Simple Hands on Bicycle Trainer

How i made my home made, cheap, simple and working bicycle trainer, with almost no tools.

Was so much fun doing this and its a lot of fun using it as well.

BTW: My bike is 23 years old, its a vintage so please no hating ;)

The Why, the When, the Where and the How!

Greetings fellow creators, I feel like I need to explain a little bit of why I decided to build this trainer, and there are actually many factors for it.

The why? Well I love biking, its awesome exercise and its a great way to pass the time and since I moved to this town in the middle of the jungle (I'm not joking) i haven't had as much opportunity to cycle, because of many reasons such as, there's only one road that i can use which is full of heavy trucks and machinery with reckless operators, all the trails are full of loose sand, too much for a bike, weather conditions are not always the best, and work which takes most of my time.

The when? So like i said before the time i have opportunity to ride is very limited, its normally on Sundays, and last Sunday was the weather was bad, so after a stressful week of work i lost my cool-off ride day, so i decided that weather should not be a factor and even though I didn't have tools or a workshop i would use what i had in hand to make a indoor trainer.

The where? Like I said, I live in the jungle... you don't believe me? Just do a web search on a place called Inhassoro next to the Bazaruto wildlife preserve, yap its pretty but its jungle. That being said, I'm very far away from my workshop and my tools, I decided to go MacGuyver.

The how?

*I bought one 80x50x5600mm piece of pine wood for 6$

* 1 liter of wood glue for 2$

* 1 Kg of 4' nails for 50c

* 2 pieces of sandpaper for 50c

* A few kitchen hooks for 3$ (didn't use them)

* My trusty measuring tape

* My trusty toolbox (For the hammer and screwdriver)

* A metal handsaw

* Two industrial conveyor belt rollers 300mm (Got them from work, will probably cost you about 10 to 15$ each)

* Two cargo straps

TOTAL=42$

ATTENTION: The misuse of tools can cause injury so always work within the safety limits the tools and equipment so avoid losing toes or fingers! I will not be responsible for injury caused from negligence.

The Concept...

So the basic idea was to make a stand in which the bike would be on top of, so that when i pedaled the wheels would spin in place (hopefully).

So i cut the piece of pine in 4 one meter pieces with some help from the wife, was not easy doing this with a metal saw, and to make matters worse the wood was still green so it was gripping to the saw blade. Sanded down the cut pieces to get rid of annoying splinters. With that done created the basic shape of the trainer using measurements from the bicycle and the rollers, for this a flat leveled surface would be advisable;

Carving It Like a Turkey!

So I'm creating an interlock system the make the structure more rigid, and I did it by cutting as much as i could with the saw and chipping the remainder of the wood using the hammer and screwdriver (like a hammer and chisel);

Requires a bit of patience and skill with the hammer, watch those fingers...

Gluing and Nailing!

The interlock system is done, so after putting all pieces in place with some glue, i drove two nails per joint to make sure the structure was as rigid as possible;

After that once again using measurements from the bicycle i started carving the grooves for the rollers.

Just Roll With It...

So i carved the grooves for the rollers to clip, made sure to make it deep enough and also tight so that the rollers wouldn't come off during use, was a pain cause the wood was green and it wasn't chipping it was mushing;

Placed one nail at an angle in each corner of the rig, so i can hold the bike upright;

Since the wood-glue was still wet i left it overnight to dry;

Kilometers of Fun, Cause I Can!

So with the rig done, i placed the bike on top and strapped it with the cargo straps and got to pedaling.

Was a bit weird at first, keeping the bike balanced was a challenge so i tried it on a corner of the house with the front wheel against a wall and another wall in range in case i fell (which i did a few times) but after some practice its so much fun!!!

Who needs to buy a 500$ trainer when you can make one from under 50$, just hope the rollers last cause i think they were made for 12/15 km/h, not 25/32 km/h like i use them for.

This was such a fun project to do and now i can cycle whenever i feel like, but I might still improve some things on the rig, who knows...