Indoor Trainers...best trainer for noise, stability and resistance

[Harryn]

@alexis, i hope you find the right trainer.

 

Most have advised you to go for a direct drive trainer, with the Kikr core seemingly being the favourite. Its a beautiful machine, to be sure, but its not cheap. If you can get a 2nd hand unit, optimally find one whose owner bought it in the hope of getting fit on it, but never achieved the aim.

 

Personally, I am a fan of the wheel on trainer, most notably the Kikr snap 2.0. Why? Well, cos that’s what I have. And, the problem with the advice dispensed in these kinda threads is confirmation bias. Everyone is in love with their own trainer, bike, Garmin, bib short etc, so that’s what they invariably recommend, which I guess is human nature.

 

But, here is what I like about the Kikr snap:

 

1. Contrary to popular belief it is *very quiet* provided that you are not running knobbly tires, and that your bike is well maintained, properly oiled and just running smooth. The bike makes more noise than the trainer.

 

2. It is cheap. Relatively.

 

3. As it is a wheel on trainer, you don’t have to mess around taking rear wheels on and off. You just click the bike in when you wanna ride indoors, and release one lever when you want to ride outside, and your’e ready to go. moms have more important things to do than change wheels.

 

4. If you have more than 1 bike, or more than one family member wanting to use the unit, its very easy to switch bikes in a sec for the reasons mentioned in 3. This is especially important if you have (or will get) bikes with different brands of groupsets; you wont have to worry about compatibility issues with the trainer’s casette. just gooi on whatever bike You want to ride, quick caibration, and your’e good to go.

 

5. Its heavy and very stable. You can stand up with no fear of falling;

 

6. It has dual ble and ant + compability. Meaning it connects seemlessly to just about any device, whether windows laptop, apple tv or Iphone Ipad or Android phone \ tablet.

 

7. Its absolutely bullet proof. I have done 15 733km , with zero issues. That said, don’t buy 2nd hand from anyone who has donnered it every night. Find a seller who is morbidly obese, and demonstrably unfit.

 

8. If you do have an issue, Wahoo’s after sales service is said to be exceptionally good. (Of course this equally applies to their range of direct drive trainers).

 

In the interests of objective equilibrium, Here are cons:

 

1. The wheel on set up provides less power broadcasting accuracy than a direct drive. Wahoo say you should factor in a 5% margin for error, but people have reported a bigger margin. I personally think its a non-issue, because whats important is only your own number, which will remain consistent. Who cares if its 100% accurate.

 

1a. You must be prepared to take a minute to calibrate before every ride, and you must pump the rear tire before every ride, to keep things nice and consistent.also keeping the tire properly inflated avoids slippage.

 

2. It is very heavy. Not the easiest thing to lug around. (I once put my back out for a week picking it up.)

 

3. If you are going to be riding it every day, prepare for some rear tire wear. You can address this with a trainer tire, which will last for ages. But, peculiarly its noisier than a standard road tire. I prefer to rotate used tires off my road bike, as they are still good for the trainer. I find the old kaput road tires are still good for about 6 months of punishment on the trainer, before they start to delaminate.

 

4. You’re buying old technology. The new way is direct drive.

 

5. Your friends wont be impressed. Not an issue for me cos I don’t have any.

[MudLark]

@alexis, i hope you find the right trainer.

 

Most have advised you to go for a direct drive trainer, with the Kikr core seemingly being the favourite. Its a beautiful machine, to be sure, but its not cheap. If you can get a 2nd hand unit, optimally find one whose owner bought it in the hope of getting fit on it, but never achieved the aim.

 

Personally, I am a fan of the wheel on trainer, most notably the Kikr snap 2.0. Why? Well, cos that’s what I have. And, the problem with the advice dispensed in these kinda threads is confirmation bias. Everyone is in love with their own trainer, bike, Garmin, bib short etc, so that’s what they invariably recommend, which I guess is human nature.

 

But, here is what I like about the Kikr snap:

 

1. Contrary to popular belief it is *very quiet* provided that you are not running knobbly tires, and that your bike is well maintained, properly oiled and just running smooth. The bike makes more noise than the trainer.

