Indoor cycling has had a huge boom in the last few years, and unlike the broader cycling industry, it seems to be only getting stronger.

In this edition of the Collective Favourites series we are looking at indoor trainers, whether that's direct-drive smart trainers, wheel-on trainers, rollers, or full smart-bike setups that keep us pedaling when the weather (or life) doesn't allow a ride outdoors. We asked our team what they use, and also chatted to one of the industry stalwarts – Shane Miller, aka GPLama – about the category. We also asked you, our members, what you've got in your pain cave, and boy, there are some stellar setups amongst those answers.

As with all Collective Favourites, this is not a comprehensive guide to tell you what to buy, or a list of "the best." Rather, if you've been thinking about getting a trainer or upgrading, this can help you narrow the options, and if you're just curious about what others ride, well then, you're at the right place.

What is an indoor trainer?

Indoor cycling trainers come in a lot of shapes, and we often collectively refer to them as "turbo trainers," a term that comes from the early indoor exercise bikes that relied on a 'turbine' resistance mechanism. While those trainers are now mainly found at gyms, the term has stuck to describe the simple wheel-on units that provide resistance and little else, smart direct-drive trainers, smart indoor training bikes that can adjust resistance automatically when synced to online training platforms, talk to multiple devices at once, simulate gradients, and hold watts steady for you, so all you have to do is pedal.

Wheel on trainers such as the Kickr Snap will require a dedicated training tyre and have less accuracy compared to direct drive trainers. They are, however, compatible with more setups, including Pinion gear hub as pictured here.

When speaking of classic trainers where you attach an existing bike, the big dividing line is wheel-on vs direct-drive. Wheel-on trainers clamp to your rear axle and press a roller against the tyre to control resistance. They tend to be cheaper and easier to store, but they are more susceptible to differences in the setup (tyre pressure, roller tension, rider weight). If you care about power accuracy, you either accept an estimate with a relatively wide error range, or need to use a separate pedal or crank-based power meter on your bike.

Direct-drive trainers, on the other hand, replace your rear wheel. You mount the bike to the trainer and run your chain on a cassette (or a virtual-shifting setup like Zwift Cog). They’re generally quieter, more stable, and more consistent and accurate in terms of resistance and power. They also cost more and take up more space, and they make your bike a semi-permanent piece of furniture for part of the year.

Wahoos's Kickr Rollr attaches the front wheel of the bike onto a frame for added stability.

Then there are rollers, which are, to some the simplest solution, and to others, a scary balance test. They can be brilliant for working on cadence and pedaling smoothness, and can offer a more realistic ride feel – especially models with dynamic motion – but require a steeper learning curve in the beginning.

Finally, you’ve got smart bikes, which solve the bike compatibility and drivetrain mess by being their own thing. They’re the most expensive option, heavy, and take up quite a bit of space – but their wide range of adjustability makes them an appealing option if you're sharing a setup between multiple people, or if you've reached the point where you’d rather keep your actual bike out of the sweat zone.

What to consider when choosing a trainer

If you are looking for an indoor trainer, then the good news is that the market has only got better and more affordable in recent years. There are not only more trainer options, but also more variety in the virtual platforms you can choose to ride on.

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"I think anything on the market now in the mid- to even low range is actually a really good trainer compared to what we had in the past and what we were paying," Shane Miller told Escape. "As long as your bike stays put and there's something providing resistance, you can get a good workout. Most people just want something to push back and let them get the session done. If you're doing 45 minutes to an hour, that's all you really need – you don't need the greatest and latest. Plenty of riders are still on first-gen Kickrs, and they're fine. And that's the hard part for brands now: it's tough to upsell someone when the trainer they already own still works."

Miller estimated that since 2018, when Wahoo released the original Kickr Core and Tacx rolled out the Neo 2, the trainer technology "matured," and since then, changes in technology have been rather incremental, but the big shift has been features trickling down in price.

JetBlack's Victory, for example, is a sub-US$400 trainer. Wahoo's cheapest Kickr Core 2 is frequently on sale for the same price, as is the Elite Rivo. "Those trainers are more than enough for most riders," Miller said, and he emphasised how far brands have come in standardising features like auto-calibration and race modes across price points.

