Indoor Trainers for Dummy Cyclists

Bike on indoor trainer

Here at the Antisocial Network, one of our more commonly-cited definitions of a dumbass is people who tells themselves "I did this once, I'll publish how to do it and make money..." The subtext, apparently, is "...from people who are dumber than me." We're not so sure; but lots of people seemed to think so, at least during the days of content farms. Sometimes, the one-off experience is remarkably obvious, as in the case of InfoBarrel.com's Maxwell Payne, found here sharing his (limited) experience in "How to Hook Up a Bike to Exercise Indoors."

Maxwell did what many other dumbasses did before him: he transcribed the instruction sheet and changed around a few words. In the process, however, he exposed his ignorance about bike trainers and bicycles in general. We chuckled at advice like

"...Remove your rear tire skewer (that hold the rim and spokes to the bike frame) using the bike's quick release handle on the rear tire side..." "Tire skewer"? Doesn't Payne know that what he calls "the rim and spokes" is a wheel? And what about this great advice: "...If the bike lacks a quick release lever skip this step and disregard the trainer's skewer..." We have a couple of trainers around the office: without the trainer's skewer, the bike won't sit in the trainer. Whaddya gonna do then, Maxwell? And then there's

"Pull the release handle on the left side of the trainer..."

Errr, Maxwell, what if the trainer doesn't have a release handle on the left side, like oh, we dunno, any of ours? But wait, there's more:

"Turn the threading handle or lever on the trainer to expand the space between the two sides of the trainer if your bike doesn't fit between the trainer sides. If your trainer stand has a resistance wheel proceed to Step 7, otherwise skip directly to Step 8."

Umm, Maxwell, in our experience (which entails mounting a bike in a trainer more than once), you must close the trainer on its skewer so that the bike is firmly supported, with the rear wheel off the floor, and doesn't wobble when pedaled. Did you forget that? and did you forget to number your steps, 'cause we don't see a step 7! But that's OK, because your "consideration": "Some trainers lack a resistance wheel but include a magnet system to simulate resistance. In this case attach the stand alone magnet to the spokes so it lines up with the magnet on the trainer...."  ...is, frankly, complete rubbish. The magnets in magnetic resistance trainers are inside the resistance wheel. We can only suppose that any magnet you see on a spoke has something to do with a bicycle computer.

Sheesh, no wonder you're our Dumbass of the Day! After reading it all, we had to wonder if Maxwell had ever even seen a trainer!

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