Turbo trainers

Hi
As some of you are aware I am recovering from illness. I have decided to,give a turbo trainer as I can get off when I want with a long walk home.

So what’s best? I don’t want to spend much 150 tops. Are rollers better ?

Got a Taxc one for sale, wirral based, to heavy to post.

If you can get a spinning bike I’d go for that, eg from here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/spinning-bike

Why? You don’t need to mess around changing tyres (or rear wheels), guaranteed stability if you want to stand up, quieter…

If you do go with a turbo ideally get a second rear wheel with a slick on it.

Rollers for spinning & long steady efforts (thresholds etc), turbo for intervals?

The daddy is still the KICKR, loads of third party software for any type of training

Virtual reality rides are cool, Record your local rides or even trail centres then ride them in real time

Ps don’t forgot to buy a massive fan 🙂

Forget my suggestion just seen your budget, oops

You can pick up some cheap elite fluid / mag for around £150

They are reasonably quiet too if that matters

I found rollers much easier and Less FAFF.

Can you get a decent level of resistance from rollers?

Should add to my earlier comment that I have an Elite turbo, it’s not bad, reasonably quiet (though nothing like as quiet as a spinning bike), but it’s crap if you try to stand up as the resistance on the back wheel is based entirely on your weight. It’s this one:

Other models screw the roller onto the wheel:

…so this wouldn’t be a problem – something to check if you do get a turbo.

I got some resistance rollers. More than I can cope with resistance wise!

You putting a road or mtb bike on there? If mtb then get a mag one with decent variable resistance (or rollers with resistance) as gearing will otherwise be a bit low.

Rollers are no better or worse, just different.

I am going to put a road bike on and change the rear tyre.

Thanks for the pointers

I was pretty ill last year and lost a lot of weight and strength. I found rollers the best ( I have rollers and a turbo). At my weakest, I could only manage 2 or 3 minutes on the rollers at the equivalent of walking pace. I think my turbo would have given more resistance which would not have suited my match like legs!

Tacx ones have a good level of resistance from easy to “barely able to move the pedals” hard. I have a cheap Elite one too, and in top gear whilst it was hard to pedal fast for a sustained period, it wasn’t quite hard enough.

got a cylops one from CRC about a year ago in the post christmas sale, works well and is as quiet as they go without spending huge amounts. Though the better part was combining it with the garmin speed/cadence sensor and using traineroad to do the workouts on rather then going off perceived efforts.

What mike said ^

Don’t get too hung up on the noise, you’ll want to use it somewhere cool like the garage so unlikely to disturb anyone.

Decent pair of headphones and some good tunes…

Don’t forget to include entertainment. It’s a lot easier and enjoyable if you got a spin work out DVD or even the TV to keep you occupied on the long steady stuff

I’ve got a Tacx mag of some sort, bluemotion? It feels a wee bit bendy when you build it tbh but it’s been great in use, reasonably quiet too and lots of resistance adjustment.

Had the use of a cycleops before, possibly a Magneto? It felt a bit more solid but was mile noisier, just plain unpleasant, even with a proper turbo tyre on. Not too impressed.

We’ve got a Tacx Bluemotion and a much cheaper Elite Volare. Though more basic in design/features The Volare is much sturdier than the Tacx and the 5 settings on its remote resistance adjustment give a similar overall range to the 10 on the Tacx. Volare Retails at £100 but we got it got for ~£60 around Xmas in halfords sale (also got the Bluemotion about half price, posted a PSA at the time but it was a while ago).

Get a wheel block or something to set the front wheel at similar height, stick it somewhere you can keep cool (ours in the garage), we’ve got a few Sufferfests on a tablet, other mates watch DVD box sets. Turbo-specific tyres seem to be a waste of time, just keep old worn road tyres for the turbo.