Exercise bike advice

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m already getting ready for winter, on this, the first day of summer. Looking for an alternative to a Computrainer or mag trainer set up. Has anybody had experience with the CycleOps Pro300 exercise bike? Like you, I am hopelessly finicky about my TT setup and am wondering just how close this thing can be set up to my Softride TT and my wife’s TREK. Alternatives to the CycleOps Pro300 would be welcome as well. My main considerations are power display, ease of adjustability, reliability. Thanks for the help.

2

i don’t have a lot of experience with any others, but my gym has these http://www.keiser.com/m3/index.html and i like them a lot.

3

I have the CycleOps. It is a great machine, well built, sturdy, smooth. But, do make sure you can ride in the position that you want. My experience is that my road position is no problem, but when I try to get my TT position on it, the handlebars cannot go forward enough. It also may not have enough drop, depending on your size and drop.

You have to buy one in a store, as I don’t think CycleOps allows them to be mail ordered. So, just take a tape measure and verify that you can get where you need to be.

Paul

4

Paul, thanks for the information. I really don’t care about road position, so I’ll most assuredly have to go to a store and try one out to see if it can closely mimic my tri-bike. Thanks again.

5

I concur on the Cycleops Pro 300. Great bike for power training indoors. I’m told they have a set of pads you can buy that help with the aero positioning. Check their catalog.

I also noticed that the powertap on this model has a tendency of needing to get up to temp before reading accurately (and I’ve positioned fans around to see if this could resolve problem but to no success). I tend to do my warmup and then zero the torque as I find doing so initially results in the wrong power reading when I do the main set. After a good warmup it gets the unit up to temp and then the resultant power readings are consistant with what I see on my road bike and PT SL 2.4. No problems then and the downloads have allowed me to really work on power-based training. Highly recommend it.

Good luck in your search.