That means that it has highest accuracy, the highest repeatability, and the longest life of any trainer on the market. Pez: You refer to CompuTrainer as the Gold Standard – so what are CompuTrainer’s strongest attributes, and why does it deserve such a lofty accolade?Ĭhuck: When we refer to CompuTrainer as “The Gold Standard” it’s because it provides the best technical performance of any electronic trainer on the market. Within a few years RacerMate was manufacturing more than 25,000 wind trainers annually. At the time this was a remarkable improvement in indoor bike training which the cycling public was quick to take advantage of. But most importantly, the load that it generated was essentially identical to the wind load that a cyclist experiences when riding on the road at any speed. The Wind Trainer required no special skill and could be used by anyone who wanted to train indoors. At that time the only device for indoor bike training was rollers whose use was restricted (as it still is today) to cyclists with advanced cycling skills who can balance on the rollers without crashing.
The initial purpose of RacerMate was to commercialize the world’s first Bicycle Wind Trainer which RacerMate’s president, Wilfried Baatz, had invented. PEZ: How did RacerMate get started, and how was the CompuTrainer invented?Ĭhuck: RacerMate was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of FloScan Instrument Company, Inc., of Seattle, WA in 1975. We conclude that coaches and cyclists may need to use some caution when directly transferring results obtained from laboratory testing to the Computrainer training device.So I suggested we tee up this interview so Chuck could tell us why CompuTrainer is the most accurate and reliable trainer there is. During phase II, significant differences and higher CV for most parameters (all data p < 0.001) were observed for Lode versus Computrainer: TTE (21 minutes, 12 seconds +/- 3 minutes, 12 seconds vs.
During phase I, we found no significant difference for any variable, minimal dispersion of Vo(2) during Bland-Altman analysis, and a low CV at each test stage (= 5%). We used a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), Tukey post hoc analysis, regression analysis, Bland-Altman plots, and coefficient of variation (CV) analysis for each variable. Outcomes were time-to-exhaustion (TTE), peak PO (W) (PO(peak)), peak HR (HR(peak)), and ventilatory (VT) and respiratory compensation (RCP) thresholds.
Following warm-up, each trial started at 100 W, progressing 50 W every 3 minutes to exhaustion. Phase II (n = 14) compared the Lode to the Computrainer using a randomized, counterbalance assignment. Phase I (n = 12) examined the reliability of the Lode. We examined the reliability of a standardized laboratory ergometer (Lode Excalibur Sport) and its applicability to an electromagnetically braked ergometer (Computrainer) in 2 phases. For those athletes undertaking seasonal laboratory testing (e.g., Vo(2), lactate threshold), it is imperative that athletes be able to directly apply this information to their training device.
New technology allows cyclists to train via power output (PO) in addition to heart rate (HR).