Home Chat General Chat

Turbo or no Turbo??

Thinking of getting myself a turbo trainer but not sure if its worth the cost?

First of all is it worth me getting a turbo? Will it male a big difference to my cycle training? Considering I have a gym membership and if cant get outdoors on the bike can go to the gym and use the spin bikes?

And if so a new store has opened close to where i live, offering the tacx satori pro for £130 and the elite volare mag force for £99, is this a good buy or not??

Comments

  • The advantage of a turbo trainer is that it lets you train in a more controlled environment which does not contain the variables of outdoors such as wind gradient. Importantly it also does not need you to concentrate on handling the bike, and as such you can focus all your energies into the workout.

    This is great but you need to have a few things in place. Firstly a belief in what you are doing on the trainer and a willingness to push yourself hard, very hard. This is not the same as sitting on it for half an hour and 'soft pedaling'. Secondly it needs to have enough resistance for you to get a training effect from the turbo and this is where cost comes into it. For a very strong and powerfull rider a lot of the cheaper turbos do not offer the amount of resistance neccessary for short interval training and this is something you need to take into consideration.

    If you have some access to a gym with decent trainers I would suggest you spend a couple of weeks working out on them and do a bit of research into a programme to take with you. Once you have done this you should have from their displays a good idea of the range of Watts you are capable of producing and use this as a basis for your choice of a turbo if you want to go that way.

    I for one have a permanent set up using an older bike at home which is great as it only takes a couple of minutes to get kit on or off and I can do brick work from it. If your gym is close and it takes you time to set up a trainer with your only bike then I can see why you might decide not to bother with a purchase.

    The important thing is that power based interval work pays big dividens to your cycling performance long term and how you go about this is up to you.
  • Get one. I have used one properly in the last few months and it has a big effeect. If nothing elese it has help me keep the cadence up and going which proved a massive adavatage at the evil sheriff.
  • Thanks for the advice, got myself one and absolutely love it!!! Feel like its gonna make a big difference over the winter!!
Sign In or Register to comment.