Help please o wise ones.

Recent house move means I am no longer living next to a gym with daily spin classes. Would like to defeat the Christmas turkey swiftly after tomorrow so thinking of ‘treating’ myself to a home setup.

Have a road bike, understand I need a spare wheel and special tyre. Have read bits of the trainerroad thread and can see its mostly that or suffer fest.

But in terms of kit what do I need in terms of turbo, resistance knob (!), iphone app, power meter etc…

Entry level, good enough without spending big bucks.

What should I be looking at in the sales?

cheers

Halfords are selling off Elite Mag turbos for £50. Get that.

If you don’t want to spend big bucks you won’t get a powermeter but can use virtual power with Trainerroad. If you have a Garmin you can get a speed/cadence meter from the web, some cheap Decathlon ones work with Garmins.

thanks for that, will investigate.

Yep have a 810.

Sorry dumb question incoming…

I can see there are various mag options up to £100 and smart from £150. With the smart option, once hooked up to an app does it automatically change the resistance according to the programme being followed (on trainerroad or similar) or does it just record the effort on to the app?

Don’t know what big bukcs is, but I bought a tacx vortex from amazon for around £250. Seems one of the cheapest of the smart trainers.

With the smart option, once hooked up to an app does it automatically change the resistance according to the programme being followed (on trainerroad or similar) or does it just record the effort on to the app?

It changes the resistance according to the program/app. It’s not a dumb question. I didn’t enjoy wading through the piles of information about turbos and trying to make a decision.

fair point, guess i was looking to spend less than £200 but not want to buy twice.

I’d probably go for the vortex smart if on a budget. Seems pretty decent and you can get good deals on it. Also smart so you have more options when using it with TrainerRoad, Zwift, etc.

I’d heard that Elite trainers generally have a pretty poor feel to them (in terms of simulating road feel.) Not ideal but probably not so bad if you’re not too serious about it.

I have an elite fluid and it feels quite road like to me.

By no means an expert on this but I’m told that Elite turbos generally have quite low kinetic energy, so they’ll always feel a bit like you’re riding uphill regardless of power. Which isn’t always the best as you’ll be training muscles to work and fire in a pattern that isn’t the same as riding along the road. May also mean that if you’re doing a long winter of turbo work you might find you’re not as good as your turbo numbers might suggest when you’re back on the road.

Well, thats de-motivated me. My numbers are bad enough as they are, or is this you playing mind games ahead of next weeks race?

Also, my setup power/gears/speed is very close to what I obtain on e road, eg peddling along at 95rpm in 54/17 would equate to roughly the same speed outside.

How are you measure that kind of effect over another manufacturers fluid trainer? I’ve not seen that said in a review before?

So er what turbo for Trainerroad then…

Haha no, I’m a bit doubtful for the 3rd anyway, meant to be away that weekend.

Best turbo. Trying to work that out myself! You want something with a big flywheel. And mag turbos aren’t that good either. The Lemond one is meant to be one of the best for simulating real riding, but then it is hugely noisy (didn’t appreciate quite how noisy until I was warming up next to one at a race a while back.) The Tacx Neo could be very good indeed. They are working on the firmware to add a road feel mode and with it being able to drive a virtual flywheel it should be able to deliver on that (they’ve said sometime early next year). If the feedback is good I’ll probably get one.

Edit… most of my info comes from threads on timetriallingforum where some do quite a bit of analysis. There’s things like acceleration and roll down tests that can be done. But there isn’t a decent measure for it. Just look at most people’s reference, dcrainmaker, and the feel of a turbo rarely seems to get a mention.

Double edit… well worth playing with your setup too. Find I get a more realistic feel from my turbo if use a high gear and as low a resistance as possible to get the power I need (I use a PM so fiddling with resistance when using TR isn’t a problem.) Basically gets the back wheel and turbo flywheel spinning as much as possible to get as much energy as possible into the system.

I’m going to try a Vortex as the cheapest I can find for a proper smart trainer. Tacx do a cheaper smart model but it only broadcasts data to your Garmin, it wont control resistance. Definitely recommend trainerroad to make turbo training worthwhile.

