<p>DS is shopping for a bike stand trainer. It seem that blackburn and cycleops are the two major brands out there, and one of them is copying the other. </p>
<p>Does it woth more $$ to get a cycleops? Does a fluid model better than the magnetic ones?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>My husband says fluid is better.</p>
<p>Dad II - I am an avid cyclist and have used a variety of indoor training systems over the years. As a general rule, fluid trainers are better than magnetic ones. They are smoother, the resistance increases with speed more akin to what is experienced when riding a bike, the resistance is more consistent and has higher limits. (I’m talking about stand alone units that do not have power sources nor are connected to computers that control the work out).</p>
<p>There are many companies that make quality fluid trainers including: Blackburn, Cycleops, Elite, Trek, Tacx and Kurt Kinetic. Cycleops is one of the better known and more popular ones. A drawback with most fluid trainers, however, is that over time the fluid chamber can leak. This occurs because the units are designed so that the shaft from the roller/flywheel directly enters the fluid chamber where it is connected to the impeller that turns in the fluid. This design relies on seals to prevent fluid leakage through the shaft passage. Some companies are better than others at designing their seals and therefore are less prone to leakage. Cyclops has been making fluid trainers longer than the other companies and has addressed the seal issue based on a long history of experience. However, the bottom line is that over time, any fluid trainer with this type of system will develop leakage when the seals finally wear out. When this will occur is highly variable depending on frequency and intensity of use.</p>
<p>Kurt Kinetic has come up with a very innovative way of avoiding this issue. With their fluid trainers, the fluid chamber is a fully closed system with no drive shaft entering it. Instead, the impeller in the chamber has 6 “super” magnets attached to it. The roller/flywheel assembly is external to the fluid chamber and there are 6 “super” magnets attached to the flywheel. The flywheel couples to the impeller using magnetic force instead of a drive shaft. As a result, there can be no leakage. The magnets do not provide any resistance, just the mechanism for coupling the flywheel and impeller. While the Kurt Kinetic is a little more costly than the others, it is well worth looking into.</p>
<p>All of that said, I personally do not like rear wheel mounted indoor trainers. The reason is that you are attaching your bike by a fixed point (the rear wheel). When you started hammering during the work out, there is frame flex which is not natural to the way a bike frame is intended to function because the rear wheel is locked into place. While most bike shops claim that this does not produce any harmful stresses on the frame (a claim which I can’t scientifically dispute but which intuitively puts me ill at ease), what does happen - and no one can dispute - is that the drive train experiences the frame torsion and flexing with the result that you get a lot of derailleur and chain rub which means unnatural wear and tear (let alone the noise of the misaligned drivetrain). The only way to avoid this is to avoid hammering (especially standing sprints) or to use a “beater bike” in the trainer and save your good road bike for the road. Not withstanding my views on this, however, I know many serious cyclists who use rear wheel trainers because of the relatively reasonable cost and portability.</p>
<p>There are other alternatives, such as getting an indoor spinning bike made specifically to take the wear and abuses of indoor training. This is what I have used for several years. These will be pricier than rear wheel trainers and do not have the convenience of easy portability. Many companies make them including Cycleops and Schwinn. If you do a google search for indoor spinning bikes you will also get links for many other companies.</p>
<p>This has gone way beyond your initial inquiry. If you want more info, feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>^^ Excellent. That says it all.</p>
<p>Lots of cyclists try trainers and don’t like them. Check Craigslist before you buy.</p>
<p>Excellent point. I was one of them! Your D might want to try some spin classes before you invest in a trainer. It’s a good workout and more interesting than a trainer. That said, for a serious cyclist, it doesn’t offer the same training equivalent. Depends on your goals.</p>
<p>There are 2 basic problems with indoor training regardless of the equipment used. The first is massive BOREDOM and a tendency to get psychologically burned out as a result. The second is that regardless of the type of indoor cycling equipment you use, unless you have appropriate specificity of training, while you will probably get into decent aerobic conditioning, you will achieve little results transferable to outdoor cycling particularly if you are looking for performance results.</p>
<p>Spinning classes do a good job of addressing the boredom issue because you are in a class with other people, listening to good music, with a class instructor whose job, in part, is to mix things up and keep everyone motivated. The problem is that many spinning instructors know a lot about aerobic conditioning but very little about cycling and how cyclists should train. Also the work outs are usually designed for those seeking fitness goals, not performance cycling. If you can find a spinning class designed for cyclists seeking to enhance their performance on the bike, then spinning can work.</p>
<p>For those who prefer to do their indoor cycling in their homes, there are a variety of companies that make cycling training DVD’s which give structure to the work outs and alleviate boredom. One of the more popular series of videos is made by Spinervals. Rather than spend $30 per DVD, however, my preference is to just design my own work outs with structured intervals etc, write them on a 3x5 card, clip it to the bike and do it while watching some mindless entertaining TV program.</p>
<p>However you do it, you need to have some system for measuring your output level to monitor the intensity of the work out and make sure you are hitting your objectives during the workout, whether it be based on heart rate, perceived exertion or the gold standard of wattage. Otherwise, at best, you will just get a good aerobic workout which usually will not produce results for outdoor cycling commensurate with the time you are putting in.</p>
<p>Personally, what I use now is a Cycleops PT 3000 Pro indoor cycle that measures wattage and I do very structured workouts that are designed to have goals specific to outdoor cycling. Having gone through rollers, rear wheel trainers, Computrainer computerized rear wheel trainer, and a plain vanilla spinning bike, it is the last piece of indoor cycling training equipment iI will ever want. More important than the specific piece, however, is that my work outs are very structured and designed to achieve specific outdoor cycling performance goals which vary depending on where I am in the cycling year.</p>
<p>Michael- I was fortunate that my spin instructors in Dallas were bike track racers. One was a former world champ. It was tremendously different (and better) than the workouts that were more like aerobics on wheels. We did simulated track and road races in class, including lots of climbs. It was awesome. I have found some acceptable classes here in TN, but nothing like what I had in Dallas.</p>
<p>MoWC, I know exactly what you mean. The first year I tried spinning classes, the only ones I could fit into my schedule were taught by an instructor certified in the “Johnny G” system (he was the originator of the trademark “Spinning” name and system). For a cyclist, the classes were , well, disappointing. They included high cadence “jumps” designed to tone the arms and abs while riding and also very high resistance pushing where you were lucky to have a cadence of 30. No way I was going to risk knee injuries doing that kind of stuff. Then I found a class taught by a triathlete who actively competed in the Ironman and was also a PhD in sports psychology. His classes were much better but again, the limitation was that he was doing classes for a mixed group with different fitness levels and goals. Plus for me, using heart rate as a training metric is of limited utility.</p>
<p>After years of trying various approaches, what I have found is that the best way for to benefit from indoor training is to use equipment and routines based on wattage as the primary metric with heart rate as a secondary measure to assist in preventing overtraining. Nothing beats wattage and the ability to sustain it at lower heart rates for purposes of seeing real world improvements on the road.</p>