Turbo's

[stu23]

After the student champs and my (IMO impressive) result there with no training, I've seen the light and want to get training through such dark methods as road bikes

I know its part way through the MTB season now so I've got to get my act together so I can do some Gorrick, Southern XC's and Dragons. Being the poor student type I am, I have fk all money, hence looking for a road bike is out of the question, but is it worth buying a turbo trainer and a slick tyre and sticking my MTB on there (i was told some were able to take mtb's) and training between lectures for an hour or so instead of wasting 8 hours on a saturday trying to make myself hurt!!!

also, if i are able, advice on a budget one...(thats a student budget btw )

any advice much appreciated


one other question...do you need to buy a BC licence to race Gorrick and Southern's or is my informer being a knob?

[Wal]

Stu, a road bike is definitely the way forward if you want to build your endurance for XC racing. Back when I was racing XC regularly in NZ I commuted and trained on a very cheap (around £150) 2nd hand road bike which did the job just fine. It had a steel frame, downtube shifters and (IIRC) Tiagra gearing and was actually reasonably light at around 21lb. You may be able to throw a slick on your MTB and stick it on a turbo, but there are many advantages to having a proper road bike, including:

1) you don’t have to faff around swapping between your slicks and knobblies
2) you don’t put extra miles on your XC race steed
3) you can put mudguards on it and use it to commute on all year round
4) it'll be more suited to club road rides when you're home for the summer

To quote the latest What MTB mag, the correct number of bicycles to own is n+1, where n is the number of bicycles you currently own.

I'm pretty sure you don't need a BC licence to race Gorrick or Southern XC races.

[stu23]

ta bud.

i may scrape together the pennis and see if i can get one of these road machines cheapish then

on purely a training basis, is there a huge difference between road riding on my own and on a turbo on my mtb in me bedroom??

[Marek]

With a turbo you can be very specific about training zones if using a power or heart rate monitor, or even if you are just going by feel.

On the road the weather, hills etc make it harder to be as specific to certain training zones. Only downside being that a turbo is extremely boring.

Cheers

Marek.....

[Snoop Doug]

[quote="Marek"]Only downside being that a turbo is extremely boring.

Cheers

Marek.....

[quote="Snoop Doug"][quote="Marek"]Only downside being that a turbo is extremely boring.

Cheers

Marek.....

[Marek]

Have a search of the net, but I think the Minoura 1200 is the kind of thing you are looking for. It also has the capability to take MTB.

Cheers

Marek....

[Snoop Doug]

got me thinking....the Minoura RDA 850 works off the wheel rim so you don't even need to change the wheel/tyre. Search around and you can pick em up for around £130 - rrp is around £180 mind.....

[stu23]

hmmm looks good, but a tad out of my student budget, cheapest i could find was 140!!

these any good?

[url]http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=15262[/url]

[url]http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.aspx?Cat=triathlon&ProdID=5300004260&n=Minoura%20Mag%20500R%20Trainer%20With%20Remote[/url]

[neilb]

Hi Stu

I'm certainly no expert but I have a Tacx Sirius and I like it. With an orange turbo trainer tyre on my back wheel it's nice and quiet and it works really smoothly. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Neil

[Rob C]

I used to have the monoura 500 before I sold it to Slyv, it always worked well for me. I paid £85 for it a few years back and I think i've seen it advertised at £60 ish before. keep hunting

http://www.pearsoncycles.co.uk/product/ ... R_AND_TYRE

Looks like a decent price with tire and riser