I’m trying to see if the computrainer is right for me. I have it in my budget and I want to make the best decision. Here’s the situation, I’m young (24) and an ok rider at best 5:50’s IM Louisville, running is my strength but I want to get stronger on the bike. For the time and money I put in what will give me the best return? I live in Michigan so I can’t ride year round and no one likes spin classes, they just aren’t “the same”. I can invest in on bike power meter and use it year round for ~ the same cost as a computrainer but from what I understand I can replicate courses. I consider myself a minimalist, I don’t like alot of crap I don’t need. I don’t have cable and only own a tv for netflixing from my laptop. Having stated this, I want something that will give me years of use and reliability.
I have a PM and a Computrainer. I will be selling my Computrainer. I bought my Computrainer first and just picked up a PM last year. I wish it was the other way around!
IMHO you get more value from a PM. You train with it and then you can race with it.
I live further north then you so I do lots of trainer rides. Again IMHO if your trainer rides are Power focused then they need not be much more then 90 min to be really effective. If you don’t think you can do a 90 min trainer ride without some hokey graphics then get the computrainer!
Having said all that wanna buy a used Computrainer??
I’ll second this, except my wife likes the CT. Really, the only good thing is ERG Mode, where you are “required” to push the watts.
Get a wireless powertap (they are dirt cheap - look at the banner above) then check out the new indoor riding app that uses the ant+ stick to get your power on the screen.
What’'s your definition of Dirt Cheap? Can you give me some links? I’m new to this Power game but everything I read (here and otherwise) is that wattage is the true way to train.
CT will run you $1,600. You can get a wireless PT + aerojacket for under $1k new. You can find them on the forums used cheaper. The problem is you can’t race with a CT…trust me, there’s a huge difference of riding on the CT versus outside. I bought a used wired PT (for $350 shipped) and that helped me more then the CT since I was able to figure out I was pushing hills too hard.
IMO, if you have a power meter and a mag trainer, you have all you need to get a great trainer interval workout. The CT is a great tool. I have one. I LOVE to write erg files for my interval workouts, load it and go. I could do the same workout without the CT using my Quarq and a mag trainer.
If it’s one or the other, get the PM and the the mag trainer. That way, you can use the PM outdoors when you’re not on the trainer.
Nate has a great product—as was also mentioned above! I’ve used it a couple times since I read Ray’s blog post about it (interbike…). Good stuff to use with a PT. Get the trainer, PT wheel and aero cover—use app for your indoor rides and then still have power outside!!!
I own a CT and a PM. Have owned both for about the same amount of time - 5+ years. Without question I would buy just the PM and a solid trainer like a Kurt Kinetic or something like that. And I’d buy me some warmer winter gear (good pair of tights with wind block) and get out on the roads on dry winter days more often. Any left over funds could be spent on a more aero wheelset, etc.
Bottom line, there are a lot of things I’d buy before I bought a CT.
If you get a ANT+ power meter you can do computrainer style workouts on your trainer. We’ll also support courses later.
Disclaimer I own the company.
Nate, thanks for posting this here otherwise I probably would not have found it. I too am in the process of putting together a Power System and am seriously looking at going the wireless PT route.
I am going to pick up an ANT+ stick and try out your software on my KK Road Machine.
That’s the right USB Stick. You don’t actually need your ANT Timex Global Trainer Watch. We pick up the data directly from your speed/cadence sensor.
You’ll also need a trainer we support. Some trainers are affected by heat more than others, although we are working on an auto-calibrate formula to take that in affect. Another thing to be mindful of is rolling resistance, you’ll want to keep the same tire pressure and tension on the rear wheel every workout.
If you have a Kurt Kinetic trainer you should be pretty golden (although even that one is affected by heat a little bit).
As long as you figure out your FTP through one of our tests (I recommend 20min test) the rest of your intervals should be relatively accurate, which is what you want.
We’ve been adding some new trainers lately but they are “experimental” right now and we cannot guarantee their accuracy. I think it’s still better than doing workouts based on RPE or HR though…BUT…we do support doing all the workouts based on LTHR. You can toggle the workout type to HR under the profile tab.
Sweet! Let me know what you think. We have a new release coming out in a few days that adds tones for the start/end of intervals and auto Play/Pause via cadence.
The road machine works well and that’s what we are currently testing. We’ve seen relative numbers stable across workouts.
First, we think we offer a lot. Over 120+ structured workouts, training plans, live data on your computer, recorded and sent to the cloud for sharing with your friends. All of this will be included in our $10 a month plan. If you have one of our supported trainers, we also turn your trainer into a power meter. We think for $10 this is a great deal; just ONE training plan on some sites are $100+. I think it’s the best value in cycling as far as making you go faster for dollars spent (but of course I would think that…).
We are also going to add more features, workouts and plans as we go.
Secondly, a lot of people don’t need this system year round. We hope they get such a good workout that they use it in the summer to save time and be a little safer, but some guys will just use it for a few months in the winter and suspend their membership during the summer (we don’t delete your data if you suspend your membership, it stays right where it is).
We also think a monthly plan gives you flexibility if you get injured or sick. We don’t offer any bundled 6 or 12 month plans.
I also don’t think we’d be able to support waterfall approach software. Since the app is always connected to the website we need to keep it up to date and in sync with the new features we offer. We are just two guys with wives, babies and full time jobs. We don’t have a lot of time to code complicated stuff. We also have a coach as one of our founders, but he doesn’t do any of the coding.
Not to hijack too much Any plans on creating coach accounts where we can have our clients do our specific workouts and see the data? or just the ability to add our own workouts?
