Author: Cameron Summerson / Source: reviewgeek.com
For cyclists, winter is a rough time of year. If you stop riding, you’ll lose all the fitness gained over the summer—but it’s also cold outside. The best solution is getting an indoor trainer to keep the work going.
Indoor trainers provide a way to ride your bike indoors.
Away from the elements, cars, dogs, and all the other thing that can deter cyclists. In the comfort of your own home, indoor trainers allow you to keep your fitness up when the temperature goes down (or all year round if you’re into that).Indoor trainers fall into two basic categories: “standard” trainers and smart trainers. Within each of these categories, there are also different subsets of trainers. With regular trainers, there are fan-based, magnet-based, and fluid-based; with smart trainers, there are wheel-on and wheel-off (generally referred to as “direct drive”) trainers.
- Fan-based: These use fans to generate resistance. They’re the cheapest, but also the loudest and least versatile.
- Magnet-based: These use magnets for the resistance mechanism. They’re quieter than fan-based, and generally more useful. They’re also more expensive.
- Fluid-based: These are going to be the highest-end trainers. They’re quieter than the others, and use a fluid roller for resistance. The fluid thickens as it gets warm, increasing resistance gradually. They have a more road-like feel than the others.
And for smart trainers:
- Wheel-on: These world like most traditional trainers in that you mount the bike by the rear wheel and the trainer’s barrel presses up against the wheel to provide resistance.
- Direct drive: These trainers remove the rear wheel from the equation, allowing you to attach your bike directly to the trainer. These are the best of the best, so they’re also the most expensive on the list.
As you might expect, smart trainers are quite a bit more expensive than their standard counterparts. The good news is that you can get a killer workout on either one—it’s all about how hard you’re willing to push yourself.
You may be wondering what the advantage of a smart trainer is, which can basically be summed up in one phrase:
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