Old fart on a turbo

[Drago]

Freezing sleet blowing in of the north sea on 50 mph wind possibly?

And your point being what, exactly...?

Reason I ask is because while turbos and the like can help maintain most of your fitness, they do nothing to maintain your control skills or roadcraft, and these degrade. Look at the club riding idiots in the spring when they emerge blinking into the watery sunlight for the first time in 6 months - they're all over the place, and ultimately worse off and slower than they were before they went into hibernation, despite maintaining 90% of their fitness.

If you're serious about maintaining fitness and efficiency on the bike, then as a trainer myself I only recommend them when the weather is ridiculous, such as a storm force winds, 3 feet of snow (although snow affords a rare chance to practice and develop another set clipped-in control skills...) or if competing at a pretty high level and needing an inordinate amount of saddle time. Bad weather is desirable to ride in when considering fitness and skills, dangerous weather is not, but we don't get that much of the letter in the grand scheme. The classic trap the the amateur falls into is one of over user and reliance on such devices simply because it's a bit drizzly.

So get one by all means, but use it as a supplemental measure rather than one that is relied upon to maintain fitness, because if that is your concern then real miles on a real bike is far better. It's far, far better than nothing, but still not as good as simply riding the bike you already own.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

...... somthing basic an have noticed that they seem to start at around £40-£50 on e- bay, would one of these be adequate?
Any thoughts would be apreciated.

Quite a while back I had an exercise bike from Argos, something like this, https://www.argos.co.uk/product/6097543?clickPR=plp:2:26 which is selling for £80.

I appreciate that this not a turbo trainer, something on which you use a real bike so it feels different, but once it's set up then that's it, there is no question of swapping the rear wheel for one with a turbo specific tyre and then back again for road use or doing something dump and jamming the turbo into the rear wheel trashing it.

It does seem to depend on the individual, but if you are one of the unlucky ones who chew up normal road tyres on a turbo then the price difference between the price you mentioned and a cheap exercise bike would disappear after a couple of replacement tyres.

I started of with Quite a while back because I used it for a bit, hated it and took it to the recycling centre and the charity that recycles bikes said, can we have it please, so your local recycling centre may have something quite a lot better for a pittance.

Bye

Ian

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I find that a break of even a few days due to bad weather sets my fitness level back

Fitness doesn’t fall that far away so quickly. Top end generally takes at least 5-7 days to start dipping. So once a week high intensity is enough to maintain top end. Endurance at all day pace takes much longer to fade. So as long as your getting out for a long ride every couple of weeks or shorter rides more frequently, you’ll generally keep your base fitness.

In some cases if you’re normally on bike all the time. Taking some days off actually improves your fitness. It’s on your days off that your body gets fitter from the exercise you’ve recently done.

 

[Sharky]

I have a basic turbo that gets occasional use. It's one where you take the front wheel off and is clamped via the QR. The rear wheel floats on a couple of rollers. The trade name was a "Rollerturbo" and folds up neatly. No longer made as the rear "A" frame turbos took over, but it is quite an ingenious design.

They can be used to keep you fit, but more than anything it is a mental/motivational tool. There is nothing worse than getting into a training routine in January, then hitting bad weather in February and knowing that the racing season will be starting in March or April. A few sessions on a turbo gives you the confidence to take on a challenge ride as the weather improves as if you've had no gaps in training.

Also they are very useful when recovering from injury, before you have confidence to get back on the roads.

 

[taximan]

It'll only be any good if you use it.

You'll probably only use it if you get some enjoyment out of it. A smart trainer provides all kinds of ways to make it more engaging, and even quite interesting (I'm actually looking forward to my planned trip to Ventoux early tomorrow morning). Others get into the social interaction side of things on platforms like RGT, bkool and Zwift. Others don't need that to get into it - for them a bit of music is all it needs to while away a bit of exercise. Others just enjoy the exercise. Others just hate it all, full stop.

So it's up to you.

A Smart trainer can also be a good brain trainer, as it sets interesting puzzles. Why won't the effing thing connect this time? Is it a bluetooth problem? Internet problem? Problem with the trainer? With the PC? Do I need the ANT dongle this time? Software version problem? Hours of puzzling fun.

Edit. Changed my mind, I'm not going to Ventoux. That's boring, been there, done that. Going to Taiwan instead.

