Recommendations for a trainer.

ninesky said:

Hello. I live in a city, without a car, where I'm only able to train on the streets in heavy traffic. An hour or several out there leaves me feeling like I've smoked a pack of cigarettes in a night. I'm interested in purchasing a trainer and using it for at least an hour a day almost every day of the week. Currently I'm in good enough shape to hold about 15mph for several hours. 40-50 mile bike rides are doable. I'm interested in getting to the level of fitness where I can comfortably ride for 120mph or so at higher speeds. Also I own a $500 cannondale so I'd be more inclined to pay $100 for a trainer than $200. So what do you recommend? Thanks.

Get down your LBS and see what they have to offer. Tacx make a pretty good range available here in the UK, but I don't know of $ prices. If you can try one in a shop, then see if you can get it cheaper on the net. You pay your money and take your chance with trainers- more cash, more features. Don't be put off by loads of fancy settings. I use my Cyclosimulator with all the resistance settings off. When doing intervals at 400w(28+mph) it is pretty tough, without anything else other than the fan slowing me down.
One consideration you may have is the noise it generates. Magnetic or fluid trainers make less noise than fan ones, so if you intend to use it in your house this may be a consideration. As I said it pays to try one out first since if all you require is a base model then the noise factor may be the only deciding difference.

ninesky said:

Hello. I live in a city, without a car, where I'm only able to train on the streets in heavy traffic. An hour or several out there leaves me feeling like I've smoked a pack of cigarettes in a night. I'm interested in purchasing a trainer and using it for at least an hour a day almost every day of the week. Currently I'm in good enough shape to hold about 15mph for several hours. 40-50 mile bike rides are doable. I'm interested in getting to the level of fitness where I can comfortably ride for 120mph or so at higher speeds. Also I own a $500 cannondale so I'd be more inclined to pay $100 for a trainer than $200. So what do you recommend? Thanks.

There's a lot of good trainers out there. You'll find a few in your price range from Tacx, Minoura, Cycleops and a whole bunch of others. Personnally I ride a Tacx Flow (probably more than you want to spend). I can't really say anything bad about it.

Some of the main considerations to make when buying a trainer are:
- how noisy is it
- can you adjust the resistance (not essential, since you can change gears to vary resistance)
- how sturdy is it
- is the resistance curve realistic and/or sensible

Have a look at http://www.roadbikereview.com/cat/training/trainers/PLS_1663crx.aspx for some proper opinions.