Indoor Trainer Info



lakelooper

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Jan 2, 2010
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Just purchased an indoor trainer for my Giant road bike. Without spending more money on fancy (albeit maybe necessary) accessories, what't the best thing to use to level the bike.
 
welcome welcome.

Sure you can get a fancy "climbing block" due-dad & go that route to support your wheel - the cycleops people wont mind getting more of your cash but...

me? i find a coupla' these to be a sublime alternative:

sfo08htm.jpg
 
lakelooper said:
Just purchased an indoor trainer for my Giant road bike. Without spending more money on fancy (albeit maybe necessary) accessories, what't the best thing to use to level the bike.
A block of wood/tile/whatever happens to be laying around your garage.
 
DancenMacabre said:
welcome welcome.

Sure you can get a fancy "climbing block" due-dad & go that route to support your wheel - the cycleops people wont mind getting more of your cash but...

me? i find a coupla' these to be a sublime alternative:

sfo08htm.jpg
Saw and thought of this. Don't the pages create motion of the front wheel. I suppose I could just use a piece of wood.
 
lakelooper said:
Saw and thought of this. Don't the pages create motion of the front wheel. I suppose I could just use a piece of wood.
The single phone book that I use is thick enough to provide a front wheel elevation which adequately levels my ROAD bikes ... and, it doesn't move. I would probably need some additional thickness than the single phone book provides if I had my MTB mounted in my trainer ... less height for a bike with 27" (700-32 equivalent) tires OR 29er tires.

Of course, not all phone books are equally thick & if you live in a small, rural town, then you will probably need more than one.

If I needed to use multiple phone books then I would probably bind them with some twine (the way you would wrap ribbon around a package) OR strap them together with some duct-or-packing tape AFTER DETERMINING HOW THICK they would need to be for my wheel-and-tire combination -- different tires will 'need' slightly different elevations -- but, more for the convenience of keeping the phone books together during storage.

Another solution which I do NOT endorse, but I'll mention that someone else mentioned, is to use an old saddle that you (obviously?) invert and the front tire then nests between the rails. I don't know if that will provide sufficient elevation since I never actually sacrificed a saddle for this purpose.
 
In addition to the suitable methods mentioned above, some trainers have a couple different positions for the legs which will allow different sized wheels to be placed very near the floor, reducing the thickness needed to level the front wheel.

For example, Kinetic trainers come out of the box with the legs in the first attachment hole, but on the second hole a 700c wheel sits within 1/8" of the floor: