ergo bike,wind resistance vs wheel resistance

[oroight]

Does anyone know if/what ergo bike has advantage over the resistance type bike (ie type in spin classes) when it comes to training?
thanks J

[RoadRaven]

erm... looks around sheepishly... ergo bike?

[oroight]

You ll know of the old original ones with "fans"
http://www.bikenow.com.au/ridewiser/machine.htm



l was interested to hear anything said about these ergo vs regular indoor cycles (heavy fly wheel fixed with rubberstopper for resistance)
Whether anybody swears by them?

l may have the opportunity to get an old roadbike frame and get it "converted",its cheaper than "spin bike" and l dont want to stress biannchi frame on trainer either.
Admittitly lm not sure if they fixed or not.

[RoadRaven]

OK. I have never been to a spin class, so have never used any of those bike-set ups.
I have a road bike (TXR Pro-lite) permanantly set up on a stationary trainer and thats what I use to do my indoor spinning/training on

*buts out in order to let someone who actually has something relevant to say but in*

[spazzdog]

Dare I ask why don't you just put your bike on a wind or fluid trainer at home. The whole "stressing the frame" thing is eliminated if you put a riser under your front wheel.

There are so many great trainers (or rollers if you're brave ) available now-a-days, many at a very reasonable cost, thus allowing you to be on your bike rather than something not fitted for you.

[oroight]

Thanks spazzdog,l didnt realise that by raising front wheel would help, but what about the clamp on the rear wheel?
l must admit l cant be bothered setting the whole thing up each time,and then securing bike after,so the crappy ergo permanantly on my decking would not get stolen,and then theres no excuse for not training.
l was going use same setup specs from biannchi for trainer.

[spazzdog]

The clamp basicly slides right over the axle/skewer endcaps... it takes me about 30 seconds to put my bike on my trainer, less to take it off so you should have no problem.

Cylops, Kinetic are a couple of trainer types. Do a search on trainers here in TE to find discussions of several types.

If you can't find a riser in your bike shop, try a fat phone book - 2 inches is good.

[RoadRaven]

Yeah, my TXR is clamped into the stationary trainer, and we just have a short bit of 4"x2" sitting under the front wheel. We used to have two phone books, but they get kinda messy after a while

And like Spazz says, popping your road bike on there is really easy - Less than a minute to clamp in or out -
Sometimes my partner uses the trainer (very rarely, he dislikes stationary training) he pops his bike on cause the TXR is way too little for him and the seat post cannot be moved far enough up to accomodate his leg length.

If you are worried though, just pick up a cheapy second hand that you can set up to the same specs as your regular bike. You can pop old tires on it that you can't use for the road anymore - just keep the inner tubes pumped up - but again, because you are not on the road they dont need to be pumped up to the same pressure.