turbo trainer or rollers??

pwrhse92

I am aiming to improve and maintain my fitness levels ready for the spring and am relatively new to the concept of indoor winter training. I am baffled with the range of equiptment on the market. Firstly, what would you recomend? I have looked into both turbo trainers and rollers and wonder which one i should go for? Are both as beneficial as each other?

Also, if i were to go for a turbo trainer what sort of resistance mechanism is best (bareing in mind i only have a limited budget, no more than £200)?

Any advice is much appreciated. thanks.

guv001

£200 I would personally get a Tacx Flow it has both power and HR.

Bronzie

Rollers are great for improving your balance and riding style, but not the best for doing hard intervals unless you get an expensive set with a resistance unit.

If I could only have one of the 2 for indoor workouts, I'd go with a decent turbo.

wjws

I've just gone and orderered an Elite Crono Force Inertial Elastogel Trainer from Ribble - with their extra 15% discount they are offering (think it ends tomorrow), only £155.

Eddy S

Bronzie wrote:

...but not the best for doing hard intervals unless you get an expensive set with a resistance unit.

Sorry Bronzie, that's not strictly true - a resistance unit is a £65 option for the 3 current models of Tacx rollers though it probably doesn't fix the new collapsible ones. The unit isn't very sophisticated but it does the job.

bahzob

Got turbo (Kurt Kinetic) and rollers (£150 including resistance unit). Much prefer rollers as time seems to pass more quickly when using them and it helps pedalling action. Resistance unit very quiet and good for intervals over 600W.

Turbo only gets used for club turbo sessions over winter.

derekwatts

Rollers can be easily modified to give more than enough resistance. Here is a set I modified myself at home:-

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12587807&start=15