Indoor Cycling Trainers: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Indoor cycling trainers can support your fitness journey, help you train for sportives, cycling events, or bolster your sports performance. If you’re a beginner to indoor cycling trainers, there are certain elements you should expect. From accurate ride data, connectivity, and a real-ride feel. Discover all the ways a Wattbike indoor cycling trainer is exactly what you need.

Table of Contents:

• Unparalleled Benefits of Wattbike Indoor Cycling Trainers
• Comparing to Other Bike Trainers

Unparalleled Benefits of Wattbike Indoor Cycling Trainers

Your indoor cycling trainer should be your primary training partner, no matter what your goals are. It’s important to feel your indoor bike trainer is on your side, helping you achieve your targets.

Here are the most important things your trainer should do, which the Wattbike Atom smart bike does, to help you experience the benefits of indoor cycling.

Provide Workouts & Training Support

The best indoor cycling trainers can be your tool to workout, as well as your personal trainer. With our Wattbike Hub training app, you can have a personal trainer in your pocket, to connect to your Wattbike each time you ride. With 100’s of workouts and training plans to focus on different aspects of your training, written and curated by world class coaches and athletes, you can tailor your workouts to maximise your performance and achieve your goals faster.

Not only that, but you’ll see live feedback of your left and right leg balance, to help improve your pedalling technique. That’s all thanks to our Polar View and Pedal Effectiveness Score (PES) which can show you where you can focus your efforts to maintain power and avoid injury.

Test Your Cycling Performance

Staying on track of your targets is easier than ever with our indoor cycling trainer. You can take regular assessments of your progress with performance tests. These help you see where you are making improvements in your endurance, speed, power, or cadence.

Performance tests on the Wattbike Atom include:

• Health Assessment Sub Maximal Health Test- You can use this test to set personalised training zones, give structure to your indoor cycling training and inform your fitness compared to your age grouping.

• The 3 Minute Test - You can use this information to set personalised training zones and give structure to your workouts on your indoor cycling trainer.

Provide Adaptable Resistance

The best indoor cycling trainers offer the chance to alter the resistance you’re working with, for intense cycling workouts, or lighter sessions to take the load off your musculoskeletal system. With Wattbike, you can choose between an electromagnetic or air resistance bike.

The Atom uses electromagnetic resistance to provide advanced control over your ride. You can use the custom shifters on the smart bike to increase or decrease the effort required. Alternatively, you can use ergo mode to allow the indoor cycling trainer to smartly adjust to each interval for you, so you can concentrate on your pedalling technique.

The Wattbike Nucleus air bike uses air resistance to support cross-functional training. You can harness interval training, demanding workouts, or recovery rides with full control of the load on your muscles. With a lever on the resistance trainer, you have precise control over the air reaching the fan to support every aspect of your training.

Gives Accurate Data Feedback

Measuring and tracking your progress is the ultimate requirement of your indoor cycling trainer. The Atom provides unrivalled cycling data which analyses your watts per kg, calories burned, maximum heart rate, as well as unique pedalling insights. The Atom reads your data 1000 times per second and delivers ±1% accuracy with a power range of 0-2500w.

Connect to Compatible Cycling Apps

Third party training apps can help to fuel motivation into your training. Whether you want to explore a real-world route virtually , or connect with fellow enthusiasts, an app can help you. The Wattbike Atom is compatible with the following apps:

• Zwift - Chase your targets in a virtual world with an online community.
• FulGaz - Recreate real-world rides and meet goals with expert coaching.
• TrainingPeaks - Find an accredited coach to support your fitness plans.
• TrainerRoad - Use this personalised AI-powered tool to meet your goals.
• Rouvy - Tackle iconic cycling locations with augmented reality workouts.
• Strava - Track, analyse, and share every aspect of your indoor cycling.

Offer Real-Road Feel

Wattbike’s smart bike is designed to feel as much like you’re cycling outdoors on your road bike as possible. You can customise your gearing set up with preset gearing options, the Atom will automatically react to elevation levels in your virtual rides, so you’ll feel like you’re out on the road.

Indoor Training, All Year Round

Training effectively throughout the year is important, especially if you’re training for sportives. To be in the best shape ahead of the cycling season you‘ll need to establish an effective winter training plan to boost performance.

Indoor cycling trainers make it possible to exercise no matter the weather. Say goodbye to numb fingers, slippery roads, and hazardous conditions, and say hello to training whenever you want, from the comfort of your own home.

Robust, Convenient Set-Up

Your indoor cycling trainer needs to be able to keep up with you, no matter how you workout. Whether you’re nailing a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session, or starting your spring training, you’ll need an indoor cycling trainer that can handle the pressure. Tested daily by elite athletes across the globe, Wattbikes are robust and sturdy to provide a rock-solid base to train from.

The Atom and Nucleus are both hassle-free and straight-forward to set up. The hidden wheels mean you can easily move your indoor cycling trainer when you need to.

Comparing to Other Bike Trainers

Wattbike indoor cycling trainers offer more data and interactivity than a regular trainer. Not only that, but turbos and rollers are notoriously loud, meaning you have to put off your session to a time when the racket won’t matter. Wattbike static bikes are quiet, offering discreet workouts whenever you need it.

Turbo Trainers

Compared with a turbo trainer, you’ll find Wattbike indoor cycling trainers offer so much more insight into your training. With the cycling data harnessed in our Hub app, you can track every single pedal revolution and make it count. When it comes to turbo trainers vs smart bikes, you might not be able to track all the data of each ride with a turbo.

Not only that, but turbos can be a hindrance to your training. Whether you opt for a direct-drive or wheel-on turbo, you might be put off your workout with the steps required to start pedalling. Having to bring your road bike inside, risking a mess indoors, and then setting up the trainer might make you avoid the session altogether.

Wheel-on turbos can lead to damage to your tyres and wheel through constant pressure and wear and tear. Whilst direct-drive turbos require you to remove your rear wheel, and take time fiddling to connect your chain to the cassette.

Bike Rollers

Using bike rollers to adapt your road bike to an indoor set-up requires your balance. Just as you would balance while out on the road, you have to balance yourself while cycling on the spot, which can be a tricky feat. When comparing bike rollers with a smart bike, you’ll also find they don’t offer as much insight into your session.

The footprint of rollers can also be pretty sizeable, meaning they’re not the most convenient for your household. The Atom has a smaller footprint, at just 124cm x 50cm, meaning you don’t lose as much floorspace to your indoor set-up.

Begin Smart Training with Wattbike Today

From guidance on what to eat after cycling, to the signs of overtraining, choose Wattbike to join you on your indoor cycling journey.