Review: Feedback Sports Portable Omnium Trainer
If you are a devoted cyclist then there is a chance that you have been bitten by the racing bug at one time or another. It’s inevitable that you will want to go further, go faster, and for longer periods of time. Most of us know going into it that we will never raise our arms crossing the line of an alpine stage of the Tour de France. Heck, most of us won’t raise our arms in victory crossing the line of our local parking lot training series, but that doesn’t stop us from pursuing fitness like it’s our second job. I have to admit that I am a bit of a recovering race-a-holic, I struggle daily not to let it consume my life again but the feeling of being completely fit in the summertime can be tough to resist.
Living in the Mid-Atlantic area means dealing with harsh winter weather. Rain and cold, snow and cold, ice and cold, the list goes on but all of it makes riding outside not quite as enjoyable as it should be. If you want to be ready for when the weather finally flips from bad to good then you will likely find yourself pedaling indoors on some sort of stationary device. For a long time, I would spend winter nights after work pedaling away to nowhere, first on a magnetic trainer and then later on rollers. Over the last few years, I have all but sworn off riding trainers indoors. I have given up on trying to be the fastest I can be and have accepted that cycling alone is enjoyable enough. The past couple of winters I have found myself riding outside in the inclement conditions less and less, and being completely out of shape when the warm weather shows up more and more. Desperate to not feel like all of the oxygen is being stolen from my body after 3-minute efforts I reconsidered my current stance on indoor trainers.
I had been seeing the Feedback Sports Omnium Portable Trainer around racecourses and popping up on ads on various cycling websites so when asked if I would like to test one out I quickly obliged. My desire to be less out of shape and my curiosity that there might just be a trainer out there that could make this motionless pursuit more enjoyable made the decision easy.
First thing I noticed about the Omnium was the design and the ease of portability. It comes in its little carrying bag, a great feature if you are someone who likes to take a trainer to an event for warming up or taking it on the road to sneak in workouts at the hotel. It’s also easy to store and put away. If you are like me and you live with non-cyclists, nothing bums them out more than having all of your cycling-related things everywhere.
The Omnium is also quiet, you can ride without interrupting the rest of your house. Gone are the days of noisy wind and magnet trainers that sound like a helicopter is landing on the roof of your house. Setting the bike up on the trainer is also super easy. The fork-mounted stand accommodates just about every skewer and axle size available and comes ready with adapters. This means that you can ride all of your bikes on it if you so desire, mountain, road, whatever.
The small rollers where the back wheel sits rolls with the smoothness of high-end rollers but also offers the Internal Progressive Resistance feature, which means the harder you pedal the stronger the resistance. Once the bike is set up on the Omnium, it feels nice and sturdy, while riding out of the saddle there is no fear of coming loose or toppling over.
For $429, it is on par with most of the stationary trainers on the market these days. Though not technically a smart trainer you are still able to use online programs like Zwift, suffer-fest, etc., when using your own ANT+ compatible devices. If you are someone that is a borderline pro-Zwifter, you may want to look into one of the direct-drive trainers with built-in power and transmitter options. However, direct-drive smart trainers also cost almost three times as much as the Omnium Portable Trainer.
The Omnium is perfect for someone who enjoys spending most of their time outside riding but doesn’t want to go dormant when the weather gets bad. Its smooth-pedaling feel is a welcome change compared to my old magnetic trainer and having the fork locked down means I can watch endless hours of Netflix while pedaling without the fear of flying off the rollers. Although spring is just around the corner, the weather is still pretty unpleasant around these parts. I’ll be sneaking in some regular sessions on my Omnium hoping to not get left for dead on the first official group rides of the spring.