 

2. It is cheap. Relatively.

 

3. As it is a wheel on trainer, you don’t have to mess around taking rear wheels on and off. You just click the bike in when you wanna ride indoors, and release one lever when you want to ride outside, and your’e ready to go. moms have more important things to do than change wheels.

 

4. If you have more than 1 bike, or more than one family member wanting to use the unit, its very easy to switch bikes in a sec for the reasons mentioned in 3. This is especially important if you have (or will get) bikes with different brands of groupsets; you wont have to worry about compatibility issues with the trainer’s casette. just gooi on whatever bike You want to ride, quick caibration, and your’e good to go.

 

5. Its heavy and very stable. You can stand up with no fear of falling;

 

6. It has dual ble and ant + compability. Meaning it connects seemlessly to just about any device, whether windows laptop, apple tv or Iphone Ipad or Android phone \ tablet.

 

7. Its absolutely bullet proof. I have done 15 733km , with zero issues. That said, don’t buy 2nd hand from anyone who has donnered it every night. Find a seller who is morbidly obese, and demonstrably unfit.

 

8. If you do have an issue, Wahoo’s after sales service is said to be exceptionally good. (Of course this equally applies to their range of direct drive trainers).

 

In the interests of objective equilibrium, Here are cons:

 

1. The wheel on set up provides less power broadcasting accuracy than a direct drive. Wahoo say you should factor in a 5% margin for error, but people have reported a bigger margin. I personally think its a non-issue, because whats important is only your own number, which will remain consistent. Who cares if its 100% accurate.

 

1a. You must be prepared to take a minute to calibrate before every ride, and you must pump the rear tire before every ride, to keep things nice and consistent.also keeping the tire properly inflated avoids slippage.

 

2. It is very heavy. Not the easiest thing to lug around. (I once put my back out for a week picking it up.)

 

3. If you are going to be riding it every day, prepare for some rear tire wear. You can address this with a trainer tire, which will last for ages. But, peculiarly its noisier than a standard road tire. I prefer to rotate used tires off my road bike, as they are still good for the trainer. I find the old kaput road tires are still good for about 6 months of punishment on the trainer, before they start to delaminate.

 

4. You’re buying old technology. The new way is direct drive.

 

5. Your friends wont be impressed. Not an issue for me cos I don’t have any.

Sounds like a great option. Similar to the Powerbeam but with both ANT+ and BLE. See used they go for circa 4.5k and new 10k.

[PlemPlem]

Elite Direto. I managed to get a good used unit with the Sterzo! Very quiet, up to 1600W, brilliant connectivity with all protocols and very accurate data numbers!

[Harryn]

Edited April 5, 2021 by Harryn

[Bomberman]

Hi Hubbers.

 

anybody have one of these indoor rollers, its a deuter roller? Thoughts on them or a review, ive already bought it but just wondering if its reliable.

https://www.takealot.com/bike-trainer-rollers-for-indoor-exercise/PLID72473218

 

[Paul Ruinaard]

Rollers are great for incredibly smooth pedal strokes and working on pedalling in circles. Having said that they are also good for legendary accidents and injuries. Not sure if you have ridden them before and are a pro but they can be a challenge to master initially and when you do get windgat on them and it goes wrong you can fall quite hard. I had some major getoffs sitting on them  in my lounge in my house.

[Bomberman]

49 minutes ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

Rollers are great for incredibly smooth pedal strokes and working on pedalling in circles. Having said that they are also good for legendary accidents and injuries. Not sure if you have ridden them before and are a pro but they can be a challenge to master initially and when you do get windgat on them and it goes wrong you can fall quite hard. I had some major getoffs sitting on them  in my lounge in my house.

haha yea, seen a few vids and I guess its going to happen to me.

Have no experience with them so its going to be a slow learn for me, planning on doing an hour spin in the mornings as its a bit difficult to go riding every day. Im not a hardcore athlete just want to get my fitness levels up for the year, so it will only be my road bike doing the work.