Hi everyone. A quick question for you pain cave enthusiasts.
Currently I have my bike on a Kickr Core in the garage. It’s a concrete floor and I have a 10mm yoga/gym mat underneath the whole set up (in theory to make it easy to wipe up and not have it dripping all over the dusty garage floor. In practice its so that I’m not standing on a cold floor before I put my shoes on).
I’m thinking of upgrading a little and covering the floor of the back section of the garage with gym matting/tiles of some kind to give a more of a gym-type space for strength/yoga/post-omnium lie down.
Does anyone have any experience of putting a bike/trainer on top of such matting? Do I need to be wary of anything lest it feels like I’m bouncing around? (What prompted my thought was that a friend took up carpet and put tiles down over the underlay. It felt like he was on a trampoline). Anything else to consider/look out for?
I’d appreciate any thoughts at all. I know there are plenty of luxury pain caves out there so people must have approached the same problem I have.
I use mats from my friend’s martial arts gym that he no longer wanted. I think they’re great. The Kickr is stable (although it did move forward slightly when doing Violator ).
It gives a slightly softer feeling as the setup does have some margin to move under my weight, a little like a rocker plate might.
All in all, a good investment by me. These mats are 1 m^2.
I put 10mm thick 60cm square jigsaw/interlocking foam mats down on my garage floor to give a 6’x10’ area for strength/yoga as you describe. I can feel the trainer move under hard efforts but its not like a trampoline, more a gentle rocking which feels natural and I imagine what rocker plates feel like? I put mine treadplate textures side down, smooth side up because they were grippier that way for yoga.
I bought interlocking rubber mats (like others appear to have done) from Costco. They work great, no bounce, and much better on the feet on cold mornings like yesterday when it was 33 F when I finished up.
I use a Finish Line mat (Finish Line - Bicycle Lubricants and Care Products - Absorb-It™ Mat). It’s very thin, so doesn’t compress at all. I haven’t had any issues with the mat moving, or the trainer moving on the mat. It’s definitely nicer to stand on than the concrete garage floor!
I was planning on putting horse stable mats down in my garage (need to fix a leak first).
They’re hard wearing and easy to clean. They’re less padded (could be a pro or a con) but with my main goal is to protect weight plates from damaging the concrete floor or vice versa they seem to be a reasonable option.
I just laid down 3/4" thick rubber mats (24 sq ft) under the trainer and bike. I had a thin mat that kept “creeping” under large efforts. These 3/4" stay in place.
You aren’t far off. Here was the view from my trainer last weekend. When my son practices, it really does screw up my cadence: I want to keep pace with him, not the workout.
I have my trainer on top of an exercise mat on top of carpet (to protect the carpet from my volumes of suf holy water) that’s on the concrete foundation slab. At first it might have been cushy and wiggled a bit because of the carpet, but it settled in within a couple weeks and now I forget it’s even on the carpet. And even with 1,000w+ sprint efforts it never moves or shifts.
I used to have it in the garage on top of concrete and it would move during sprints. I started using the rubber mat and that helped, but it would still shift - just not as much. So, the mat on top of carpet actually seems to give me the best results with the trainer and mat no longer moving at all during sprints.
Used same for my Wahoo Kickr Smart bike. Works great. Easy clean up and sturdy enough. It also gives the bike a little bit of sideway play which simulates rocking effect of IRL riding but definitely not unstable.
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