Review: Van Rysel D500 indoor trainer

I’ve spent many hours on indoor trainers for various reasons. When I was younger, I used them for ‘serious’ training but now my circumstances are different. With a young child at home, any riding needs to be snatched in short bursts, and the biggest essential for indoor training is that it is time efficient.

Initial setup took a good hour; you need to fit a cassette to the direct drive unit, so make sure you have a chain whip and spanner to hand. I chose to remove the cassette from my bike as I left it permanently mounted, but if you want to be able to quickly swap between indoor and outdoor training, a second cassette is a wise investment.

Once the bike was in position, the next stage was downloading the apps, which was very simple. The trainer pairs with third-party apps such as Zwift and Strava, but you can only pair with one app at a time. I used Onelap, the Van Rysel virtual training world, which is free for the first month.

The smart trainer paired immediately, and within a few minutes I had a selection of workouts to choose from and a virtual course on screen to ride through. The ease with which I went from downloading the app to riding a route was impressive.

The on-screen prompts are very clear, helping you to focus on maintaining your cadence and matching your effort to the demands of the course. Reading reviews on the Van Rysel site, there is some criticism of not being able to find the confirmation code for the first free month; I did not find this an issue as it popped up on the screen of my phone instantly.

When riding, the smart trainer responded quickly to changes in terrain and effort, the feel of the flywheel was smooth and, even at high cadence, remarkably quiet. Claimed power measuring accuracy is +/- 2%.

I had a few problems with rocking and levelling the feet of the turbo, solved in part by moving it onto a thick mat. There have also been some compatibility issues with different cassettes, particularly SRAM, so double-check before purchase.

For reference, I was using Shimano 105 without an issue. There are numerous adapters for different dropout options, covering most current models of bikes but, again, check before purchasing.

Verdict

Once the initial building of the turbo and the need for a cassette is overcome, ongoing use is straightforward. It pairs quickly, making virtual training easy.

However, pairing multiple apps at the same time would be of benefit to some users.

Other options

Wahoo Kickr Core £449.99

Includes a cassette and can be bundled with a year’s subscription to Zwift, as well as access to Wahoo’s own apps and training ecosystem.

Tacx Flux S Smart Trainer £599

On offer at £399, making it excellent value. It comes with one month of free Zwift and Tacx premium software, as well as compatibility with Garmin products.

First published in Cycle magazine, December 24/January 25 issue. All information correct at time of publishing.