I was thinking of buying Computrainer but for over $1000 is it worth it?
Definitely if you live in a place that has colder winters, but even if you don’t, I think it is. Among the benefits are training with power (being able to objectively measure progress), repeatability of interval courses, ability to do intervals, etc without worrying about traffic or weather, wards off boredom much better that a regular trainer with uphills and downhills, pacers, etc. Spinscan is somewhat useful as well.
Joel
My CT is an invaluable tool. I ride it 2 times a week, even during the summer! I do short focused workouts on it in the morning. It gives you feedback on power output and pedaling efficiency.
how much did you spend to buy the system and what features should i get…also is there anyplace that you can get a demo?
I just ordered one! It hurts to do it ($$), but many people tell me I’m insane when they find out about my three hour basement sessions on the spinning bike. And every time you want to vary resistance you have to crank the tension screw down or up. Even with the laptop set up, I can only watch The Fellowship Of The Rings so many times.( Sorry if you consider that blasphemy.)
Let me take a moment to mention that I have the best wife ever! She TOLD me to buy it for myself. Seeing that in the past two years I have worn out her treadmill, and am giving the spinning bike a beating, and am signed up for IMUSA next year, she’s sure I’ll get my money’s worth. Plus I’m a video game junkie, so this should work well for me. Given that I live in Boston, and the roads around here are lousy and crowded even in good weather, which is less than six months out of the year, I hope to get many years of training out of it.
To put the CT price in perspective, a good spinning bike will run you about $1000 new, and a good treadmill, not from Sears will cost $2,000-$4,000. I am using a ProForm treadmill from Sears(about a $400 unit) that is three years old, and I am waiting for the deck to collapse. So I think that if you are reasonably sure that you’ll use it for a few years, you can ammortize your costs over the life of the product.
One question for you all: Is the currently advertised sale price of $1229 good? I didn’t really see too many web sites advertising them.
I was lucky. A group of 10 of us got together and ordered them at the same time and got something like $200 off. We all got the then relatively new 3D systems, although I mostly run the 2D software in SpinScan mode on an older laptop. Call your LBS. Many have CT’s setup that you can try or rent time on. Or ask around in your tri/cycling group, someone’s bound to have one and might be willing to let you try theirs. If you are in Southeastern Michigan, you can come try mine.
I live in Houston where you can train year round, and train comfortably on the bike 11 months. During the summer, I still use the ct twice a week. On the day between my hardest workouts I set the resistance to something that will keep me in my lowest HR range and spin for 40-60 minutes. Once a week I’ll do a tough hill workout with it. Living in the coastal flatlands, there isn’t a hill higher than 5’ within a 90’ drive. During the winter, I’ll use it a little more just so that I won’t have to clean my bike so often, or to get a quick focused workout.
Positives:
- ergometer mode, you set whatever watts you want to output and the ct automatically adjusts so that you are always working that hard.
- Coaching software will allow you to create a .erg file that runs the ct in ergometer mode and varies the watts based on the time intervals you specified in the file - this is my number one use for the ct
- Not being around hills, I don’t know what gearing to take when I travel. On the ct I can give different courses a try to see what gearing I’ll want.
Negatives (all IMHO):
- Customer service stinks. I tried to buy extra software from them and cannot get them to answer any emails. Often I cannot get someone on the phone.
- I purchased the Polar HR sensor and it only sporadically works.
- The data files recording your exercise are encoded. If you want access to them then you must pay another $130 just to get an export file. This is inexcusable.
- The software stinks. It crashes. It wants devoted use of the computer, little or nothing running in the background. There are several features shown in the software that simply don’t exist or don’t work.
- Cycling downhills is not realistic.
In my opinion, the value of a ct depends on how much you are going to use it. I’m wondering if I should sell mine and use the money to get a power tap/srm and a conventional trainer.
It’s definetely worth the money. Especially now that it’s $150 off online. I did the payment plan so $80/month doesn’t hurt that bad. Plus when my coach wants me to do an interval workout on hills, I can just build the course on the CT in like 5 minutes. I can stay on it easily for 2 hours and have done a handful of 3hr rides. Riding outdoors is easy in comparison.
Actually, I think my wife wins “best wife” award. She wanted a CompuTrainer, so no justification was required. I even convinced her that she tricked me into buying it.