Tips for buying a trainer?
 

Hey Guys,
I'm thinking about buying a trainer for the winter. I was just curious about how much one should expect pay for a quality trainer? What models are good? Are there any functions on some trainers that are nice to have that other trainers don't have?

Also what do I need to do to my bike to prepare it for a trainer?

Thanks in advance,
Nick

KK Road Machine is what I have. Paid somewhere around $300 for it. No experience with other brands or models.

Attachment via QR skewer. Mount, engage flywheel, ride. Simple.

Trainers that use a fluid resistance system will give the most natural feeling resistance. Cycleops Fluid2 trainer is MSRP 329 and a great trainer. You would be well advised to have a separate tire for your trainer as it will wear pretty heavily.

I just got a Blackburn magnetic one for my dorm room. Its kinda loud, but not bad. My roommates don't complain. It has six different resistance settings. Also, it was $20 bucks cheaper at the LBS than say, Olympia Sports etc. So, i got it for $188, and I'm impressed with it. Only thing that sucks about it is not going anywhere (of course:twitchy:), and trying to stay motivated to ride it. I usually turn the tv on loud or bump some tunes to keep me going. :D

Furthermore, use a crappy tire. The roller will start to eat your tires pretty quickly if you don't have the correct pressure on the roller/tire.:notamused:


Hope this helped!

Kurt Kinetic....that's all you need to know.

1upusa!

Take your bike to the bike shop to try it. Make sure in easy gears you cand spin with a cadence 0f 120 - 130 without to much resistance and get into your hardest gear and stand to makle sure it has enough resistance to simulate a tough hill. Spend some time with each trainer in the store.

Think again--I'm really being serious about this!

But if you really want to enter the pain (of boredom), look into getting a fluid trainer, if you can afford it. Yes, fluid is a lot more expensive, but you will get the most realistic resistance and feel in a trainer. Kurt Kinetic and Cycleops Fluid 2 are the two most popular.

As for prep., the trainer should come with a rear quick release that latches on the trainer. I personally use old tires for trainer tires and ride them down to the threads. Some people buy special "trainer tires" which wear out less quickly than regular road tires when on the trainer.

It might be convenient to get a cheap rear wheel (used is fine) to use as a trainer wheel.

FWIW, REI will have KK road machines on sale starting Oct 8th. $269.

Yeah, buy a KK Road Machine. :thumb:

Tacx Satori Pro is quite recommended. That is if you're okay with the noise of a magnetic trainer.

I bought a Kurt Kinetic Pro off of Craigslist......paid 35% of retail and it was never used. I love it but have not had any experience on other trainers.

However, all of the research pointed to the Cyclops Fluid or the Kurt Kinetic.....People love their trainers like some people like their trucks.ie chevy versus ford...Maybe I should make stickers of calvin peeing on the word cyclops and/or kurtkinetic logos.

find a LBS that sells both lines and ride them both after doing some research

I really want to try this one out when released this month:

http://www.lemondfitness.com/product...ond-revolution

I'm going to get both, a trainer and rollers for variety & to ward off cabin fever.

My question would be which model Kurt Kinetic?

Is the KK Road Machine the one to get?

Which ever one you eventually get you'll learn hate over time.

I have a cyclops 2. I like the feel of fluid and it's reasonably quite.

I found that the resistance at start was less with the KK and therefore it had more range.

I have the KK Rock and Roll. I'm beginning to grow very fond of the swaying feature...as a few of my Spinerval DVD's have out of seat sprint/cliimbing sessions.

sweet. Where did you get this info from? You work for REI?

KK's fluid resistance unit will never leak. :thumb:

That looks great! Shame my KK Road Machine just arrived and I'm too lazy to ship it back.

Saw the ad in Velonews. Definitely looks cool.

I wonder how good the power meter is in it?

Not a problem for Quarq or SRM, but you can't use a Power Tap with it.

Flier came in the mail on saturday. 8th through 17th is a fall sale, and on one of the pages the KK Road Machine is listed. Not sure why they mailed it so early.

I would not buy the Lemond unless I was sure it did not emit a loud annoying whine.

Yeah I'm sick of lemond whinning about Armstrong....:D

The LeMond unit is impressive. i got to ride it at Interbike this year. nice trainer, but.....

my main question was whether or not they were going to make it ANT+ compatible and the product manager said that they had been throwing around the idea. On the same day I was asking Quarq owner/founder Jim Meyers if he was aware of any development to stream multi-channels of ANT+ data in a multirider type environment for indoor training and racing.

In short...that kind of stuff is on the way.

For the purpose of the thread - get a good all around trainer. I have been an advocate of Kurt Kinetic's road Machine. The rock and Roll is worthless in my opinion. Saris/cycleops have some great new units that I have enjoyed running on while warming up for races. I particularly like the Jet unit.

I bought a computrainer studio for this winter so I don't have to worry about individual trainers much but I need good ones to warmup with at events. honestly I like the KK but it's kind of heavy to lug around at a lot of these events. There's always the roller factor - warming up on rollers at a crit is intimidating to your (cat4/5) competition. It's kind of funny.

All this being said I still run a poor little Performance trainer. When it has broken I take it back and they replace it with a new one.