatible drive trains – mostly the same speed cassette / shifters, but beyond that, it’s not really a big deal.

She does (Spesh hybrid of indeterminate age) that might work <b>but</b> as above chain oil on the carpet is a concern, and I’d need to discuss whether leaving it set up is a possibility.

@thestabiliser Reason for looking at a smart bike is that <i>if</i> she doesn’t use it, I can…