Peloton bikes, and the like

SE4 Red said:
Yeah it does have tablet holder so I just use iPad and connect to the bike via Bluetooth. Can connect it via apps and cast to a TV as well. The Schwinn connects to all the main apps.
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I'd be tempted to get one of these if they weren't £800+. Its a bit beyond what I'd be willing to spend at present I think. I did a bit of googling before and you can actually hire them short-term, which I might consider.

Obviously, I won't be getting a Peloton either having reassessed the situation, they are also a bit dear for someone who isn't fully sure. I am keen to give Zwift a go one way or another, might look at the smart trainer option.
 
Any good recent phone/tablet/laptop + free trial of Zwift + any old bike + 2nd hand smart turbo trainer is your best/cheapest option.

You'll definitely love it, though - at which point you might upgrade to a better turbo trainer that the bike doesn't run the back wheel on, or even better a Wattbike or Wahoo bike or some such.
 
The Elite Novo Smart as mentioned in the 1st few messages is what I have used for the last 3 years.
A cheap way to get into zwift only takes a few seconds to put your bike on it and has bluetooth connectivity so connects to the Zwift app easily and no messing with removing wheels. Some say they wear your tyres but personally I haven't had a problem and I Zwift 3 or 4 times a week over the winter months.

What you will also need is a good Fan as it gets very sweaty riding indoors. A towel & maybe a block for your front wheel.
Plus I would put a mat under your bike to collect said sweat.
 
Redpete said:
The Elite Novo Smart as mentioned in the 1st few messages is what I have used for the last 3 years.
A cheap way to get into zwift only takes a few seconds to put your bike on it and has bluetooth connectivity so connects to the Zwift app easily and no messing with removing wheels. Some say they wear your tyres but personally I haven't had a problem and I Zwift 3 or 4 times a week over the winter months.

What you will also need is a good Fan as it gets very sweaty riding indoors. A towel & maybe a block for your front wheel.
Plus I would put a mat under your bike to collect said sweat.
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thanks
 
Decided to dip my toe in the Zwift waters with the Elite Novo Smart, seeing as I could get one for £200 from Halfords and don't need to keep removing wheels. I plan to use my main bike on it, and can't really be arsed switching the wheels every time unless I have to. Is the turbo trainer wheel essential, or can I chance it?
 
1finny said:
Not really, if you get a peloton you are committed to their subscription - for ever.
And it’s about 3x as much as Zwift.
Peloton is a lifestyle choice for the wealthy.

If you are bike focussed go for the Wattbike atom - had mine 3 years. Great bit of kit.
I link mine to Zwift but you can choose from a host of other subscriptions or just have the Wattbike package which is free.

This crossed over Molten’s response
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One thing I didn't get about this finny is that whilst you may be right about peloton, your own bike wasn't exactly peanuts was it?
 
As someone who has both a Peloton and a Zwift set up (but really uses neither) they really are two different things as others have said.

There's advantages to both, but one of the main disadvantages to the Peloton is the music. I dont want to spend 30-60 minutes listening to crap pop music which is what a lot of the instructors play on their classes, and although there's some instructors who do set their classes to "good" music (Maya, although you have to do her classes mostly in German) you soon wear these classes out and so you soon get fed up. There is gamification and scenic rides, but they're not really the point of peloton which is really for spin classes.

The main disadvantage for me is that the Zwift set up is in the summer house at the bottom of the garden, whereas the Peloton is in the house and so no cold and wet walk to get to it. However as a cyclist then Zwift wins every time as it's much more fun as others have said.

re turbo trainer wheels, get one with the same casette as you have on your normal wheel and then swapping it'll take a couple of minutes otherwise you'll wreck your road tire through the friction and heat you'll generate, inviting problems when you head back out in the summer.
 
If you already have a bike, pick up a turbo trainer and just go on Zwift. I wouldn't advise just doing this and looking at numbers on the screen, like on a gym bike mind, as that would be mind numbingly boring, but races and training plans are good, or just a general ride. I have the Kickr turb trainer, as well as the climb so it moves the front up and down (makes it more interesting and saves the ass a bit), and also the wahoo headwind, which simluates speed, or you can have the fan paired to your heart rate which is a life saver.

