I currently have the Jet Fluid Pro. Can’t really compare it to anything as its my first and only trainer. What I do know is:
A: It works
B: It’s boring unless your watching a training DVD (I use RealRides)
C: It’s boring
D: It’s not noisy
E: It’s resistance to gear/cadence curve is great.
When I was looking, it was out of the Jet Fluid Pro or Kurt Kinetic Road Machine, which apparently never leaks, but I think Cycleops has a dude who worked with Kurt and sorted their shit out.
My Tips:
Get a Towel.
Place a Fan in front of you.
Lay down a mat under your shit to protect your floor/carpet from flying sweat/rubber.
Make sure you use a riser block to keep the bike flat (phone books work well).
Just forget the CycleOps ones, the seals go then they leak fluid and the resistance unit is fecked. They can be repaired but it costs $$$$ and they don’t come up as good after.
Scratch up the extra $ for a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine, they’re bombproof. You’ll be glad you did. I blew up a mag trainer and a CycleOps before I bought my KK about 6 years ago. It’s had serious use over that time, has even fallen out of my car & landed on the resistance unit and hasn’t skipped a beat.
get the most expensive one you can afford and ride it until it breaks.
i also think i made a blog post a while back on “movies to watch on the trainer”. you could search for it, but in general, sports or action movies are the best. bourne trilogy ruled.
My housemates won’t let me train indoors cos they say the whole house smells like a sex den afterwards, so I have to do it in the laundry, where there is no tv. I recommend angry music so that efforts feel kinda worthwhile.
Sex den eh? I set mine up in my caravan. It’ll never smell like my friend’s room when we were 16 though. Geez, that guy had a lot of sex. No way can I get sweaty and smelly enough to compete with that.
a good training session is to put hell on wheels on and do a max effort every time you see erik zabel depressed or crashing or getting beaten or getting a massage
I hate the stupid trainer, boring as hell, either ride in the rain or just take a day off instead, actually just ride you will feel better than smashing it out on the stupid thing.
Using a trainer to good effect is a discipline. Like all disciplines it takes some patience and commitment to its learning. You get a lot of payback for your time if you learn to use one effectively.
(I’m just off to the shed now for 70min of structured intervals on the KKRM. Ramones anthology on the iPod, water, fan & towel at the ready).