Quite an interesting blog post about some of the issues with turbo…

http://alex-cycle.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/turbocharged-training.html?m=1

Road feel of a turbo? You mean pot holes, spilled diesel and the like? 😆

Anything with too small a flywheel will feel as if you are biking uphill all the time, too big and you won’t be accelerating very quickly.

Here’s a quick review http://road.cc/content/buyers-guide/171100-best-cycling-turbo-trainers-%E2%80%94-buyers-guide-15-best-trainers-and-rollers

Anything with too small a flywheel will feel as if you are biking uphill all the time, too big and you won’t be accelerating very quickly.

It is a tricky thing to get right, and ideally you’d also have a flywheel tuned to the power you’re putting out.

That’s the great potential of the Neo with its virtual electronically controlled flywheel. Can tune it based on a number of variables. So you could be riding along the flat on Zwift, then hit a hill and the characteristics of the turbo change to make it more like climbing. Turbo’s like the Lynx I think do this with an inbuilt motor, but they are several thousand pounds.

So does that make the Wahoo Snap the cheapest Trainer that oncorporates power? I’d love to buy one, but £550 notes for a roller that can wear out frightens me tbh.

Nice to know in wasting my time on the Elite turbo though, great. I’m beginning think that with limited training time, there’s not much point without a massive budget for a Kickr

The BKool trainer includes a power meter, it’s quite a bit cheaper than that. One of the members of their sales team is in my tri club, according to her the trainer simulates hills and even drafting…

I don’t think the kickr is much better, though I’ve not really read that much about it. It’s basically just a normal mag turbo with some electronics controlling the resistance knob. The Neo is a very different beast.

As for the Snap, don’t know why you’d pay extra for one over something like a Tacx Vortex Smart or Bushido. Seems overpriced. And depends what you mean by “incorporates power”. Do you mean one that has an electronically controlled resistance? I don’t think any of them at that price point actually measure power, they are just doing a calculation for a virtual power much like Trainer Road does based on wheel speed, rather than measuring it using strain gauges.

I’m v happy with my tacx satori. Anything from zero resistance spinning to full on strength 10 second efforts. I don’t use a turbo tyre or wheel, just my hybrid as it is. Bar lever is easy to use. I know what sessions I’m doing and how to judge my efforts.

I don’t think any of them at that price point actually measure power

In which case, what would be the point of changing anything in my current Powertap + turbo + garmin setup for anything other than a wahoo Kickr ?

I know what sessions I’m doing and how to judge my efforts.

Quite – me too. RPE plus the general feelings of exhaustion and sickness + hr seem to work despite the fact I’m supposed to feel like “riding uphill” which personally I’d don’t feel it does (fair enough there is no inertia to coast but why would you need that?)

Kurt kinetic road machine + Inride power meter here. Nice feel to the turbo and paired with a trainer road sub through the winter months works for me.

ive just got my self a tacx vortex smart trainer and bought a cheap road bike for it. use it with my ipad and must admit, its pretty dam good! i use to do the same as you, spin bikes at the gym but moved out to the middle of no where with no decent gyms that close.

Very happy with my kickr, stopped running in parallel with the stages but was consistent and only a couple of watts different. In the scheme of things its not that much more cash.

You don’t need a smart trainer with power measurement and a “road feel” to do useful training, if you are motivated enough to concentrate on focussed sessions for less than an hour. Any basic trainer with adjustable resistance will get you started. Turbo training can be extremely effective, if done properly, but for most of us, the motivation and mental concentration required is difficult. It’s hard work doing high intensity interval work while staring at a wall.

A smart trainer will give you some more options that might make training more enjoyable, like power measurement and riding virtual courses. I haven’t use Zwift, but other people have suggested that riding against other users in real time helps your motivation. However, the full setup means will involve a more expensive turbo, compatible computer/tablet/phone. There seems to be a lot of debate about the accuracy of power measurement on the various smart trainers.

Another important thing to be aware of is noise. I currently use a Tacx Grand Excel magnetic turbo, which is probably about 15 years old now, and it is noisy enough to disturb the rest of the house when I’m using it in the garage!

