Turbo Trainers

phreak

Hi all,

I'm looking at getting a turbo trainer to help over the winter. The Tacx T1680 Flow trainer looks great as it comes with power etc. included.

I guess the first question is does anyone have any other recommendations? The second is, with this being a reasonable investment, is it worth it?

sonny73

I have a low budget Tacx Sirius and I love it, use it loads when the weather is nasty and it was very useful when coming back to riding this year from an injury from last year.
A sound investment in my opinion; simply whack a training DVD on or I prefer watching old Tour etc. DVD's for a bit of motivation and your away.
There is also Sufferfest: http://www.thesufferfest.com/ plenty to help you along there

phreak

The thing I like about the T1680 is that it measures your power output. From a lot of the training comment and literature I read it seems that this is crucial to doing effective training.

bikerZA

Looks like a nice trainer. My tacx lasted for years with me sweating over it, they're a good brand.

mr-orange

I had a Tacx Flow and it was awesome. The resistance is felt really smooth and although the power output isn't as accurate as a dedicated watt meter (e.g. PowerTap, SRM, etc), it's pretty close in the middle ranges - 100w to 350w.

Assembling the unit was a bit of a mission, but other than that, I didn't have any complaints.

As good as the Tacx Flow is, there is no getting away from the fact that sitting on an indoor trainer is mind-numbingly boring.

irvini

They're doing turbo trainers pretty cheaply on Decathlon.
I bought an Elite elastogel with digital readout - pretty good but even the digital readout can't alleviate the boredom