LeMond Revolution indoor bike trainer

Since I’m basically a professional trainer rider (at least during the winter), I’m all excited about the new trainer from LeMond Fitness.

Here’s the trainer:

Unusual: You remove your rear wheel and mount your bike onto the trainer. Your bike’s chain drives a cassette that’s mounted to the trainer.

Initial thoughts:

– Use your normal bike! Any tire you use on the trainer will get destroyed. This leaves you with three choices: 1) destroy your tire, 2) change your tire or wheel every time you ride the trainer or 3) dedicate a bike to full-time trainer duty. Destroying tires is expensive. Changing tires is inconvenient. If your outside bike is much different from your inside bike, you don’t get a direct training benefit. With this trainer you can rail your MTB in the mud one day then remove the rear wheel and clamp it in this trainer the next. Heck: If you want to rip your Enduro in the summer, why not work out on it all winter?

– No wheel spin! When you do sprints on a normal trainer, there’s a whole lotta wheel spin. This LeMond trainer should feel more like a real sprint or hill — you try to pedal harder, it gets harder. I’m hoping this trainer can replicate the drudgery of climbing the hill to my house.

– More watts is good watts! This trainer is rated up to 1,400 watts. The Performance trainer I used last winter maxed out at 999 watts, which isn’t hard to reach in a sprint. I hope to report that I need even more capacity.

– Give me data or give me death! The optional Power Pilot provides all the data you want: wattage, cadence, heart rate, calories, speed and distance. When you’re killing yourself for the Frozen Garage World Championship, this info isn’t only informative: it’s distracting.

I should be receiving a Revolution trainer soon. I’ll let you know how it works.

More info: Click here for the official word from LeMond Fitness

Frozen Garage Worlds!

— Lee