School Me on Spin Bikes

[afm199]

Spin bikes are crap. Real bikes have outboard roller-bearing bottom-brackets. Can handle 2000w output continuously without failure for decades. Get real bike and put it on trainer. Even better, rollers.

You need the natural rocking motion that offsets pedaling forces (follow someone on road, you'll see bike rocking laterally). Without rocking, all those forces go into your knees (spin-bikes do not rock).

Also most spin bikes are set up horribly and knee-damage is guaranteed with seats that are way, way too low. Seat to pedal-spindle centre should be 1.05-1.10x leg-length. Velodrome riders may use up to 1.15x for max-power. Multiple different methods agree to within 1mm. https://road.cc/content/feature/166709-how-set-your-saddle-height Problem is most people going into spin-class or getting on their own spin bike don't know how to adjust bike to within this 1mm. They just hop on and barely know if they're not fitted properly, especially on gym bike that may have been grossly adjusted out of whack by previous user.

This! Get a good road bike and ride it on rollers, either free rollers or resistance rollers. I've been riding rollers for 35 years, they are great.

 

[afm199]

Does she get endorphins after 20 minutes of riding or so? I've heard it's almost like feeling the pleasure of having sex for a long time.

My wife gets endorphins and can go indefinitely once they kick in.

I've never had them from exercise, I wish I did, it would have made my endurance training for all of my sports much easier!

My endorphin surge usually kicks in a couple hours after exercise. Except for marathon distance running, and long distance bicycling, it never happens when I am exercising. The best it got was my 5-6 hours cross country runs in the Marin headlands.

 

[Blankpage]

This! Get a good road bike and ride it on rollers, either free rollers or resistance rollers. I've been riding rollers for 35 years, they are great.

She's not training for the Gran fondo. I bet if she were to ride on rollers she would do it once before saying F-that.

I've been using the same spin bike for ten years and no issues with it or my knees.

 

[Butch]

Great stuff here, and hey, whatever work for any of us, hey, that is the delio.
I’ve been riding my Marin Mt Vision MTB a bunch lately and I found this the other day.

So yeah, stuff shouldn’t, but it fails...

 

[Abacinator]

Have you ever cleaned the drivetrain?

 

[UDRider]

I have no idea- (why do they do any of the things they do???????), but I want to keep her happy (and myself "Accident Free", ie, no pillow covering my head while I try to sleep)

I've taken your advice and I'm researching various bikes. Many of the high end one require a monthly membership. One of the few that does not, and is highly rated is the Bowflex C6.

Nice, hope she likes it.

Have you ever cleaned the drivetrain?

It's called riding outside.
My old coach gave me so much shit for having dirty drivetrain in the winter. Pretty sure he would be speechless if he saw that.

 

[Abacinator]

I'm mean, I wouldn't say I've ever been on top of bike maintenance, but that's pretty bad

 

[westie]

I tried rollers and hated it. The mtn bike knobby noise was killing me. I bought a $300 scwinn stationary bike that lasted about 3 years until it started locking up. Its free if anyone wants it. So I threw down $1500 on a gym quality lifecycle because its what I used in the gym. I've only had it about 6 months but, so far, so good. Quality counts.

 

[MtnRider]

I purchased a Schwinn Carbon Blue spin bike from https://studio-cycles.com/ and like it despite only putting a few miles on it. I finally got back into riding (not spin) in the past few weeks and today my Garmin 530 arrived.

The talk about knees above rings true for me. The fix that has worked on all of my bikes including the spin is to use Speedplay frogs pedals that allow my feet to "float" while being clipped in. Yes, a mountain bike pedal but I like them.

If you have questions about the bike, studio cycles or are interested in my spin bike let me know. I'm not opposed to letting it go.

Sam

 

[DannoXYZ]

Be careful about knees, I've known so many racers that were forced into retirement due to ITB issues. Some of them are permanently injured.

Also floating-pedals are in addition to proper-fit, not to compensate for improper fit. Make sure your seat-height and fore-aft adjustment is spot-on first (knees over pedal-spindle centre at 90-degrees forward). Many people have seat too far back, causes more lopsided pedal-stroke and higher peak-forces on knees (i.e. trying to stretch crankarm at bottom of stroke).

True, rollers aren't for normal weekend-warriors. I find their main benefits is for hardcore-racers who need to perfect smooth pedaling form. Yeah, you can do same thing with spin-ups on downhills to 240rpms. Something spin-bikes aren't good for either, I've destroyed several spinning them up that fast.

 

[stangmx13]

itd be weird to ride a spin bike w/ some arbitrary crank length. im an avg height male, so im sure itd be fine. but my short SO would never be able to put serious miles on something with a crank arm length > 165mm. there'd be way too much knee flexion for her and her fit would always suck.

 

[OldMadBrit]

Spin bikes are crap. Real bikes have outboard roller-bearing bottom-brackets. Can handle 2000w output continuously without failure for decades. Get real bike and put it on trainer. Even better, rollers.

You need the natural rocking motion that offsets pedaling forces (follow someone on road, you'll see bike rocking laterally). Without rocking, all those forces go into your knees (spin-bikes do not rock).

Also most spin bikes are set up horribly and knee-damage is guaranteed with seats that are way, way too low. Seat to pedal-spindle centre should be 1.05-1.10x leg-length. Velodrome riders may use up to 1.15x for max-power. Multiple different methods agree to within 1mm. https://road.cc/content/feature/166709-how-set-your-saddle-height Problem is most people going into spin-class or getting on their own spin bike don't know how to adjust bike to within this 1mm. They just hop on and barely know if they're not fitted properly, especially on gym bike that may have been grossly adjusted out of whack by previous user.

This, THIS and THIS x eleventy billion

I properly fcuked my knees up doing spin classes for 12 months, after decades of injury free actual cycling on a real bike.

I'm back on real bike and rehabilitated completely.

Get on yer bike and ride fer feck's sake