Enter: The Garmin/Tacx Neo Bike Smart!

 I have been trying to exercise more recently, which mainly means riding my bike, but sadly it rained for a week straight recently.  The other issue is that I have a lot of 10-15 minute breaks, and it takes me about that long to get my bike ready to go and put it back properly.  This got me started thinking about indoor trainers.

I'm not someone who buys a lot of expensive stuff - in that I don't have a $10k watch, a fancy car (or.. any car), thousand dollar bags, or anything like any of that.  By far the most expensive things I own are my bikes and my computers.  

Looking at trainers, it seems you can spend anywhere for a used classic "dumb" trainer, to $4000 on a "smart bike", or the intermediate option of $1000-$2000 on a smart trainer setup.

The problem with the add-on trainers, smart or dumb, is that they require you to attach your bike.  Sadly, this is more complicated than it needs to be, and something you really need an expert to help with.  For example - Can you attach a thru-axel bike to a trainer?  The answer seems to be "sometimes".  Can you use a mountain bike?  Again, sometimes.  Will the chain from my eBike work on the cassette on the likes of a Wahoo bike? or if not - which one do I need to buy?  It's all too complicated.  

Sure, you could go down to your local bike shop and get all the advice you need, but then you should be buying an expensive new unit from them.  

I have 4 bikes in total now, all of which are mountain bikes, one of which is basically intended for road usage.  (That one is classed as a moped, while the other three are classed as eBikes).  Actually, I have a non-motorized Giant hybrid bike too, but that one is on loan to a friend.  

So, it seems none of what I have available would be easy to attach to a trainer.  *Maybe* the CarbonDry Japan SpeedBike.  That one would be perfect if it worked, but I would still have to remove the wheels and drag it into the house.  

I decided instead to opt for a full trainer bike.  There are three main contenders:

1. The Wahoo Kikr smart bike

2. The Tacx Neo Bike Smart

3. The Peloton spin bike

There are other more minor players like WattBike and Steps as well.

None of these are widely available in Japan at this point.  In fact, I can't find the Peloton bike anywhere at all. 

The Wahoo kikr bike is available in stock from Yodobashi and others, but costs almost $5k new, and I can't find any used.

As an aside, a full setup for the Non-Bike Wahoo trainer comes in at around $3000 new from Y's road.  

The Tacx trainer was going for between $3.6k and $4.7k (which is a wide range!) new, but it seems nobody has them in stock now.   Used items are also hard to find.

Yahoo auctions had nothing in recent history.

Of all the sites/apps I searched, Merucari had 3 posted in the last year, going for:

$3.6k - About 6 months ago.

$3k & $3.2k - Very recently.

Since the last two were posted by the same person, I can only assume they are from a Gym or something (since even the richest and most hardcore cyclist doesn't need two if the same smart bike!), so I have contacted that seller to ask if they might have more available.  I am hopeful that this is the case, because if not, I may be waiting a long time for another one to come on the market - given that the last one was 6 months ago and not very cheap.  

Still - to me, spending $3k on a smart bike is better than spending $3k on a setup that still requires a separate bike - especially since the smart trainer measures wattage, and has features like road feel, braking, etc.

Whatever happens, I plan to get my hands on some sort of smart trainer setup in the next month.