I live in a 4 story apartment building and I’m on the 4th floor. I hav my triathlon bike hooked up on a CycleOps Trainer and my neighbor downstairs just came up because whn I am on the trainer the vibration and noise shakes the apt below.
The trainer is on a thin rubber mat. Should I put more padding under the trainer?
Or is there a trainer that is quiet that isn’t a ton of money?
I have to spin indoors because living in a city makes it almost impossible to bike outdoors(inefficent/dangerous)
my buddy used to play his drums on a set of interlocking foam rubber pads . . . they look like huge puzzle pieces, about a foot square. double it up and you’d be 1 inch thick, for sure. fairly cheap, and i’d guess they’re available at somewhere like home depot:
my buddy used to play his drums on a set of interlocking foam rubber pads . . . they look like huge puzzle pieces, about a foot square. double it up and you’d be 1 inch thick, for sure. fairly cheap, and i’d guess they’re available at somewhere like home depot:
-mike
I bought mine at Walmart. They had them in both the sports section and the automotive section. The ones in the sports section were double the price for what appeared to be the exact same thing…
I also have a cycleops mag trainer and it is just loud. I can’t use it in my house when then fam is sleeping. I run it outside on a slab screen porch, on one of those fitness mats to reduce vibration. I still find it too loud on really hard intervals and worry about the next store neighbors when I am training in the early am.
I was in performance bike the other day and tried a Kurt kinetic fluid trainer for 300ish bucks…much quieter. I plan to do some additional research, and if it supports what a noticed at the store, i think I will replace the cycleops.
Mats first, then trainer if you don’t see a marked improvement. Plus side to that is using the mats regardless of trainer and maybe saving a few bucks at the outset.
Welcome to the great world of apartments and indoor training!!!
My solution, half inch plywood that i glued a half inch mat to on both sides (thick workout/yoga mat), this eliminated the vibrations from carrying through the floor. Now this setup is placed on carpet. Some people also add different layers such as the stuff you put in cabinets for delicate glassware to the bottom as well. Also, i got a power beam pro trainer which vibrates much less than my jet fluid pro i had previously.
Also, try and figure out where the person tends to be underneath you so you can be further away from them.
I’m in a similar place…7th floor of an old wood building. I have those exact interlocking foam mats and have never had an issue from the neighbours below using a Cyclops SuperMagneto. Loud music is a different story…
I lined my bike and trainer up so that I’m right up against an outside wall as well. I don’t know if it makes a difference but I figured the closer the source of vibration to the point where the floor connects to the building structure, the less change for vibration to resonate.
My Kinetic Fluid trainer isn’t too loud. It’s only a little over 200 bucks if you shop around. Agreed. It’s sounds loud on the bike, but I use it in my dorm with fairly thin walls and nobody complains.
I’ve been through this a lot as well. Noise seems to depend a lot on the trainer. Maybe there are better ones, but my Cycleops fluid is much better than the tacx mag/electronic trainer I had before. Also I think the rubber cycleops mat is a lot better than a yoga mat for absorbing vibration. I like the suggestion of mounting some rubber mats on a piece of plywood, though.
Unfortunately some buildings are just worse than others, in my experience. I wound up trying to ride when nobody was likely to be around, after talking to my neighbors, but you might not have the flexibility to do that.
I also think, depending on the trainer, people exaggerate–my apartment also shakes when they run their laundry machine above.
