Can we make indoor cycling more bearable for less than £75?

As many of us start to transition to indoor training, we are also facing the rising costs associated with it. Therefore, Rouvy has challenged me to purchase the best indoor training setup I can for under £100. Let's explore the options available. 

You might have noticed that it’s not summer anymore. In fact, looking at the long-term forecast I think that last weekend might have been the last dry ride in a very long time! Many of my riding buddies have already turned to indoor training in order to keep their summer fitness, and then there’s others that just don’t think it’s worth the investment…

Well, I hear you! Indoor training is prohibitively expensive, smart trainers can cost four figures, some fans somehow cost more than all my summer cafe stops put together, and then there’s the software itself. Now, I doubt this is the first you’ve heard of some platforms raising their prices pretty drastically!

Rouvy, though, reckon that it’s still more than possible to successfully train indoors on a budget. Therefore, they've challenged me to go out and purchase the best indoor training setup I can for under £100, giving me one week to recreate my favourite summer ride in the virtual world. Let's see what we can find... 

The set-up (software price: £10.75)

It goes without saying that my software of choice is going to be Rouvy. Why? Well, because it has more real-life routes than I can shake a seatpost at, and it favours realism over gaming, which I find helps make time go a bit quicker when I’m cooped up inside.

It’s also cheaper than most of its competitors at £10.75 a month with an annual plan, which is quite handy when it comes to my budget. However, I think the main perk is that you can pause your subscription anytime and the months add on to the end. 

In fact, because I get to go to lots of exciting events and races in the summer, I don’t really train a lot on the turbo. That means I can pay for one year, pause it all summer and get two winters of training for the price of one. Happy days! 

It’s also worth pointing out that you can actually use Rouvy for free, either as someone without a subscription or when your subscription is paused. The downside is you’re limited to 20km a month.

That's the software sorted, now to find myself some hardware and by my maths, I have £89.25 left to spend…

Turbo: Tacx Flow (£50 second-hand)

I wanted to be ambitious and try to get a smart trainer to make the most out of the realism and augmented reality routes. Rouvy can be used with what's known as a dumb trainer with a speed sensor, but I wanted to fully experience the interactive features.

I used Facebook Marketplace to see what's available second-hand in my local area, preferably being sold by someone that actually exists... 

That's when I came across a Tacx Flow turbo trainer. It’s a wheel-on trainer, so it will be a little bit nosier than a direct drive one, but it is 'smart'. This means that when I get to a climb on a Rouvy route, it will increase the resistance and make it harder, just like in real life. 

It was advertised for £65, but with some very polite haggling I managed to take it away for £50. There are some signs of use but the lights turn on when I plug it in, so it seems to work. I guess we'll find out later...

Fan (£10)

So, £10.75 for a month on Rouvy, and £50 for the trainer meant I had about £40 left. This is when I decided that I was definitely going to need a fan.

You can get loads of fancy ones and I know that I really like the Vacmaster fans, but my budget didn't stretch that far. Once again, I had a look to see what I could get second-hand, and picked one up for £10 down the road. 

At the point I was pretty much there, as I use either my phone of laptop to run the Rouvy app. You could spend a few quid on a rubber mat if you need to protect your floors, but I go in the garage for turbo sessions, leaving me with £30 to spare. 

The ride

Rouvy’s challenge to me was not to just buy all of this stuff, but to actually use my new setup to see how it performs. So, I decided to recreate one of my favourite summer rides. I got to ride in some pretty cool places over the summer, but I think my favourite was in the Dolomites in Italy, so I selected that. 

Rouvy has over 1,500 realistic routes from 45 countries, with more being added all the time. This means that if you’ve ridden somewhere, then there’s probably a route on Rouvy, allowing you to recreate your favourite ride too. 

Of course, you could also ride somewhere you can only dream of riding in real life. Or, in the latest update, there’s a training plan from Lidl Trek. Maybe I’ll give that a go this autumn. 

So, once my route was loaded, it was time to give my new set-up a go. You can even download your routes so there's no glitching with poor WiFi. 

Yes, the turbo could be better and I would have liked a direct drive unit just to make it a little bit quieter; but I'm in virtual Italy, riding my favourite ride from the summer in high definition. There’s also some new features since I last logged on to Rouvy; some cheeky sod just asked me to pull a turn! I won’t be inviting him to my next event... 

What does this show, then? Well, it shows that you can do smart training indoors for not a lot of dosh. If you have a working bike, a bit of patience to trawl through some second-hand bargains and a Rouvy subscription, then you too can recreate your favourite summer rides, take part in curated workouts and ignore the fact that the nights are closing in and the British weather is absolutely pants. 

Click here to use the code 'ROADCC' to get your first month on ROUVY for free (new subscribers only)

What changes would you make to your budget indoor training setup and which ride would you recreate on Rouvy? Let us know in the comments section below...