I’ve had my Cyclops Magneto Trainer for about 4 years. I have no idea how many miles I have put on it. Alot. I use it at least once a week, both in and off season. I think trainer workouts with Coach Troy and Spinervals are super dee dooper!
About a year ago, it started making a horrible, squeaky noise. Upon inspection, I could tell one of the screws that holds down the flywheel housing was loose. Trouble is, you can’t easily get to that screw to tighten it, so I had to figure out how to take apart the whole thing. It was fun, actually!
Last week at the IOS “Trainer ride with a Pro” workout, my trainer started making that noise again. Luckily, they had a spare fluid trainer for me to use so I was still able to ride. I was glad for the opportunity to try a fluid trainer. Honestly, it wasn’t any different in feel than the Magneto (which uses magnetic field for resistance). So, rather than buy a new one, I fixed this one again. Let’s hope it lasts another year! If I do buy another trainer, I will buy the Nashbar Wattmaster Fluid trainer, because it has power readings so you can get wattage data. That would be very cool. But, I must wait until I really really need a new trainer.
I took pictures and created captions to show how I did the repair, just in case someone is googling for information on fixing that noise. Click the play button to start slideshow. For easier reading of the captions, you can click on the slideshow and go to my Picasa Album.
Saved me a ton of money!!!! LBS would have charged me 25 per 20 minutes
Thank you very much. I had the exact same problem! Your pictures and instructional guide both saved me a lot of time. Jay
Chalk up another saved trainer due to your slide show. Easy, quick, effective. (I, too, took out the set screw completely – adhered it to the hex using a bit of hub grease. 🙂 Just finished a satisfyingly quiet, maiden “ride”. Thank you!!!
This was fantastic. Saved me a bunch of time; only thing I’d add is that you don’t have to take out the allen nut all the way; when I did it was hard to get back in. I should have only loosened it enough to take the spindle out. Thanks so much for your help.
thank so much for this I have been trying to figure out how to fix this problem for a year and a half now
Thank you immensely for photographing your magneto repair. You have saved me tons of frustration. I just completed the exact same repair with elegance thanks to you…
Thank you very much for posting this. I was sitting here staring at that c-clamp dreading and debating if I should try and take it off. Your pictures were perfect. Back up and running and training for my Olympic Tri! Thanks again!
Thanks for posting this and sharing valuable information! I had the same problem and we couldn’t figure out how to get the trainer apart. CycleOps doesn’t give you this info. Now it’s fixed with no down time sending it back to them.
You would make a great engineer!
C, I have the Magneto too, and mine squeeked, I put some tri flow oil in the little hole on the piece that your wheel goes against. No more squeeking. Funny how we have the same trainer, wish I had brought mine instead of letting it go to storage with our stuff. 🙁 Stupid.
Very cool. I’m always happy to see people getting their hands dirty to get the most out of their stuff rather than just throwing it out and buying a new on (end treehugger rant 🙂 haha).
Interesting to hear your thoughts on the mag trainer versus the fluid one. I always thought/heard that fluid trainers were better than mag trainers, but it doesn’t sound like you have noticed a difference.