Trainer Recommendations - Help !!!

[Bugsy]

Hello,

I live in Ottawa, ON., Canada and winter is coming, my club stops riding on
Nov 7th. I have a nice road bike and would like to keep my conditioning
over the winter. What trainer(s) are you recommending that I could put my
bike in and ride it over the winter indoors ?

Comments of course welcome

Cordially

 

[Matthew C Roberts]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 19:49:47 -0400, "Bugsy" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I live in Ottawa, ON., Canada and winter is coming, my club stops riding on
>Nov 7th. I have a nice road bike and would like to keep my conditioning
>over the winter. What trainer(s) are you recommending that I could put my
>bike in and ride it over the winter indoors ?

Do you just want to keep your conditioning or do you want to be a
better rider? If the former, get a trainer and some of those video
tapes they use at the gym. I wish could offer you better advice, but I
don't own a trainer.

If you want to be a better rider, get a pair of rollers. I personally
have had a pair of el-cheapo TACX poly rollers for about 10 years now.
Just put a new belt on 'em this summer. If I were buying new ones now,
I'd get a smaller-diamer set w/ alu drums & a fan, but my cheap ones
have absolutely no problem in giving me a great interval workout in
just 30 minutes. Plus, they force you to concentrate on smoothness and
line-holding.

Anyway, YMMV.

Matt.

 

[Per Elmsäter]

Matthew C Roberts wrote:
> If you want to be a better rider, get a pair of rollers. I personally
> have had a pair of el-cheapo TACX poly rollers for about 10 years now.
> Just put a new belt on 'em this summer. If I were buying new ones now,
> I'd get a smaller-diamer set w/ alu drums & a fan, but my cheap ones
> have absolutely no problem in giving me a great interval workout in
> just 30 minutes. Plus, they force you to concentrate on smoothness and
> line-holding.
>

Why do you want smaller diameter rollers? I was under the impression that
the bigger diameter drums were smoother to ride on. I'm currently looking at
the Tacx Rollertrack with a magnetic resistance unit. The drums are 110 mm.

--
Perre

You have to be smarter than a robot to reply.

 

[Robert Chung]

Bugsy wrote:
> What trainer(s) are you recommending
> that I could put my bike in and ride it over the winter indoors ?
>
> Comments of course welcome

Well, since comments are welcome...

I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
back of the basement. I know people who swear by them but I usually just
swear at them.

The first rule of indoor trainers: borrow a used trainer from someone who
has one in the closet or the basement. This sort of makes specific
recommendations of brand moot.

Second rule: if you decide to buy a trainer, make sure it folds. This will
come in handy when you need to put it at the bottom of the closet or the
back of the basement.

Third rule: get a huge fan. Alternatively and preferentially, hire an
attractive young girl to wave a palm frond over you while you pedal.
Preverts will want to hire attractive young boys to wave palm fronds while
they pedal: that's why we call them pedalrasts.

Don't pay attention to all the weird claims about realistic road feel.
None of these things has realistic road feel.

People will tell you that rollers teach you to ride straight and pedal
smoothly. Riding straight is a good skill to have and it should take you
no more than a week or so to acquire that skill. I'm unconvinced that
smooth pedaling matters much to road riders. Borrow rollers for a couple
of weeks until you can ride straight then return them so their owner can
put them back in the closet.

Tragically, I've had a wind trainer, rollers, and a mag trainer. Of these,
the one I despise the least is the mag trainer. I will drag it out from
the bottom of my closet in December.

 

[Van Hoorebeeck Bart]

Robert Chung schreef:

> I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
> and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
> back of the basement.

> I find the noise of the nearby washing machine very stimulating. And its
> switching between actions can be a good mark for intervals.

 

[Van Hoorebeeck Bart]

Robert Chung schreef:

> I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
> and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
> back of the basement.

I find the noise of the nearby washing machine very stimulating. And its
switching between actions can be a good mark for intervals.

 

[Donald Munro]

> Robert Chung wrote::
>> I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
>> and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
>> back of the basement.

Bart Van Hoorebeeck wrote:
> I find the noise of the nearby washing machine very stimulating. And its
> switching between actions can be a good mark for intervals.