In short, if indoor riding is not your primary way of riding bikes, you are going to be well served by the low-and mid-tier offerings.

Accuracy and power readings

Not everyone, however, rides the cheapest options, and beyond your budget, there are a few things to consider. First off, what do you use the trainer for? Browse the tech sheets of trainers, and you'll find they all claim to be the best in something, and while most work just fine for what Miller described above – a workout – if you are very particular about your numbers or virtual racing, you want to pay more attention to what the trainer can offer.

If you are someone who trains hard and also pushes a lot of power, it's worth looking at what the trainer can do; most high-end direct-drive indoor trainers now feature a maximum power resistance between 1,800 and 2,500+ watts, which is plenty even for professional-level sprinting. Popular models like the Wahoo KICKR v6 cap at 2,200W, while mid-range trainers often handle 1,500-1,800W – still enough for many riders.

It's worth noting that indoor and outdoor power aren't always directly comparable. Even assuming perfect devices, cooling, movement, and muscle activation differ indoors, and many riders simply produce lower power inside. What matters more than a few-watt difference is that your trainer stays consistent.

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Trainer power also isn't always measured the way people assume. Miller was quick to point out that a lot of trainers do power modeling rather than true strain-gauge measurement, and they can work differently at different flywheel speeds, in ERG vs sim mode, and with different smoothing or update rates.

"The current indoor trainers were never designed for esports racing, and that level of accuracy, down to a thousandth of a second timing and things like that. They still pretty much aren't," Miller noted. However, only a fraction of us are likely to compete at the pointy end of virtual racing, and that means that most modern trainers are accurate enough. If you want precise and accurate power measurement, then you should run a separate power meter on the bike.

And to keep things running smoothly, you should make sure your trainer stays calibrated. Older generations require you to do a spin-down calibration manually, but newer ones do a sort of micro-calibration automatically.

Here, temperature comes into play: even the best trainers can only be accurate when everything is warmed up. "Heat still affects even today's smart trainers," Miller said, and he noted that if you are riding in a cold garage or spare room, you may need to "wait for those few minutes for things to warm up" before the numbers are accurate.

He also shared a good example of how sensitive this can be: an early production batch of Tacx Neo units shipped with power readings off, and it eventually came down to the factory having calibrated them during a heat wave in the Netherlands. The factory had simply been hotter than normal – and it skewed the numbers.

Connectivity and compatibility

For anyone familiar with the cycling industry, it perhaps doesn't come as a surprise that cross compatibility isn't always at the forefront of product development. That applies to the indoor trainer segment too, and unless you ride rollers, you have to pay attention to the trainer spec to make sure you can run your bike on it, and that the training platform you use will work with your setup.

Direct-drive smart trainers typically connect to apps via ANT+, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. Miller said ANT+ is now “a much-retired technology,” while Bluetooth has become far more stable than it used to be – and Wi-Fi support on trainers is the best bet for those requiring the best performance.

Compatibility of the trainer with different groupsets, wheel standards, virtual shifting and cassettes has also gotten easier, but it can still require some research.

Like wheels, the trainer has to have the right freehub body, and your trainer needs to work with your frame’s thru-axle or quick-release setup. Most trainers come with adapters to make the setup work, and some trainers also come equipped with a cassette out of the box.

If you want to avoid cassette swaps, for example, because you have multiple bikes, share one trainer – a Zwift Cog (or equivalent) can simplify life. "The Cog itself has broken down one of the biggest barriers, and that is bike compatibility," Miller said. "In the past, you had to buy a trainer and then realise 'Oh, it comes with an 11-speed cassette or a 10-speed cassette or I need this or this through axle or that through axle,' and when it comes to cassettes and changing cassettes and making sure it's got the right bike compatibility, that was a nightmare."

ERG mode, ride feel, and virtual shifting

Virtual shifting is more common across different virtual cycling platforms, but as Miller pointed out, there’s still no proper universal standard behind it.

