Turbo Trainer Advice

Yes after the device has warmed up. You don't matter in the process but the trainer does, especially if it's tyre-on trainer.

Will be looking to get something like a Wattbike Atom when lockdown is over and people who bought them want to get some cash back as they're able to ride outside again. Picking up one for £1k would be dreamy.

More compact than a bike on a trainer. Don't need to sacrifice a bike to go on the trainer. Wife and daughter could use it if they really wanted. Hopefully quieter than a turbo for my downstairs neighbour (although it'd be placed above his hallway and I wouldnt' be doing it at silly hours).

I really like mine, managed to find it prior to lockdown at a very reasonable price, barely used (like most Wattbikes I imagine).

It’s pretty quiet, noticeably more compact in footprint to a bike, and also rock solid. Pedalling efficiency is quite fun as well as pretty meditative during efforts, Wattbike hub app is good and also free.

Got it so that wife could use it too, need to get some speedplay cleats on some bike shoes for her.

A welcome advantage is not staining the carpet with bike drivetrain grease, which always seemed to transfer somehow through legs, shoes, socks.

@Sparky has one

Got it so that wife could use it too, need to get some speedplay cleats on some bike shoes for her.

I put MTB flats on the bike that sits on the turbo, Zwifting in flip-flops is now possible.

I've ridden my speedplays in thongs flip flops on the turbo. I did think about putting flats on when I was doing junk miles but then I got sick of that shit pretty quickly so now it's just back to normal training stuff with some Zwift group action thrown in. Mmm. Group action.

with some Zwift group action thrown in

What's happened to you?

I'm just trying to get some extra miles in above whatever TR gets me for TGBR
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/345682/

Now shut up and send me Doctors Without Borders some money.

My knees struggled on the wattbikes at the gym with the q factor which seemed quite wide, is the atom narrower? Also with getting the position long enough for my long arms/short torso fit. Having quite enjoyed some turbo training since lockdown on a very basic dumb model I am also considering options should the 2nd hand market become flooded in a few months time.

Q factor is 160mm on the Atom rather than 173mm on the Wattbike Pros.
Sort of in the middle of road and mountain bike Q factors.
Can't say I've noticed the difference with my road bikes, can feel the difference with my Duraace 7710 cranks, which feel too narrow at 136.3mm.
Also fixed crank length at 170mm, which also doesn't bother me, though I usually ride 165mm.

I haven't done any turbo rides longer than an hour though, so some of the fit differences might get more uncomfortable for longer sessions maybe?

You can change the handlebars, so if you can't get quite enough reach, then you could replace them with longer reach dropbars for an extra 20mm if needed?

My wife uses SPDs, so could change to these later I suppose.
I imagine the pedal dynamics would look all wrong with flat pedals.

I don't like the idea of training on something that's 'not my bike' so Wattbikes have always seemed a bit lacking in the specificity department.

Isn’t the draw of the Wattbikes their consistency in power accuracy and their adjustability so you can set it to your preferred measurements whichever gym you find one?

Decent powermeters do that already and anyone going to a gym to do cycle training probably doesn't need that anyway. Exception being a fleet of them at a velodrome or something, maybe. Adjustability is useful but only if you have a bike shared by a bunch of people anyway. If you're training to race a bike it's a fair bet you own a bike...

Forgot to thank you for this recommendation. Got a pot reduced from Sigma Sport and it’s done the job perfectly.

Say I wanted to train for mountain bike racing.

Is there any benefit to using my mountain bike on the turbo for efforts?

Also, if you can only use one length of crank, that kind of invalidates the idea of adjustibility where any kind of specificity is involved. Same with that massive q-factor. I think I heard that BC liked them because they could get people all around the country to do a test on them and they were consistent. So, that's fine for a progress check in with the bosses but I wouldn't train on one.

Yes. Specificity.

Train on a different bike and unless you've managed to duplicate the position exactly, it's going to work you over slightly differently.

If it's a while to your event though you can train on another bike and then do some adaptation work closer to the event. But then, unless it's a massive pain, why bother?

Perfect. Thank you very much for confirming my thoughts.

I would be just as happy on my road or TT bike on a Tacx Neo to be fair.
Having a Wattbike Atom does get around the mental indecision of riding inside or outside.

I just leave my TT bike on it normally. Although I swapped that out for my road bike when I added Zwift to the mix. When this TGBR is done I'll fuck it back off and go back to the TT bike in the deluded hope there might be a TT run this year.

Interesting about narrower q on the atom, that would definitely be needed for me, found it very noticeable on the gym versions, I do run my cleats slammed outwards as clearly favour a narrow q. Probably due to my slightly odd sizing I suspect some trialling would be needed as I now recall I also struggled to have the saddle sufficiently forward (this probably then impacted the handlebar reach required) once high enough for my relatively long legs (is there a name for anti trex syndrome (gibbon)) as with the angle of the seat tube on higher settings you seemed (to me) to get quite far behind the BB (as I write this it seems odd that this would much different than a standard bike so feel free to disregard).

Suspect I may be better keeping an eye out for a direct drive trainer then I can as hippy says use my bike, or possibly even demote bike to turbo duties and also buy another bike! Suspect I am an outlier with sizing, currently needed a 130mm stem to get a position I am happy with (bike fit approved) #longandnotlow I (sadly?) took a tape measure in to gym and couldn't get that close to 'my' bike fit position.

I did actually buy the clamp that allows you to use your saddle and easily swap in to a gym bike. If this reappears during lockdown tidying and someone wants one, shout up and you can likely have for p&p plus forum donation.

I'm pretty average size (fat joke goes here) and one of my bikes used a 130mm stem for a while. It's think that's more to do with the comfort trend of short and high frame geo. Then again maybe you're just a stilt with a keyboard?

I've discovered that patched tubes really do not seem to like being used with a wheel on turbo.

Better with a tyre m8