Good thing about the turbo/ zwift is you can try it and if you don't like it you can just sell it, you won't lose much money, and you're not stuck with any £500/ yr memberships or a 2k clothes horse, which most peloton bikes end up as.

There's tons of training programs on zwift, and they will test you to the max as they go based on FTP (basically bike fitness score).

You can do youtube spin classes too I bet, there's no reason why you couldn't, or you could put the turbo on erg mode, to set the output wattage, for either a fast cardio spin, or a high watt leg burner.

Don't worry about calories, at all, 3 x 500 calorie workouts which are enjoyable (to a degree) is better than 2 x 750 ones which aren't, or 2 x 750 ones which you don't do. But, there's no reason why you can't bang out 750 calories an hour on zwift, which is real calories too as it's base don wattage, not some made up random numbers but fitness kit, to make you feel better. If you want to do full body, then just get some basic gym kit for home, and do it properly?

Plus, if you train on zwift or do races it might make summer riding outside more fun/ better, or easier etc.
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
As someone who has both a Peloton and a Zwift set up (but really uses neither) they really are two different things as others have said.

There's advantages to both, but one of the main disadvantages to the Peloton is the music. I dont want to spend 30-60 minutes listening to crap pop music which is what a lot of the instructors play on their classes, and although there's some instructors who do set their classes to "good" music (Maya, although you have to do her classes mostly in German) you soon wear these classes out and so you soon get fed up. There is gamification and scenic rides, but they're not really the point of peloton which is really for spin classes.

The main disadvantage for me is that the Zwift set up is in the summer house at the bottom of the garden, whereas the Peloton is in the house and so no cold and wet walk to get to it. However as a cyclist then Zwift wins every time as it's much more fun as others have said.

re turbo trainer wheels, get one with the same casette as you have on your normal wheel and then swapping it'll take a couple of minutes otherwise you'll wreck your road tire through the friction and heat you'll generate, inviting problems when you head back out in the summer.
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Yes if this thread has achieved anything its that Zwift is the way forward over Peloton.
 
Andy_W said:
If you already have a bike, pick up a turbo trainer and just go on Zwift. I wouldn't advise just doing this and looking at numbers on the screen, like on a gym bike mind, as that would be mind numbingly boring, but races and training plans are good, or just a general ride. I have the Kickr turb trainer, as well as the climb so it moves the front up and down (makes it more interesting and saves the ass a bit), and also the wahoo headwind, which simluates speed, or you can have the fan paired to your heart rate which is a life saver.

Good thing about the turbo/ zwift is you can try it and if you don't like it you can just sell it, you won't lose much money, and you're not stuck with any £500/ yr memberships or a 2k clothes horse, which most peloton bikes end up as.

There's tons of training programs on zwift, and they will test you to the max as they go based on FTP (basically bike fitness score).

You can do youtube spin classes too I bet, there's no reason why you couldn't, or you could put the turbo on erg mode, to set the output wattage, for either a fast cardio spin, or a high watt leg burner.

Don't worry about calories, at all, 3 x 500 calorie workouts which are enjoyable (to a degree) is better than 2 x 750 ones which aren't, or 2 x 750 ones which you don't do.

Plus, if you train on zwift or do races it might make summer riding outside more fun/ better, or easier etc.
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Hmm, do need a new clothes horse mind. Are they good for that too? Don't wanna make any hasty decisions without thinking of the clothes hanging benefits!

On a serious note, its a good point about doing more/short rides that are fun, than awful ones that are mind-numbing but burn more. Are these turbo trainers easy to calibrate with Zwift? Do you have to ride in the drops? I have been using mountain bike more recently as found the drops position over a few years was doing my back no good, so can I put that on it or will I just get destroyed by all the folk on road bikes?
 
atypical_boro said:
Hmm, do need a new clothes horse mind. Are they good for that too? Don't wanna make any hasty decisions without thinking of the clothes hanging benefits!

On a serious note, its a good point about doing more/short rides that are fun, than awful ones that are mind-numbing but burn more. Are these turbo trainers easy to calibrate with Zwift? Do you have to ride in the drops? I have been using mountain bike more recently as found the drops position over a few years was doing my back no good, so can I put that on it or will I just get destroyed by all the folk on road bikes?
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You can ride whatever you want, all you need to do is to ensure it can sense the ppower you're putting down into the rear wheel - you could ride a butchers bike if you want.

