Bell Motivator Indoor Bicycle Trainer Review

If you enjoy riding your bicycle for fun, for fitness or for competition, you know that sometimes the weather gets in the way of you having a good ride.

Sometimes it’s too cold, too rainy or it could just be too dark out for you to enjoy your bike ride.

So do you…

• skip your bike ride?
• pay for an expensive monthly gym membership and ride their stationary bike?
• buy your own expensive stationary bike?
• or get an inexpensive indoor bicycle trainer?

If I were you, I’d pick the last option and here’s why…

Indoor Bicycle Trainers

An indoor bicycle trainer is going to be a lot less expensive than paying for a monthly gym membership or buying your own stationary bike. Why buy another bike when you already have one?

What you do with an indoor bicycle trainer is you put your wheel into the trainer platform and it puts resistance against the tire. This will make it feel more like you’re actually riding outdoors and you’ll get a good workout.

It’s a simple, inexpensive piece of equipment that you can use anytime you can’t get outside to ride your bike. Now not even the weather can keep you from having that good feeling of accomplishing a bike ride.

If you’re going to use your indoor bicycle trainer a lot, some people will buy a separate rear wheel just to use indoors. You don’t have to do this but it can help reduce the wear and tear you put on your rear tire that you like to use when you ride outside.

There are a few different types of indoor bicycle trainers:

• There are trainers that use fans, but they’re pretty noisy.
• There are fluid bicycle trainers, which are the quietest and the best quality, but they cost a little more.
• And then there are magnetic bicycle trainers, which are still pretty quiet and they cost a lot less.

The trainer we’re going to talk about is a progressive magnetic bicycle trainer.

I chose to review the Bell Motivator because it’s inexpensive, sturdy and well liked by people who own it.

What I meant by a “progressive” magnetic bicycle trainer is that, when you pedal faster or change your gears, the trainer will increase the resistance you feel as you pedal. That gives it a more natural feel as you’re riding it.

Some magnetic trainers aren’t progressive, which means that the resistance is the same no matter how fast you pedal. So I think it’s a really big plus that the Motivator has progressive resistance.

When you get this bicycle trainer, it’s ready to go straight out of the box; you don’t have to put anything together.

• Just take it out of the box
• Take the faux axle out of the trainer (you don’t need to use this)

• Put your rear wheel up in the trainer
• Tighten the two knobs to adjust the wheel so that it’s centered for a steady ride
• Use the single adjustment to add the magnetic resistance

And you’re ready to go!

I love how quick and easy it is to convert your bicycle into an exercise bike and then back into a bicycle again, when you’re finished. It rarely takes more than a minute to set this up, as opposed to driving to the gym, so now you have no excuse why you couldn’t squeeze that workout in! 

Bicycle trainers don’t take up a lot of space at all and the rubber floor pads make it safe to set it up on any level flooring. You don’t have to worry about scratching your wood floor or anything like that.

There is some noise from using a trainer indoors but you can watch TV at a normal volume while using the Motivator.

If you’re really picky about noise you can buy a smooth back tire to use whenever you’re using your trainer; a knobby tire would cause a little more noise.

Or just release the magnetic resistance and the noise problem’s solved; except you won’t get as good of a workout.

Why pay for a gym membership or an expensive piece of equipment if you already have a bike?

All you need now is a cheap, indoor bicycle trainer!

So if you’re sick of the weather discouraging you from riding your bike or want an inexpensive way to get a good workout at home, then you should pick up a Bell Motivator Indoor Bicycle Trainer today!