Indoor Bike stand

Question
Hi
I love biking in the summer and was thinking about getting one of theses for the winter. Something about stationary bikes just doesnt do it for me.
Do you have any advice? These are the ones I am looking at BTW.

http://saskatoon.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-sporting-goods-exercise-exercise-equip

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B005DI8DIA/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&smid=A2


Anything else would be way too expensive. Thanks for your help!

Answer
Bud,

I tried the links, but one had expired and the other was by a manufacturer with whom I am not familiar.  To answer your question, the three best bike trainers I know are made by Kinetic, CycleOps and Blackburn, in that order.  What you are looking for in a trainer is (if you can find it) a beefy one-piece support for the bike (Kinetic and CycleOps have that, I believe) and overall solid welding.  If the tubes are thin and it has a bunch of welds, it will flex more when you are on it.  

In some cases you will have to choose between  fan resistance, magnetic resistance and fluid.  The fan is loudest, so good luck watching a movie or hearing music without headphones.  The magnetic is quieter and is adjustable, but can get quite hot.  The fluid-type is quietest, but is not usually adjustable.  However, like the fan, fluid increases resistance with speed, so all you really do is shift gears to increase resistance.

Hopefully this will give you a thumbnail sketch of the basics.  If you confine your search to those three brands, you really can't go far wrong.  They even show up at used sports equipment places periodically so it is worth checking at one of those or on Slowtwitch.com classifieds or Craigslist.

Let me know if you want more detail on any of these points.  (BTW, I have owned a Blackburn, I own a Kinetic Road Machine and I also have a CycleOps Pro 300 stationary bike).

Graeme