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Winters are tough on cyclists. Foul-weather rides can be a blast if you're the hearty type, but most of us are precious little wussies when it comes to the wet and cold stuff. Instead, we do the next best thing, spending long, monotonous stretches whirring away on a trainer, with only DVR'd episodes of Breaking Bad (and maybe some football) to alleviate the boredom.
Well, here's the new next best thing: the third iteration of ProForm's Le Tour de France exercise bicycle, a mechanized, micro-adjustable training bike that provides a workout almost as intense as the real deal.
The bike tilts 20 degrees fore and aft to simulate steep climbs and descents.It's stacked with bells and whistles. Front and center is a new 7-inch tablet-like touchscreen control panel -- still not huge by today's standards, but a radical upgrade over the previous TdF bike's tiny computer screen. The bike tilts 20 degrees fore and aft to simulate steep climbs and descents. The former paddle shifters on ProForm's older bikes have been redesigned to look and feel like ergo-levers. Other goodies: a built-in speaker, an actual power meter, a heart-rate monitor, Google Maps (Street View, even) on the screen, internet connectivity, plus accurate readouts of speed, cadence, and all the other data you'd expect. But, beneath all the flash is a really nice exercise bike. Climb on, and a good old-timey sweat-fest awaits.
ProForm was kind enough to let me take its prototype machine for a whirl. Some of the kinks are still being smoothed out, so I decided it wouldn't be fair to do a full review just yet. This is more of first look.
If you're a true bike nut, you've no doubt seen the highfalutin television spots for this thing during the Tour de France or any of the fall classics. They show this exercise bike whirring up and down, allegedly mimicking the route of the La Grande Boucle. And like me, you were equal parts excited and skeptical.
This is not a trainer for apartment-dwellers or people living in cramped quarters. It doesn't fold up at all, and it certainly doesn't possess a dainty footprint. But you trade mass for utility: you get to use your own saddle, handlebars and pedals. Gone are the big adjustment knobs for adjusting saddle height, bar height, saddle fore/aft and handlebar fore/aft. Now you can micro-adjust the components to the millimeter using a standard hex wrench, which is great for getting your position perfectly dialed. It's more like a real bike, but it's also more of a pain if you have to share your pedal time, like I did with my wife. In the end, I recorded all the measurements for both of us on a notepad, and the switch between riders got easier. But my wife didn't feel comfortable making the changes herself, so I ended up resetting the bike after every ride.
With set-up out of the way, the very first thing you notice when climbing aboard the trainer -- even before diving into the new tablet-like computer -- is how quiet it is. Shockingly quiet. I was able to complete entire virtual rides before work without waking my wife from her cocoon one room over.
Previous versions of the ProForm bike used a tiny, anemic screen to bring the Google maps experience to the rider. This new version moves to a larger tablet-like screen -- not exactly iPad-sized, but closer to an iPad Mini. The interface is based on ProForm's iFit web portal. You can draw yourself a new map, peruse your most recent rides, track and taunt your buddies through social channels, or compete against other schmucks stuck indoors on their trainers. The iFit interface is comprehensive, but crowded. It's annoying to wade past all the choices on the screen just to get to the specific task you're looking for -- and odd user experience for a piece of exercise equipment. The company appears to be committed to iFit, though, and unlike the interfaces on some other trainers, it's fully baked and doesn't feel like an afterthought.
So here's the thing. I loved the Le Tour bike. I think it could be a serious part of anyone's bicycle fitness plan. I liked the fact I could dial in a position pretty close to what my bike fitter recommended. I liked the fact I could swap out the bars and the saddle to use what I'm accustomed to on the road. I can also use the Ant+ and Bluetooth heart rate monitors I already own with no issues. I liked how quiet the operation was. I liked that the system stored enough data to let me spend an hour after each workout poring over my numbers.
It turns out I was less interested in all of the flashier features. In my short time with the bike, I never grew fond of riding along to a Google map, and I never felt that tingly buzz of anticipation when the bike tilted backwards at the start of a climb or made micro adjustments as I rode across undulations in the virtual terrain. And although I was not a fan of the descent mode -- it pitches you pretty far forward -- I do see how programming in a set of uphill repeats, either long or short, could be entertaining to my cabin-fevered brain and advantageous to my pie-ravaged fitness level.
Finally, although ProForm is still working out the final details on the power meter, it appeared to be consistent during my tests. This bodes well -- the performance-measuring device in the previous ProForm wasn't a true meter, and therefore wasn't reliable. This new design is much more advanced. Still, I wonder whether all the technology is a plus or a minus.
The ProForm Le Tour de France training bike will be available this spring, so you can try one out for yourself. The MSRP is about $2,000.