I think you have just turned me off a smart trainer

 

[sasquath]

As a turbo hater who would like not to be, I would be interested in understanding that?

I hated monotony of turbotraining, with addition of zwift I can't wait for the next ride...
Basic one worked ok, but power readings are vague guestimates so upgraded to smart, my cats don't hate it as much and I don't fell like a looser with 200W FTP vs guestimated 110W.

 

[Bollo]

As a cheapish alternative, have you considered a set of rollers? They’re a very different experience to a turbo as you have to engage with your riding a lot more. You can’t just “sit on” rollers like you can on a turbo. They take a bit of learning but don’t deserve their fearsome rep, just follow the standard advice you’ll find on YouTube and don’t try anything stupid (I can ride rollers no hands. I can juggle 3 ball. Turns out I can’t do both at the same time)

Whitby though. I spent a bit of growing up time there while Pa Bollo protected the country from the commie hordes at RAF Fylingdales. Lovely cycling along the coast or up on to the moors, but not for the hill-phobic.

 

[Sittingduck]

Zwift and a smart trainer - you'll never look back

unless you hit the number 6 key

 

[taximan]

Thanks for all your thoughts guys, I think I will go ahead and try a basic set up. After all I only intend to use it to help keep me moving on the days when inclemant weather prevents me from going out.

 

[cyberknight]

Some gave me a smart trainer but the only place i can set it up doesnt have power so i am actualy thinking of selling it and getting a basic one again as i would only use it when a club ride gets cancelled .

 

[Scaleyback]

Some gave me a smart trainer but the only place i can set it up doesnt have power so i am actualy thinking of selling it and getting a basic one again as i would only use it when a club ride gets cancelled .

The Tacx (now Garmin) Neo doesn't need external power. You will need 'deep' pockets though !

 

[Arrowfoot]

The Tacx (now Garmin) Neo doesn't need external power. You will need 'deep' pockets though !

I recently a saw video of Garmin warehouse in New Forest. Massive building which caught me by surprise until I saw boxes and boxes of Tacx. Clearly the demand is big.

 

[davidphilips]

Some gave me a smart trainer but the only place i can set it up doesnt have power so i am actualy thinking of selling it and getting a basic one again as i would only use it when a club ride gets cancelled .

Perhaps an old car battery and a cheap inverter?

 

[Bollo]

The Tacx (now Garmin) Neo doesn't need external power. You will need 'deep' pockets though !

I recently a saw video of Garmin warehouse in New Forest. Massive building which caught me by surprise until I saw boxes and boxes of Tacx. Clearly the demand is big.

I have a Tacx Neo for the same reason that I don’t have mains power to my garage. I do have a solar panel-leisure battery-inverter setup but charging is limited in the winter when you most need it. As far as I can tell the only difference between mains and self-powered is the loss of the freewheeling effect you can get going downhill.

I’ve seen that warehouse IRL when I had to return my first Neo when it failed under warranty. Garmin want you to send 30kg of Turbo back at your own cost and I’m only 20 minutes or so from the site so I took it myself. The whole site is quite impressive.

A few years ago I pondered a speculative job app at Garmin, but I’ve heard mixed things about them as an employer. They also seem to suffer the balkanisation you can get with large US companies so it was difficult to find the right people to talk to.

 

[JtB]

A basic turbo trainer got me through quite a few winters. There are a number of CTXC videos (of varying durations) available on YouTube that can give your workouts structure. One of the videos I downloaded from YouTube was the following:

Additionally like others have mentioned I needed some good motivational music that worked for me. The only thing I didn’t like was that once my bike was in the Turbo trainer it was stuck there for winter. However, you could get yourself a bike specifically for the Turbo Trainer or do what I did in the end which was to buy a dedicated gym bike. In my case I bought a Wattbike Atom which was able to replicate the geometry of my roadbike. Personally I don’t mind cycling indoors when the weather is bad, but I can no-longer motivate myself to do so when the weather is nice.

P.S [edit] The other thing I needed to do for motivational purposes was to track my workouts. Since I have a Garmin Edge SatNat then I was able to use my speed / cadence sensors to track my Turbo Trainer workouts. There’s no way I could workout for nearly an hour and have nothing to show for it.