Hi

After using for a couple of weeks my friends super old Elite Travel turbo trainer, and expecting a lot less noise, I pulled the trigger on a modern trainer, an Elite Qubo Hydromag Elastogel. After trying it for one hour I can say it feels a lot worse than my friend's jurassic trainer. Immediately after fitting the bike on the trainer and start pedalling I realised that it felt extremely unstable and flexy. I could even feel the flex of my bicycle's frame. I did a couple of 5' series at 270 W (80% of my FTP so not a terribly hard effort) and I had to stop because of the unstability of the bicycle.

Has anyone noted this? I expected this trainer to be actually a very good and stiff one, and I am selling it in eBay the day after I received it...

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Regards

Ha, I was just about to buy one of these after I had to return the CycleOps fluid2 I bought. There was a crap seal or bearing in it, it made a very loud clicking sound.

The clamping on the Qubo uses gravity to push the tire back in to the roller. When you say it flexed, do you mean the bike moved forwards/vertically in the Qubo's grip, or that the whole unit and your bike started to move laterally?

No, not the whole unit and the bike, but only the rear wheel. I think the flex is because of the trainer's frame design: as you say, the weight of the rider is what "pushes" the tyre against the roller, this adds some slack , or a "flex spot" which makes the trainer a lot less stable than other designs. I don't know if Elite did it on purpose (maybe to reduce the stress on the frame), but for me it makes the trainer totally unusable. Please note I am a heavy and sort of powerful rider (86.5 kg, 340 W FTP), so the feel of the trainer may be better for lighter people...

I decided to put it for sale and get a Tacx Booster instead.

Yeah, from what I've read they did it primarily so you didn't have to screw the resistance unit in to the rear wheel. Gravity would set the pressure. I know people have complained about the flex/bouncing and Elite's answer has been that it encourages smoother pedalling. I think you're right though, the frame design just isn't for bigger power riders.

I'm 62 kilos, so am going to give it a go. Thanks.