No experience setting up ones where you keep the rear wheel on (most you remove the rear wheel and mount on to a cassette directly on the turbo) but most are pretty easy to set up, and theres plenty of help on Youtube.
 
Anyone here a Cat D rider on Zwift, registered on Zwift Power and fancies a race tonight at 7:30pm? 23 miles long in the Zwift Racing League? No pressure to score points, just need someone who can ride and finish!

Cheers!
 
atypical_boro said:
Hmm, do need a new clothes horse mind. Are they good for that too? Don't wanna make any hasty decisions without thinking of the clothes hanging benefits!

On a serious note, its a good point about doing more/short rides that are fun, than awful ones that are mind-numbing but burn more. Are these turbo trainers easy to calibrate with Zwift? Do you have to ride in the drops? I have been using mountain bike more recently as found the drops position over a few years was doing my back no good, so can I put that on it or will I just get destroyed by all the folk on road bikes?
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Yeah they are good clothes horses to be fair, but for 2k I would maybe expect better :LOL: I bet every peloton bike in the world has had clothes hung on it a few times, it's hard not to.

Some of my mates do the 15-30 minute races and there's 4 categories so you're not racing against Pogacar all the time etc, but even the lowest category riders are not unfit. Most people I know just taking this up, end up near the back in Cat D rides, and they're usually pretty fit.
All of zwift is for people who are very keen cyclists really, it's not a true reflection of average riders. I think the best I got to was low cat C, but probably mid cat D now. I'm about 84kg (was 80kg) and FTP is about 200 (maybe more liek 180 now), so I'm about 2.5 W/kg on a good day, but I would get battered in most Cat D races, not done many races mind as I was always using the training plans to prep for summer.

A: 4.0 W/kg FTP or higher (pro's are like 6-7 W/kg)
B: 3.2 W/kg to 4.0 W/kg FTP
C: 2.5 W/kg to 3.2 W/kg FTP
D: Under 2.5 W/kg FTP

Putting the bike into the turbo is more of a hassle, but it depends how skilled you are at getting the back wheel off and on, but it only takes 10 mins. Turbos used to be hard to connect to zwift, but the software is really good now, so it's dead easy. The calibration takes 1 minute, also very easy.

It's not something you would want to be setting up and taking down every week mind, so works well if you have a bike you can just chuck on it over winter.

You can ride on zwift how you like, can even go no handed if you like, or stand up (zwift will not be able to tell the difference), I just sit back most of the time, and never go in the drops unless I'm trying to prep for summer outside, so I can handle riding in the drops more. I don't see any reason why you couldn't put the mountian bike on zwift either, it shouldn't make a difference, other than gearing, but if you're using erg mode then gearing won't matter. I've never used my mountain bike on there, but use my enduro road bike which has a super compact chainset and is a very relaxed riding position, so it's ideal for it really.

If you're getting caned on the races, even on the lowest category, you can just change your rider weight on zwift so at least you can compete to make it more interesting, until you get used to it, but this is cheating of course (and frowned upon).
 
atypical_boro said:
One thing I didn't get about this finny is that whilst you may be right about peloton, your own bike wasn't exactly peanuts was it?
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Think it was just a bit cheaper than the peloton - but don't need their software package.
I got it instead of going to the gym for spinning classes - My wife also uses it. Paid itself back within the first 12 months
 
Thanks for the info all. I definitely was 'bike fit' not too long ago and confident I can get myself to at least a competitive level on Zwift. Time will tell!
 
The Novo smart has Bluetooth and Zwift should pick it up, I cant remember and pairing issues when I connected mine.
I use Zwift for the 6 colder months and I had a Mountain bike with " slick " tyres for the 1st couple of years then I got a new road bike and have used that since.
You will notice your tyre wearing at the contact point I have stuck with the original tyre they do saw it wears quicker but I haven't had to replace it yet.
 
atypical_boro said:
Serious question, do you even need to put a tyre on?
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Depends on the type. I have a 'direct drive' turbo, so no back wheel needed at all - it just goes straight onto the cassette. No tyre wear, no frequent calibration needed, generally much better.

Bear in mind as well, on a 'wheel-on' turbo any tyre which isn't slick makes a massive racket and quickly gets very annoying.
 
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