If you are new to turbo training, it might be a good idea to just spend the £50 on the Halfords deal referenced above, or something similar, and try it out to see if you have the motivation to use it regularly and put up with the tedium of turbo training, or you could be spending a lot of money on something you don’t get much use out of.

Finally, I would be cautious about the Tacx Neo at the moment (I think it is probably ruled out anyway by your entry level requirement). There have been a number of problems with the initial production units (acknowledged by Tacx). I just purchased one, to try and solve my noise problem. I received what looked like a used, repackaged unit, and it was pretty damn noisy for a turbo whose big selling point is its quiet running, so I have returned it and I am currently awaiting a replacement.

You don’t need a smart trainer with power measurement and a “road feel” to do useful training,

Yes think we digressed a bit from the OP!

As for “road feel”, it depends. If you are just doing occasional shortish sessions to supplement your outdoor training I’d say it doesn’t matter that much. If however you are doing a lot of volume on the turbo (e.g. long z2 rides) with little outdoors and are serious about maximising the benefit then it should definitely be a consideration.

The Neo definitely sounds rushed to market. Really hope they can sort out the mechanical issues and get the promised road feel into the firmware.

I’ve an old style “dumb” turbo and use it with Trainerroad with their virtual power guess at how much effort I’m doing. It seems pretty effective. My wife started using it this year and after just a month it’s obvious that she’s getting stronger.

If you look at turbo training as a replacement for riding outside then it will always fall short – boring as it were. If you consider it as a means to augment your outdoor riding then you’ll get a lot more out of it. Sufferfest, Trainerroad and now Zwift all aim to relieve that boredom with varying types of virtual wallpaper. I’ve just got off from 90 minutes on the turbo using Trainerroad, there’s no way I’d have been able to sit there for that length of time doing z2 work. You do have to get in to the mindset of it being training rather than riding, don’t try and compare it to any kind of outdoor riding. The turbo lets you do precise workouts, if you want to do five minute efforts then you can do, there’s no traffic lights in the middle of it or slight downhills where you can take a breather.

One of the things I’ve always hated about turbos that I’m willing to buy (eg fairly cheap) is the horrible feel of them – the constantly going uphill thing as alluded to earlier.

Is it worth considering rollers as being less like that (I’m a spinner rather than grinder) and would a set of rollers alone be decent for getting in some efficient training time in?

good luck not killing yourself with rollers. find a good door frame and have a look at youtube for roller fails to see why.

if your just giving it a go, check classifieds for someone whos upgraded and gettng rid of old one to give it a taste on the cheap.

zwift for me is motivation (other virtual trainer systems available) with defined workout paterns rather than the previous method of annie mac on stereo and giving it the beans for 2 tracks then rest for one then go again etc.

Decathlon do a Tacx system called flow smart. It’s essentially a vortex with a small amount less resistance, built just for Decathlon. It’s £199 at the moment so cheaper than the vortex.

I’ve just set up my mountain bike on it. It works fine so far but not found my software sweet spot yet as soom stuff needs an Ant dongle…

I’m well aware of the risks of rollers 🙂

Just keen to know how they feel.

Thanks folks lots of good stuff here.

Just picked up a tacx bluematic on the bay for not much more than the halfords one. Good reviews and a few of them mentioned it was quieter than average. Speed sensor for the garmin also ordered.

Will let you know how it goes. Agree on the thoughts that it’s training not riding. This is to be my replacement from 2x weekly spin classss from the last couple of years. I took a lot from spin. I used to live opposite a local gym which gave me no excuse not to go, now I live further out of Bristol and only option is David Lloyd. This is a cheaper route. A lot cheaper.

Trainerroad next stop.

@moonboy If you want a month’s trial of Trainerroad then let me as I got given three “month’s free introductory offers” I’ve given two away but if you want the last (will need first and last names plus an email address to use with the account) then let me know.

Yes please!

Couldn’t see your email in profile, mine is theboymoon yahoo co uk

Zwift are doing a 50km free trial as well so you can give that a try as well.