Indoor Bike Trainer Desk - Best Wahoo Cycling Desk Alternative

Medical overbeds make great bike
trainer desks and are affordable
Wahoo Kickr Desk Alternatives 
The best CHEAP indoor bike trainer desk I have used is a medical overbed. Medical overbeds make great alternative indoor bike training desks and are far less expensive than Wahoo's Kickr Desk or DC Rainmaker's Podium Desk. My personal favorite medical overbed (and the one I use) is the $60 Vaunn Medical Adjustable Overbed. Some people prefer a stand that has a slot for iPads and this RAD Cycling desk for $118 is similar to the Wahoo Kickr desk in design.

For those unfamiliar, medical overbeds are designed to:
  • Have a telescoping table platform for easy height adjustment
  • Slide underneath the bed of a patient making eating & tv watching easy while in a hospital.
However, these design features make for excellent indoor cycling desks, media carts, and laptop stands and the Vaunn Medical Overbed has the following specific features and benefits:

In lowest (28 highest) and
highest (40 inches) positions
  • Adjusts from 28 inches to 40 inches.
  • Has wheels and can be moved easily both for storage or in case you need to adjust the position while cycling. Think laptop viewing angle.
  • The height of the table can be adjusted easily with one hand.
  • Stable base with large platform for all your computer, water, and food needs
  • Easy to put together (less than 10 minutes)
  • Inexpensive
In addition to using the medical overbed as indoor cycling trainer desk, it can also be used in other ways including:
Putting the bike back together on a
nice & sunny Wisconsin summer day

Bike Maintenance 
- I will set a towel on top and place all the tools I will need for the job. The telescoping up/down platform is easy to do one-handed and the table moves smoothly.

Laying in the bed with the boots - using recovery compression boots and a laptop, although doable, sometimes I prefer to use the overbed as a more stable platform that isn't going up and down with the expansion and contraction of the boots. Some people believe you shouldn't keep a warm laptop in your middle region As a true TV Tray - I will admit, I have never actually used this as a TV tray, but I would presume many people could.

Recommended Bike Trainer Desks on Amazon:

- Vaunn Eva Medical Overbed ($60)
- RAD Indoor Cycling Desk (Alternative Wahoo Kickr Desk) ($118) - Conquer Desk (Alternative Wahoo Kickr Desk) ($139)
- Wahoo Kickr Desk ($249)

Other Recommended Bike Trainer Products:

- Amazon: Generic Cycling Mat (6 feet x 2.5 feet) ($30) (I personally own one, great mat!)

- Amazon: Cyclops Cycling Mat (5.5 feet x 3 feet) ($65) (I personally own one, great mat but pricey!)

- CompetitveCyclist: Wahoo Kickr Smart Power Trainer ($~1200) (I personally own one, my all time favorite trainer!)

- Amazon: Kurt Kinetic Fluid Trainer (~$350) - gold standard trainer for those that don't want a smart trainer - I used a Kurt Kinetic for many years before the dawn of smart trainers. Extremely well built and durable.
- Amazon: Cyclops Hammer Direct Drive Trainer ($999 $699) - great deal on smart trainer as Cyclops rebrands their company under the Saris umbrella.
- Amazon: Saris H3 Direct Drive Trainer ($999) - Newly rebranded and updated direct drive smart trainer.


8 comments:

  1. What a great idea! Thank you. =)

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    Replies
    1. You are more than welcome. Sorry for the late reply. This one slipped thru the cracks :)

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    2. Thomas Gerlach. I don't suppose you're from Cologne?

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    3. I am not, sorry. I am from Wisconsin.

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    4. Ah ok. Thank you for letting me know. :)

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  2. Thanks I bought this and using it like you, I put it on the side of my bike and put my laptop there and phone as well. I will drill a big hole in the desk and pull a 6 port USB charger cable through it and place the USB charger on the desk too, I will also run the laptop power cable through the hole too. This way I can neatly run the cables to the top of the desk and charge the laptop and several phones at once. Great post and I got this because of you and like it very much. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. James, glad I could help. I would love to get some pictures of your mods if you care to send them over when you are done :)

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  3. Thanks for this tip. Was getting ready to pull the trigger on the Wahoo desk and did this instead. What a great idea. Saved me a ton of $$$ and I love it

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