With the rise of the modern smart direct-drive trainers, indoor cycling has developed to be ever easier for the user to simply hop on, and let the trainer push you to do the watts required for the workout.

For this, ERG mode is crucial. It holds you at a target wattage by automatically adjusting the resistance. While this is great for long and steady efforts, if you stop pedaling for a moment or drop cadence too far mid-interval, you risk the "spiral of death," where the trainer ramps resistance up and you essentially cannot get the cranks moving again. Most trainers will, at this point, deactivate the ERG mode temporarily, so you can get back to pedaling.

The reason ERG remains popular is simple: it forces you to do exactly the work you said you would do. Miller explained that it's like holding someone's wheel up a climb when they're setting the pace. If you want to keep up, you need to keep pushing.

Virtual shifting is another relatively recent shift. The big win here is convenience and compatibility from a single-cog cassette at the back, but it can also change the riding experience. "You're riding a fixie," Miller argued, and described how some setups tie flywheel speed to cadence more than a normal drivetrain would, which means that by using the virtual gearing, you are not getting as smooth pedaling as you could with a cassette.

But overall, the way virtual shifting, or even simply different trainers, feel when riding is different from brand to brand or even model to model. Flywheel size, inertia, and resistance control do change how a trainer responds, especially around threshold and above, but Miller's advice for figuring out which ride feels best to you is: "You have to ride them."

The setup beyond the trainer

Some trainers, like the Tacx offerings, come with a platform that moves back and forth.

The reality is that indoor training can be inherently boring compared to riding outdoors. Yes, having the bike locked in place makes it easier to add entertainment (TV, podcasts, music), but most people still struggle with two things once the novelty wears off: staying interested and staying comfortable for more than an hour at a time.

Good online training platforms can give your indoor riding a structure (workouts, plans, races, group rides) when you need something to focus on, or it can simply give you something to look at if you are doing steady riding and want the time to pass a little faster. And if you are not in the mood for any of the virtual cycling worlds, you can always ignore the screen entirely and run ERG mode while you watch a film.

Comfort is the other part of enjoying indoor riding. Because the bike is static, it is easy to get "stuck" in one position. Outside, you naturally shift around: you stand on climbs, you move your hands, you unweigh the saddle over rough tarmac. Indoors, you have to do that deliberately. Stand up every so often, even briefly, and move your hands around the bars.

Indoor riding is arguably good for heat training, but most of the time, you do not want it to be an overly sweaty affair. A fan (or two) makes a huge difference, and also reduces the amount of sweat you drip onto your bike. And that brings us to the most glamorous indoor accessory: a towel. Indoor riding is a salt bath for bikes, so having a towel within reach and protecting your bar tape and headset are a bare minimum.

If you want to make the setup feel less rigid, you can add movement. The premium option is a rocker plate, or an adjustable riser for the front wheel that can mimic the elevation graph. The low-budget option is some form of isolation under the trainer, which can be as simple as a thick mat or as creative as tennis-ball-style hacks, or dedicated rocker feet offered by the likes of JetBlack. The point is not to turn your trainer into a wobbly platform, but to allow a small amount of side-to-side movement to reduce pressure points and fatigue.

A rubber mat of some sort is great at dampening the vibrations from the trainer. Dedicated trainer mats are more expensive than say, yoga mats, but get whatever suits your budget, space and style.

Adding a mat or some cushioning under the trainer can also help reduce noise, as much of the trainer's vibration resonates easily through wooden and thinner flooring. That's important for those who live in apartments or other dwellings with shared walls or floor/ceilings.

And if you are doing a lot of indoor riding, especially in a windowless room, air quality can become a real consideration. As you will see from Escape contributor Chris Schwenker's setup below, once you spend hours in a confined space, factors like ventilation and air quality have a greater impact.

Escape team favourites

Below are a few of our staff picks, and you can tell that it's dominated by Wahoo options (we're not sponsored!). And while Shane Miller was helpful in providing insight into the quirks of indoor trainers, he said his trainer setup changes so often that it's not worth mentioning. He does most of his riding on the Zwift Ride at the moment, and even that changes on a day-to-day basis.

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