The “smart” part is the twist – we consider a smart trainer to be one that allows your speed and power to directly interact with the app or program you are cycling to. You put your bike up on it, clamp everything in securely, and pedal away. Next, some definitions: What Are Smart Bike Trainers?Īlso known as spinners, turbo trainers, a bike trainer has long been an important tool for offseason and interval training. Just Get to the Point: Which Smart Bike Trainer is Best? We will do our best to simplify everything into plain terms. The choices, and the number of “if-then” statements, can be a bit overwhelming. When we started doing a roundup on the market of smart bike turbo trainers, smart stationary bikes, and the apps that go with them, our head began to spin. We decided, however, that it would be most useful to our readers if we put them together, in the same article, because one feeds off the other. We could probably do a piece on smart bike trainers, and then another piece on all of the apps available to someone who wanted to do smart cycling workouts. For those who do at least some of their riding and training indoors, it is probably safe to say this new technology is a gamechanger.
Why the popularity? Pairing a turbo trainer that can connect to apps like Zwift or Peloton makes for an entirely different indoor cycling experience. Waits for new smart trainer units hit three months at one point, and the popular streaming service, Peloton, saw its stock price shoot from $19 to $91 dollars per share. While the “smart bike trainer” phenomenon had been gradually building for years, a worldwide pandemic really shifted it in to high gear. We expect this trend to endure in 2021 and beyond.
If a global pandemic taught us anything, it is that we should all have ways to get quality workouts inside our own homes.