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Comment by aesclepius | Hacker News Reader

> I just don't get why the Peloton thing is so popular when you can get a smart trainer and a bike you can actually take outside for sooo much cheaper. You could even sign up for Zwift and a Trainer Road subscription and come out waaay ahead of $50/month.

You'd be surprised how much twiddling and research you need to do to find a correctly sized bike and which smart trainer (elevation? resistance? etc?) to get something that will work for the average person. It's the same reason people go for iPhones or Macs or anything else that 'just works', the time cost for getting to where one can actually use it vs. just unpacking a box w/ a 'good enough' smart bike means that a shiny package like a Peloton will always be preferred for a large chunk of the population.

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I train at home on a no-name steel frame I built up myself with spares scavenged or traded at a swap-meet, sitting on a second-hand (non-digital) Kurt Kinetic resistance unit, total build cost ~ $250, excl. my own labour and home workshop.

Honestly prefer training this way to the gamified Zwift experience, there's something deeply off-putting about gluing my eyes to a screen when I'm meant to be focusing on 4x5 intervals. I have a Wahoo Kickr; I hardly ever use it.

I didn't have any prior wrench experience, this was a project in part to gain some. All I had were some Youtube videos, a copy of Leonard Zinn's The Art of Road Bike Maintenance, and some basic tools. I did, however, already know my fitting dimensions.

The bikes I race on are what you'd expect though. More expensive than my car.

What I've noticed is that if you want to build a dedicated indoor trainer bike from used parts, there definitely is some good opportunity now to pick up previous generation stuff for cheap.

As serious road frame design is moving to disc brake and thru axle, something like a 12 year old all aluminum Cannondale or specialized road frame and fork set for QR skewers and 130mm rear should be pretty cheap. Then add basic all aluminum components for stem, bars, seatpost, etc.

I'd still expect to spend $125-200 on the saddle if I want exactly the same model to match my actual on-road bikes.

For this build I acquired (from eBay) a bargain-basement second-hand test saddle of the same model I use in competition. Well, it was the alloy-rail version rather than the carbon-rail version, but otherwise identical in form. My butt was happy with it, which is what matters.

Can confirm it was still the single most expensive component of the whole bike build, more than the frame, wheels, or groupset even.

Test saddles aren't supposed to be sold to the public; I believe it was a liquidation sale.

Is there a good guide one could follow?

The Park Tool “Big Blue Book” is very good. So is their archive of instructional articles and videos (https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help).

Since I built using mostly Shimano or Shimano-compatible groupset parts, their techdocs archive was a goldmine, particularly the dealer manuals and compatibility charts. The site navigation is horrendous but the information is essential.

I’d still recommend the Leonard Zinn but note the most recent edition is 2016, may have omissions for current wheels and groupsets.

Thank you! Will check it out

Go to any half decent bike shop and say you'd like to spend that much on a bike/trainer and they will bend over backwards to make sure you get exactly what you want and need. They will very likely even throw in a custom fitting using all the special tools they have at their disposal.

Not sure what twiddling you are doing with resistance and elevation, smart trainers pick the resistance based on what the app tells it to do in real time.

By no means can a 'large' chunk of the population afford $2,500 up front plus $60/month.

With a real bike on a trainer some people might even decide to try riding outside, who knows...

> By no means can a 'large' chunk of the population afford $2,500 up front plus $60/month.

Where did you get $60/mo from? GP mentioned $50 which is also off base... A peloton sub is $13/mo. The only way you could pay $60/mo is if you’re financing the bike.

Peloton has 2 subscriptions available: one for just the app without the accompanying bike which is $13/mo, the other that accompanies the bike which is $40/mo.

I see huge numbers of folks on Peloton groups who have gotten into outdoor cycling as a result. It's actually a near-constant stream of folks on the FB groups asking for advice.

People here really underestimate the cost of a decent road bike. If you don't have a bike already and want to only do indoor riding $2000k is best spend on an indoor bike not on a smart trainer + road bike. If you want a reasonable trainer you definitely want a direct drive, which rules out the snap so you are already in the territory of a wahoo kickr core or elite direto at about $700 and $1300 will give you the absolute bottom of the line in road bikes (not that one necessarily needs more for indoor riding). Then come the issues of maintaining the bike, generally the indoor environment is not really suited for road bikes. On top of that the quality of ride experience is going to be significantly worse. The noise from a bike on a trainer is much louder than an indoor bike.

Now that said, should you buy a peloton? Unless you're interested in indoor spinning classes don't. Get a tacx neobike, the wahoo kickr bike or the stages bike. They are much better bikes and allow you to use any of the many training platforms out there (zwift, rouvy...). If you're just interested in indoor spinning classes, just get yourself an indoor spinning bike without all the fancy electronics.

I've been riding competivily for a long time and when I moved to Northern Europe from Australia and needed to get myself a trainer for winter, it still made the most sense to get the tacx neobike despite already owning 2 roadbikes and a cyclocross bike.

The Peloton is really a great bike, I seek them out whenever at gyms, hotels, etc.

The price isn't that bad of a deal for someone inside all the time wanting a great bike to workout and the classes.

Thankfully, I'm kinda a nomad so I haven't done it yet, though the past few months I've been stuck in one location and debated about it.

hard

Try to find one! They're fun and good. It's all fake motivation and such but it's really good if you follow the yellow brick road and do it 2-3 hours a day.

> You'd be surprised how much twiddling and research you need to do to find a correctly sized bike and which smart trainer

Yeah, I'm surprised. People come into a bike shop and come out with a reasonable bike unless they're really looking for something special. A Kickr stand and a bike which fits you "just works" in my experience. What exactly do you think an average person would need to do beyond that?

How did our parents survive with their stationary bikes in 1970?

They were used for a few months after Christmas and then left unused.

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