Containment: how to ride a bike at home?

How to continue cycling during confinement, when sport is only allowed one hour of sport per day, within a radius of one kilometer from home?

For cycling enthusiasts, there is only one solution: the home trainer.

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Pedaling without moving forward

This machine, which allows the front wheel to be wedged against a support and the rear wheel against a roller that creates resistance, has become an essential accessory to continue cycling at home, in your living room or on your balcony, since it allows you to pedal without moving forward.

The home trainer has been democratized for several years among amateur cyclists, especially during winter.

During confinement, he met with great sales success.

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"The pedaling is monotonous"

"I do much shorter outings, but it still helps to keep in shape," says Antoine, who converted to salon pedaling last spring.

But there are still some drawbacks: "there are no bumps, no big descents that will boost you. The pedaling is monotonous", he continues.

On the home trainer, boredom therefore lurks the cyclist.

But now most of the machines are connected.

With software and a screen in front of you, you can see the road.

And the salon cyclist can thus see himself pedaling.

"It makes things more fun. You can do it at the same time with friends who are also connected. It motivates. Otherwise, I would have surely done less kilometers", continues Antoine who cycled 1,000 kilometers during the first confinement.

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A new out of stock to be expected

As during the first confinement, a stock shortage is expected this winter on the home trainers.

"It's the race again to find home trainers. The problem is that the stocks have not been replenished. There was such a demand in March and April that the stocks did not could be completely redone. The production, which is done mainly in Asia, has not succeeded. All the home-trainers are sold. The next deliveries will arrive in the first quarter of 2021 ", explains Guillaume Robert of the site matosvélo.fr.

Faced with out of stock, some have opted for the home-made home trainer:

"The rollers finally bent. I must have driven an hour on them, big time," Tom jokes.

For the second confinement, the Nantes cyclist this time invested in a rower.