Morning all, my wife has expressed interest in an indoor bike she can train on as well. She’s not a cyclist at all, so I’m wondering if there’s something more like a peloton that also links to TR so we can both use it? Thanks!
Yes, there are a few out there
Elite Square
Wahoo kickr smart bike
Tacx neo smart bike
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Add to that:
Watt bike
Key feature will be how easy it will be to adjust between both of you.
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If you’re looking for a smart bike that works for both you and your wife, you might want to check out something like the NordicTrack S22i or the Bowflex C6. Both can connect to apps like TrainerRoad, so you can both use it for different training needs. They’re adjustable and easy to set up, so your wife could start at her pace too.
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If you already have a smart trainer you like, the least expensive route would be getting the Elite Square smart trainer frame
Right now I wouldn’t buy a smart bike, unless you both were going to do Peleton classes, and then a peloton would make sense
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My wife also had the same curiosity earlier this year. Before spending €€€€ (which I researched thoroughly anyway), here is what I did: I took her bike (a “cross bike”) and got a new 9-speed cassette. I put it on the trainer and she did three workouts on it. She had fun, but she hasn’t asked me to put her bike on the trainer again. Overall, it cost me 16 € for the cassette and a few minutes to put change the freehub on the trainer.
If she would have liked it, we likely would have gotten a Caveworks Rivet or an Elite Square (once Elite releases an update for virtual gearing for my Suito).
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I think that the wattbike proton is really hard to beat for this usage case. I’ve heard that the UK pricing is more competitive that other places though.
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I have a Kickr Core, nothing fancy, but certainly reliable thus far.
I think the main factor to consider are how you use the trainer. If you’re just using TR for fitness, then anything reliable that works with TR and that fits both you and your wife is reasonable. If you’re doing it to support racing or outside bike events, my sense is that anything other than a Wattbike/Tacx NeoBike/Wahoo smart bike will be a compromise for you (although maybe there are cyclists who use Pelotons as their main indoor trainer). They all have their own issues, but any of the 3 would be reasonable. If you’re not in a big hurry, I would definitely wait for the Elite Square to come out and get some reviews (and maybe some intermediate term reliability–as an early adapter of the Neobike, there have been a number of QC issues that I’ve had to deal with)
Whatever route you go with, you want adjustability for 4 dimensions (saddle height and fore-aft, and cockpit height and fore-aft), and I’d look for easy ability to swap the saddle. 3 of our 4 users use the same one, but the 4th has a different one–you can purchase an extra rail for the Neobike that makes it easy to swap out, and I think the Wattbike and Wahoo are similar. Especially if your wife isn’t currently a cyclist, there may be some trial and error there to find what works, and if its different than yours life will be much easier if you can just change the rail or seatpost.
Honestly, if you have a KICKR CORE, why not get a Zwift Ride frame to ago atop it?
You can use it for TR without issue (in ERG mode), you can use it for Zwift for SIM mode. Peloton doesn’t link to anything other than Peloton Bikes for power, but she can certainly use it from a HR standpoint in the Peloton app, or, any other 3rd party app that does structured workouts.
And your total cost would be a fraction of any other smart bike.
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Sorry but you lost me at ‘share’. Sorry, in my experience with kickr core and I’ve used a Watt bike a few times, the watt bike types are designed to be adjusted quickly and accurately. Worth the outlay.
wife and i have have been managing well on an stages SB20. its very easy to adjust.
but stages is in abit of a limbo stage with it being recently acquired by Giant. not sure if i can recommend it in light of that.
also a family plan would be great 
@TR
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I have a kickr bike that my family uses. It is real easy to adjust and off you go (v1 that I got on clearance a couple years ago). I’d buy again just for the convenience of not taking a bike on and off the trainer. Though these days I’d probably go with the Kickr bike shift due to the pricing and feedback from those who have it.
Cars have automatic seats… hopefully one day soon there will be a “smart bike” that you can program the bike fit for multiple riders!
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Has any tried the Zwift ride smart bike?
One thing that made life easier here to share a Peloton, was getting a second seat post, so she can have her seat and me, mine. I marked the posts and swapping them was easy. It’s just at the time we ordered that, it was actually something like 4 parts, the post itself, the slider, the knob, and the end cap on the post. There was no ‘seat post’ SKU… Maybe they changed that. For other trainers, maybe price a ‘replacement’ seat post and decide which one would be the best for the price of the convenience. (I can see some being at an eye watering price point)
I’d imagine that most smart bikes do sell seat posts, and if your butts can’t stand the same seat, it makes it so much better than buying two bikes.
I’ve got three Tacx Neo Smart posts. (The instructions said remove the post, and the replacement ‘power unit’ comes with one 
)
So my wife and I did this ourselves.
We ended up with a Wattbike Atom. It did the job fairly well, but it’s still a bit of a faff. Take a look at their new proton though, it’s been designed with this in mind.
If you want utter utter ease of changeability look at the Wahoo Rollr - if you both have bikes it’s the easiest thing to use by a LONG way, simply chuck your bike on, move the front bar to hold your front wheel and you’re done. It’s like 5 seconds to swap bikes over. If you have 2 bikes of course.
That being said, I had the rollr and did struggle to get it to lower watts, everything felt hard work but that’s likely my own poor setup.
I would go for the Proton if doing it again.
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The Stages SB20 is a tank with fantastic ride feel. My daughter and I share it and have a note posted on the wall with the saddle/cockpit adjustments for each of us. If Stages wasn’t in such a precarious position I would happily recommend one.
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