Making my own spin bike?

[VeloVT]

You should realize that a road bike on a trainer feels very different than a spin bike.

The road bike will not feel as stable, especially when standing. You will have to shift to change resistance.

Personally I prefer the feel of a road bike on a trainer though. It makes it easier to pretend I'm doing something fun , and I also like having some objective measure of my effort (gear combination and what my computer says).

I guess new fancy spin bikes give you all sorts of data, but the crappy old spin bikes at my university gym don't have computers and they just have an unmarked resistance knob. Makes me crazy not to be able to measure and compare my workout.

Also, your bike fits you (presumably). Again, I'm sure this depends on the sophistication of the spin bike, but the crappy old bikes at my gym... the saddle height adjustment is by peg-in-hole method (like lots of cybex type machines), and the holes are maybe half an inch apart. That's a huge height difference! I can never get the right height, and since I hate the feeling of a saddle that's too low, I usually end up with too high -- which can get painful after a while. The fore-aft is infinite, but frankly if I had to choose, I'd reverse this -- it's much easier to deal with fore aft that's 1/4 inch off than height that's 1/4 of inch off (for me anyway).

My two cents . I'd go with the trainer.