FlanderFlop's Full Review: Cycleops Fluid2 Trainer
If you don’t have a trainer yet let me clue you in on one thing before you get too far into your shopping. Riding trainers is one of the most brain numbing activities in which a cyclist can engage. This being said, it can also help you maintain your fitness through the winter so you can stomp your friends come spring. So if you must train indoors, you may as well have a nice trainer so you can get the best possible use out of the time you spend on it.
Before I tell you how I ended up with a Fluid-2 and what I think of it, let me give you a little background on trainers…
Trainers vs Rollers – In case you don’t know the difference, trainers hook to the back of your bike and hold it up while providing resistance. Rollers are a device with three drums, which you must balance your bike on top of to ride. Your bike is not attached and there exists a possibility that you could ride off the side and fall over. I feel that you can get a better workout on trainers because you don’t have to worry about balance and can focus on the workout. On the other hand, rollers are great for working on a fluid pedal stroke and smooth powerful riding. They both have their advantages, but if you are going to get one or the other, I suggest a trainer.
There are three types of trainers: Wind, Magnetic, and Fluid.
Wind- Wind trainers use a fan like system to produce resistance. This type of trainer provides what is called progressive resistance. What this means is that because the faster you turn your wheel the faster the fan spins, it is also true that the faster you go the more resistance you get. This mimics the real world where you tend to push harder in response to more resistance. So this type of trainer gives you a realistic ride feel. The problem with wind trainers which has caused them to drop out of favor with most cyclists is that they tend to be very loud and vibrate a good deal. So if you really dislike the people in the apartment below you I recommend one of these.
Magnetic: Magnetic trainers solved the loudness issue of the wind trainers, but they created a new problem. Because magnets produce a constant resistance as you speed up, that resistance becomes proportionally less. This is kind of like comparing the act of pushing a pencil through a piece of cloth and firing a bullet through the same piece of cloth. It will seem much harder to push t he pencil through the cloth because it is traveling at a slower speed, while the momentum of the bullet carries it through without even really slowing it down. So the cloth, which is providing a constant resistance, has less of an effect on objects at higher speeds. The same is true with your magnetic trainer, and as you speed up it actually feels easier. To counteract this problem, most magnetic trainers have adjustment settings so that you can set the amount of resistance you want according to your workout. This is fine and dandy except that most workouts take you through a range of efforts which means you must constantly adjust the trainer. (enter the bar mounted adjustment lever)
Fluid: To solve the constant resistance problem of the magnetic trainers without bringing back the vibration problem of the wind trainers, Fluid trainers were introduced. Fluid trainers are essentially wind trainers immersed in oil. The run much more quietly than the wind trainers, and still provide the progressive resistance. In the cycling community today fluid trainers are widely considered to be the best trainer out there. There is however one small problem with fluid trainers. Because there is fluid inside these trainers, there must be seals to hold that fluid in. And because that fluid is there to create resistance, much of the energy absorbed by that fluid is turned into heat. The periodic heating and cooling of the unit will at some point cause one of those seals to fail and leave you with a bunch of oil on the floor at the end of your workout.
Now that I have illustrated the drawbacks to all of these trainers it should not surprise you that when It came time for me to purchase a new trainer I took the cheat route, that I didn’t mention above, and ordered a CycleOps Magnito. The Magnito is, to the best of my knowledge, the first magnetic trainer to offer progressive resistance, and has therefore eliminated all of the drawbacks listed above. Don’t ask me, I’m not sure how it works, but I know it does because I got to try it out on the floor model in the shop where I work. And I guess it is a extra little bonus that it costs less than the fluid-2.
When my Magnito arrived, I was surprised to see that there was a goof-up somewhere, and I had received a Fluid-2 instead of the Magnito. Not being one to complain about a free upgrade I didn’t put up a stink. I have now owned my Fluid-2 for a little more than a year now, and it gets quite a bit of use. As I train and race at a professional level it should go without saying that there is not much dust settling on this thing, and I have never had a problem with it. The seals have held up just fine and I actually think that the resistance provided is a little more consistent and smooth than the Magnito, but not so much that most people would really notice or care.
Out of all of the Fluid-2 that we have sold in the shop over the last couple of years, the only I have only seen one have a seal go bad, and that was one that was actually sitting on our floor as a demo, and I can only guess that is was defective from the start as it really had not had much use. CycleOps was good about fixing the problem for us quickly, and got us a new resistance unit. They are great about supporting their products, and are even covering the products produced before their merge with Saris.
This brings me to another point. I am one of those people who likes to support companies from my home country (USA) and I like the fact that not only is CycleOps a great company that stands behind their products, but they are owned and manufactured here in the US rather than in a sweat shop somewhere. Sorry, that’s just my little political insert.
So in short if you are looking for a trainer, the Fluid-2 is a great choice, but you may also want to check out the Magnito. Although CycleOps will be 100% behind you in the event of a fluid leak, the Magnito will avoid this inconvenience. Also as a word of caution, if you have to have fluid but don’t want to shell out the cash for a nice one and are looking for a bargain, please make sure that you are dealing with a company that will support you if and when the seals go. Otherwise, magnetic trainers are more cost efficient. Thanks for tuning in to my random ramblings, and happy shopping.
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