Im after a stationary bike for the winter months, have 3-4k tops to spend on it but i dont know really whats out there. It must have some sort of display and ideally a series of race programmes. I alrady have a turbo trainer (one of the virtual reality ones) which i find really rather rubbish, but i, perversely, enjoy the stationary bikes on the rig i work on. We have a Lifecycle C9 and also a Startrac ESpinner. The Wattbike has caught my eye but i dont anyone who has used one, so some real life experiences of one would be appreciated (i see Jess Ennis uses one for her injury recovery).
I know someone is going to say just get out and ride, and they may well be right, but it will also be used by my wife and son who cannot get out in the Winter when the roads are dodgy..particularly up in the Pennines where we live.
So anymore suggestions please?

Which TT (with VR) do you have already?

How about a Tacx Flow 2200 running TTS on a PC/laptop? It’s a great piece of kit IME. TTS displays all kinds of data and tracks/saves it too. You can also create your own routes using Google Earth! If you get the VR kit you can race other people around the world!

I tested a Wattbike and liked it, but the power readouts aren’t any more useful than a decent power meter on a road bike. It confirmed that I have a very smooth and even pedal stroke, and that was about it. I find better motivation comes from videos (sufferfest in my case), and when away from home have used spinning bikes with the videos. If I were looking, I’d go with a spinning bike, as I think fixed wheel gives a better workout (I ride fixed a lot). I didn’t find resistance to be an issue either. For your budget, you might find one with power output as well. Contact points and external motivators are more important than the programs and readout in my opinion.

These were being advertised at £1000 during the Le Tour, but i see they are down to £650.00, I liked the ability to mimic + / – 20% incline/ decline.

http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/350842490582?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y&cbt=y&lpid=63&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=63

I’d go Wattbike + watch/do Sufferfest vids on a laptop whilst riding it. I’d also generally restrict turbo stuff to short high intensity rides, 2 hour+ turbo sessions should be the preserve of pros recovering from injury or complete nut-jobs that get entertainment from watching paint dry.

What is it you find rubbish about the turbo you have?

May be worth looking at something like a PowerTap wheel on the turbo bike and using it with TrainerRoad. There’s hundreds of programs on there, and it works well with sufferfest too if that is the sort of thing you’re after. Works very well for me.

Never used a wattbike but they are very well regarded. I think British Cycling use them. They’ve just got some at my gym too so I may have to give one a spin.

Edit: As someone else has mentioned sufferfest… the trainerroad/sufferfest combo does work very well too as it syncs up and gives power targets based on your FTP that track the sufferfest video action. Bloody hard work though!

For a pure test bike then nothing beats a Monark 828
Details: http://www.monarkexercise.se/default.asp?PageID=673

However I’d second the idea above with a power meter, rollers, Sufferfest, and Trainer Road.