FDW Bike Trainer Review

When we test bike trainers, we do our best to eke out every detail about performance and expectations, then try to exploit or break those points. We keep an eye on the right users as well. That's especially important for trainers like the FDW, where the machine has no hope to compete with the high-end trainers, but it should meet the needs of many riders who wouldn't need or want all the offerings of the upper range. Indeed, this trainer is best suited to riders just looking to get their legs spinning for minimal cost.

Performance Comparison

The FDW is what you grab when your funds are very limited and you need something to get your legs moving right bloody now.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Connectivity and Power Accuracy

The FDW is fairly simple for this measure. Understandably, it's not going to rank up near the high-end trainers. That said, we were pretty unimpressed with its performance here. We weren't able to find any power curve information on it to get a good baseline for comparisons to test against our power meter and across trainers in our lineup. Even so, the magnetic resistance unit with its shifter left a lot wanting. A basic fluid trainer probably would have done better here, despite the extra weight it would add.

Road Feel

Tire drive trainers tend to feel less realistic than direct drive trainers anyway, but magnetic resistance units also tend to have a less natural push-pull feel, too. The physics are different for magnets, and they're not as excellent of an approximation as fluid (or electronic/controllable-smart, of course). The FDW is no exception here. It has a too-smooth feel that you can easily spin out against. You don't feel the inertia of the road; you feel either very limited resistance at the lower resistance level or too much at the higher level as you manually adjust the resistance up or down. As we say for this trainer, "any port in a storm," so it will certainly do the job of getting you on the bike and spinning inside without hurting your bank account, but it's really basic.

The FDW is made to give you a baseline of resistance, not to replicate the road. Its small resistance unit won't transport you to the mountains, but you'll definitely be riding.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Design

This is an area where we have some qualms. One qualm, really. It's in the fastener that locks the rear axle in place. To get the bolt to tighten and lock, there's a grooved plastic sleeve. The FDW's sleeve and bolt don't fit together very well, so getting the bolt to lock was a huge pain. But for the mission of bringing this review to you, we would have packed that baby up and sent it right back.

The plastic sleeve on the right failed immediately. It took a lot of shouting and shaking to get things to work.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Otherwise, the design is fairly streamlined. The resistance unit is fairly basic, using magnets to give you eight levels of resistance. You don't get the same smooth, gradual feel you might get with a fluid unit, but it's nice to be able to control the resistance if you want.

Setup

A major selling point of the FDW is that it's really simple to set up and doesn't take a lot of time. It's not exactly plug and play, but it's not far off. Instructions for assembly are included, and so are the tools to get you there.

The hardest part is getting the bolt into the resistance unit, but a little frustrated jiggling and teeth clenching should do the trick. It's unavoidable with the tight fits like this, and you get that for most tire drive trainers where you're assembling the resistance units.

One benefit of a basic trainer is the simplistic setup.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Once you have everything in its right place, all of your bolts, screws, and knobs, you're ready to throw the new skewer with the rounded acorn nuts on the bike and get the axle locked in. Here's the area where we had the biggest complaint about the model because the FDW's plastic locking shaft actually split and wouldn't tighten down until we did a lot of serious man-handling and improvising. Eventually, we got it to tighten down and hold the frame upright.

Just a few bolts and this trainer is ready to go.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Simply affix the shifter to your handlebars and you're off to the races.

Photo: Ryan Baham

Portability

This is the area where this trainer excels. It's really easy to pack up and put away when not in use. It folds up into a small footprint so you can stash it in the corner, in the closet (don't forget about it in there!), under your bed, or even in a suitcase to take out on the road. You can even remove the resistance unit and store it separately from the base if your Tetris-packing game isn't top-level.

Value

This trainer falls squarely into the category of "It will work if that's all that's available in your price range." It's not at the top of our list.

Conclusion

No, the FDW Bike Trainer isn't the fanciest trainer out, but it gets the job done on a tight budget. It had some limitations on resistance, and we were pretty disappointed in some of the design failures. Still, for its price and the general availability of trainers on the market, it worked and got the legs moving. There's not a lot more that can be asked given those conditions. The strongest point of caution here is that the company doesn't seem to be too well established, so the extent of support and customer service will likely need to come through your seller. Make sure to check your terms before buying.

Barring clamp issues, this is a minimalist, easy to manage trainer that will get you spinning with minimal effort.

Photo: Ryan Baham