Don't use this method when employing rollers :
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/laundry.htm

 

[[email protected]]

Donald Munro <[email protected]> writes:

> > Robert Chung wrote::
> >> I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
> >> and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
> >> back of the basement.
>
> Bart Van Hoorebeeck wrote:
> > I find the noise of the nearby washing machine very stimulating. And its
> > switching between actions can be a good mark for intervals.
>
> Don't use this method when employing rollers :
> http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/laundry.htm
>

Seems to me that that ****** would have a good prima facie case against the
manufacturer for producing a washing machine that functioned with the lid
open.

But that one is the best I've seen yet, even better than this lot:
http://www.calahouston.org/best.html

--
le Vent a Dos, Davey Crockett
Six Day Site: http://sixday.741.com/

 

[Rolf]

"Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Bugsy wrote:
> > What trainer(s) are you recommending
> > that I could put my bike in and ride it over the winter indoors ?
> >
> > Comments of course welcome
>
> Well, since comments are welcome...
>
> I'm not terribly fond of indoor trainers. I think they have their place
> and that place, in general, is either at the bottom of the closet or the
> back of the basement. I know people who swear by them but I usually just
> swear at them.
>
> The first rule of indoor trainers: borrow a used trainer from someone who
> has one in the closet or the basement. This sort of makes specific
> recommendations of brand moot.
>
> Second rule: if you decide to buy a trainer, make sure it folds. This will
> come in handy when you need to put it at the bottom of the closet or the
> back of the basement.
>
> Third rule: get a huge fan. Alternatively and preferentially, hire an
> attractive young girl to wave a palm frond over you while you pedal.
> Preverts will want to hire attractive young boys to wave palm fronds while
> they pedal: that's why we call them pedalrasts.
>
> Don't pay attention to all the weird claims about realistic road feel.
> None of these things has realistic road feel.
>
> People will tell you that rollers teach you to ride straight and pedal
> smoothly. Riding straight is a good skill to have and it should take you
> no more than a week or so to acquire that skill. I'm unconvinced that
> smooth pedaling matters much to road riders. Borrow rollers for a couple
> of weeks until you can ride straight then return them so their owner can
> put them back in the closet.
>
> Tragically, I've had a wind trainer, rollers, and a mag trainer. Of these,
> the one I despise the least is the mag trainer. I will drag it out from
> the bottom of my closet in December.

These are some nice suggestions on indoor training. One important
cost-saving alternative that got omitted was to go to the local
hardware store and buy a ball-peen hammer. If you hit yourself in the
head with it for about an hour or so you get about the same training
impact as pedaling the no-where machine.

After relegating over 1,600 busted hammers to the junk-pile last
winter I broke down and got one of those Kurt Kinetic 'Road Machine'
fluid trainers. It nicely satisfies my sadistic urges for self-abuse.
However, "realistic road feel" is indeed largely a joke conceived of
by marketing weenies that have the collective aerobic capacity of a
cadaver-- equating riding a trainer to actual road riding is sort of
like comparing whacking off to having actual sex with the young girl
waving the palm frond.

Rollers do not offer the same level of self-flagellation that trainers
provide and are mostly aggravating to the recreational or
casual-minded mook (such as myself). If you want to pretend that your
some big-shot cat. 1 racer "perfecting your spin" then you gotta have
rollers I 'spose. Otherwise, get a trainer and revel in the pain. Of
course, you could always move to Florida...good riding weather in the
winter and you can catch some awesome tailwinds this time of year
(just make sure you ride counter-clockwise).

 

[Douglas Landau]

"Bugsy" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Hello,
>
> I live in Ottawa, ON., Canada and winter is coming, my club stops riding on
> Nov 7th. I have a nice road bike and would like to keep my conditioning
> over the winter. What trainer(s) are you recommending that I could put my
> bike in and ride it over the winter indoors ?

www.concept2.com

 

[velomanct]

if have the money ~$350, the kurt kinetic trainer is the best out there.
try www.kurtkinetic.com

it's super smooth and has a lot of resistence. rated up to 2500watts(at 50mph), so even if you are a world class match sprinter, you won't spin it out.