Blackburn Trainers for Dummy Cyclists

Blackburn TrakStand Indoor Trainer

Don't ask us: we've never yet figured out why some of the people with "communications" degrees think they're instant experts on everything. Heck, we still haven't figured out why so many colleges have changed the name of the degree from "journalism." What we do know, though, is way too many self-appointed freelancers made a mess of their assignments at eHow.com, often because they knew nothing about the topic they were supposedly covering. Take, for example, eHowian Kay Tang and the lousy job she did on "Instructions for Blackburn TrakStand Bicycle Trainer" at SportsRec.com.

The Antisocial Network cycling enthusiast would have no problem with the question, since there's a Blackburn TrakStand in the staff exercise room. She even knows the difference between a TrakStand and a TrakStand Ultra, something that apparently escaped Tang's notice. Another thing that seemed to escape the notice of this "professional journalist" is that Blackburn sold three versions of the TrakStand, and only with the Ultra would,

"As you speed up, the resistance will increase, so you don’t need any external controls."

Perhaps in order to make herself appear more authoritative, Kay included this extraneous (and probably wrong) estimation:

"Setting up the trainer and mounting your bike on the trainer will take about 30 minutes."

We submit that a reasonably competent person could do it in ten minutes... but only if they were to follow the manufacturer's instructions. You see, Tang left out something important. Her step for mounting the bike to the trainer says,

"Next, place the bike’s back wheel between the axle cones... Tighten the cones evenly until your bike is held secure by the frame."

We regret to inform you, Ms Tang, that the instructions from which you cribbed this article and the instructions for every indoor trainer Blackburn makes include the following warning:

"The mounting cones of your Blackburn trainer have been designed specifically to work with the supplied quick release skewer... Mounting a bicycle to the trainer with any other fastening device can make it unstable or result in serious injury [emphasis ours]."

It's pretty obvious to us, at least, that Tang has never mounted a bike in a Blackburn TrakStand. It's quite possible that Kay has never even seen a Blackburn TrakStand, much less used one. We wouldn't be surprised if our Dumbass of the Day had never heard of a bike trainer before "researching" this post. Feh.

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