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Bicycling: Choosing the Best Indoor Bike Trainer

All cyclist prefers riding outdoors, but in times when riding outside is not always an option for you especially during winter season, an indoor bike trainer can be a valuable tool for you. There are several kinds of trainers, and we will learn each type for you to gain knowledge and understanding about the best bike trainer for you. Bicycling helps in increasing cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength and flexibility, improving joint mobility, decreasing stress levels, improving posture and coordination, strengthening bones, decreasing body fat levels and preventing or managing diseases.

The basic types od trainers include the wind, magnetic, fluid, rollers and indoor bikes. Wind is one of the original trainer styles wherein the pedaling powers a fan providing a good resistance. Wind trainers are the cheapest trainers and they are durable and simple. Magnetic or mag bike trainers use a magnetic flywheel to provide resistance, and newer trainers are electronic that can be controlled via remote or vary automatically based on a software app. Magnetic trainer is an affordable option, with the resistance can be adjusted, much quieter than wind trainers, and offers a wide variety of options for new featured models marketed today. The most common type of stationary trainer available today are fluid trainers, and these are based on magnetic flywheel that has chambers of viscous fluid to further tune resistance options. Fluid trainers have wide variety of features and options such as power and connectivity, providing the best “road feel”, offering a wide range of resistance adjustments, and are very quiet compared to other bike trainers. Rollers are the oldest type of indoor bike trainer, and it sits freely on three precision drums inside a frame and these smaller-diameter drums provide more resistance. Indoor bikes are full featured machines similar to what you see in a high-end spin class studio, and many of them have integrated electronic dashboards and wireless connectivity, interfacing with training programs and apps. Indoor bikes are the quietest option available that greatly reduce the wear and tear of your bike, they are the most stable set up for indoor bicycling riding.

Many trainers can add power tracking as one of their options, and this is dedicated to the trainer as part of “smart trainer” or its own head unit. “Smart” trainer means having the capability to communicate to other devices such as downloading a training program in a phone-based app to automatically adjusts resistance or has the ability to sync to various online training platforms. Few trainers have a pivot on an articulating base, wherein you can stand up and pedal while leaning the bike side to side just as when you do on the road.