The best turbo trainers on the market come in a wide range of forms and prices. The most basic way of covering what they do is to say they allow you to ride your bike in your home without going anywhere. In years gone by, that would have meant winter training when the weather wasn’t suitable for riding outside. It also would have meant intervals while staring at a stopwatch or a cycling computer. Luckily for all of us, those days are long gone. Today the options range from budget devices that use a lever to change the resistance to smart high-tech versions that connect wirelessly to computers and work interactively with your chosen app.
As the hardware has changed over the years, so has the software. In the past you’d have to pair trainers of all types with a very simple interface, if any, that walked you through manual intervals. In today’s world, even a basic trainer can make a connection to immersive indoor riding worlds like Zwift or Rouvy. If you want to do intervals you now have the option to keep it old school with apps like TrainerRoad or you can put your workout into Zwift and ride through virtual gates as your intervals start and end. The ecosystem has exploded and we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to indoor cycling as a way to cover as much as possible.
As the shift in hardware and software has come, so has a shift in the role of indoor cycling. While it was once reserved for the depths of winter it’s now a year-round activity. In the northern hemisphere we are heading towards the long, warm, days of summer but that doesn’t mean the end of indoor cycling. When you need to do very specific workouts there’s just no better, safer, place to do it than indoors. Another good reason to keep the trainer ready to go all year is for racing. Instead of needing to be at a specific place and time with entry money in hand, you can now get competitive on your bike any day or time that works for you.
At the bottom of this guide, we’ll outline everything you need to consider when buying a turbo trainer. We’ve taken into account budget, compatibility, features and noise and we’ve outlined options. But before that, let’s take a look at our pick of the best turbo trainers available today. We organised the list into top-tier direct drive trainers, budget direct-drive trainers, and wheel-on trainers so whatever you need there should be an option for you. We’ve also put together a detailed comparison table for each section to make comparisons easy.
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