If it's not a physical/mechanical issue (bike fit/comfort) as you suggest, it might simply be a matter of personal preference.

The way that many people prefer Spin classes/Peloton to Zwift or hours on the trainer binging Netflix.

A spin bike, set up properly, will work the same muscle groups, and for a Sprint, it's not really necessary to become a hardcore cyclist.

I'd say, if it gets her pedaling, spin bike for the win.

I switched to a spin bike last year and have been very happy I did. I have been using an indoor trainer for several years and never felt real comfortable moving around a lot on it. Standing, shifting positions etc just never felt real stable to me so i ended up staying very still and getting very very stiff especially after hour+ on the trainer. I found a cheaper spin bike on craigslist that was barely used for like $100 bucks, put some cheap look style pedals on it so that I could use my road shoes and put the same saddle on it thats on my road bike so it has the same saddle feel. When it gets warmer and I get a chance to get out on my road bike the transition is super easy because of the same saddle.

Hope that helps

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God's in his heaven, alls right with the world -Nerv

My local gym has spin bikes with RPM, power and it picks up HR monitor (polar).
Used it last year almost exclusively and raced to a PB at both Oly and HIM bike distance.
And I'm not in an AG that generally gets faster.

Spin bike gets my vote, plus if it's raining outside...bonus.

I was actually thinking of finding a spin bike and a pair of Favero Assioma's or something like that for my man cave, get my real bike out of there. That would be especially nice if I can find one that I can put a set of aero bars on.

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only question/comment I might have is that if it is a fit issue, I'm not sure switching to a spin bike (unless you are capable of fitting well on it), will prove a great solution. Having said that, if the spin bike motivates her more than a regular bike, then its probably a fairly easy choice.

I’ve been riding the peloton instead of old lemond trainer and I prefer peloton.

I bought a Sears (Nordic Track) spin bike years ago. Pretty generic model, I see the same model with a lot of different names on it. When I got back into tris, I put some clip-on aero bars on it, a split saddle, and set it up identical to my tri bike. I LOVE THE SHIT OUT OF IT. I've tried everything our LBS has, and still haven't rode any indoor trainer I would trade my lovable old dumb tank for. I have a Garmin speed sensor velcro'ed to the wheel, and a cadence sensor on the crank, for Strava data tracking. In the last 8 years, I've only worn about 1/3 of the felt resistance pads off, so they have a long ways to go. Since starting to track mileage in 2017, I've put over 23,000 miles on it, over 10,000 last year, and that's only a fraction of its total time. AND IT'S BEEN MAINTENANCE FREE, AND STILL RIDES LIKE IT DID THE DAY I BOUGHT IT! I've never even taken the chain guard off. Its very quiet, solid as a rock, and I can ride my ass out of the saddle like a mad man, and it doesn't move. I have a smart TV, so I can catch up on my web surfing and forums, GTN, GCN, and all the latest swimming videos on Youtube, to my hearts content, and binge movies until my ass falls off. I have cage-and-strap pedals on it, and ride in running shoes. I would say it gets 100% of my miles Nov-Feb, and 80% of my miles the rest of the year. I ride 200-300 mpw. I'm old (racing in the 60-65 AG this year) but still race sprint, olympic, HIM tris in the 20-22 mph range... nothing compared to some of you all, but still respectable. I just PR'ed IMAZ full, a couple months ago, so the training is working. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to put my tri bike on a trainer anytime soon. Probably never.

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Athlinks / Strava

Some of the smart stationary mfgs (Wahoo, WattBike, etc.) might consider putting in a "spin mode" (possibly even with a rotary dial near the stem). It would change the load curve to a fixed W/rpm at each level on the dial (similar to the linear load curve of the felt pads). You could then do both spin classes (Peloton) and outdoor simulation (Zwift) on one machine.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

I get on an old LeMond trainer on occasion. You can really dial in the fit, the resistance is smooth. No power but you can work your cadence and heart rate and increase tension to up the hr and pe and comfy for an hour plus.

As long as your spin bike is set up with the same or less hip angle than your aerobar tri bike it literally makes zero difference.

In my basement I can ride an old road bike with clip ons on a computrainer, I can ride a tri bike on rollers, I can ride another road bike on rollers and I have a spin bike (yes, I have all those options). the spin bike has the handlebars higher than the saddle, but my saddle is slammed so far back that my hip angle is identical to my tri bike (on the road or on the rollers)....I can switch from one to the other and in seconds be ready. Its just rotating the body around the pelvis in each config...you don't need to ride in the aero for hours to figure out how to ride that in racing, just like you can zero open water swimming and do all your swim trianing in the the pool and kick ass in an tri swim....being a better swimmer transfers across and being a conditioned biker gets you from one config to the next as long as you are using the muscles similarly....fundamentals of pedaling with a closed hip angle is the largely identical on all bikes.