Lifeline Rocker Plate review
£299.99 £224.99 - Wiggle
Apologies, this is more a stream of consciousness than a well structured review, but I’m not getting paid to write this so you get what you get! Multiple edits were to add pics and correct a litany of typos…
I ordered it on Friday evening 09/10 from Wiggle, it was delivered Monday afternoon on 12/10 – ridiculously fast. Off to a good start, and even the delivery guy used to be a bike mechanic, so had a nice chat. It was well packaged, looked like I’d ordered the world’s biggest piece of parmesan!
What’s included: Main rocker plate (already assembled), 4x inflatable balls (2 spares), hand pump, a load of Velcro straps, miniature spirit level
The next 3 points are about set up – I’ll go into the fine details, so skip ahead if you like. In brief, set up is in theory straightforward enough, but not without a few snags in my case. I don’t agree with some reviews I’ve seen that the instructions were unclear, but I do think they’re quite high-level and not trainer-specific.
Level ground
A lot of the time I spent was getting the rocker to be level on my very slightly sloping and knobbly garage floor. By eye it looked fine straight away, but the spirit level said otherwise, so do consider checking this in case your floor isn’t completely flat. I used some cardboard ‘shims’ that I’d already been using under the feet of my trainer to get the level right (remember to measure the level in several places).
The feet of the rocker are rubber, so they’re good for grip. If the feet were adjustable for height, e.g. screw in/out, that would make life much easier, it’d mean no ghetto fix was needed, and save me having to get on my knees and lift the thing many times getting it right. At least the rocker plate hides the shims underneath, so it does still look neat.
Fixing the trainer on
You then put the trainer on the rocker plate lined up with whichever of the many cut outs is right for your trainer. You loop the adjustable Velcro straps through the rocker plate and around your trainer to secure it. My Tacx Flux 2 can only be fixed in place by its front legs, there’s no way to hold the sloping stubby legs at the back. All contact points of the trainer sit on a textured rubber surface, which seems good for grip. I felt confident quite quickly that the setup was solid and secure – it just doesn’t slip.
The cut outs I had to use resulted in the trainer being a bit left-of-centre, despite the instruction to place the trainer centrally on the rocker plate. It should say to put it ‘as central as you can’, because the cut-outs dictate the position with maybe 3cm of room for manoeuvre (1.5cm each side). This left the flywheel of my Flux 2 a bit off centre, but I guess the longer front and rear legs on the trainer’s right-hand-side are designed to compensate for this physical imbalance. The cut outs for securing the front wheel are in pretty narrow rows either side of the wheel, meaning it’s great for holding the front wheel securely in place. Before getting the rocker, I hated having my front wheel loose on the floor wobbling around. I used a home-made riser partly to keep the wheel still, but also to raise the axle a little for comfort as @mcneese.chad has recommended previously). If you used a riser on this rocker plate, you wouldn’t be able to strap your front wheel down, as the riser would cover the cut outs. To be fair, the rubber surface would probably keep any riser in place well enough by itself. For me, I’ve decided to lose the riser for now, as I wanted to take some pressure off my rear end, and I have some extra cushy bar tape on order, which should help a bit with hand comfort.
Balls up
This was probably the worst part of set up for me. At this point, you should be able to just stick the uninflated ball through the hole in the top of the rocker plate and inflate. There’s also a hole directly below in the bottom plate, so the ball sits still where it needs to once inflated.
The legs of my Flux 2 partially obstructed access to the right-hand hole, and completely covered the left-hand hole – great! Crouching/laying on the floor, I managed to get the balls in place by going between the sides of the plates. Because access to the balls from the top was obstructed, I had to swivel the balls so that the valve holes point outwards. Doing all of this involved lifting the weight of the trainer and top plate to make enough room to get the ball and my arm in, and resulted in some scratched up hands and wrists.
Luckily the flex of the pump is (only) just long enough to reach the ball from the side of the rocker plate. I then picked myself off the floor, got the pump upright and started inflating. The plastic handle of the pump looks flimsy AF, so I took care not to apply any unintended twisting forces or anything while pumping.
The instructions say to inflate to the point that when you step on one side, you’re just able to make the plates touch. You’re also instructed to use the spirit level at this point to make sure the top plate is even. I did all this, but afterwards during a test ride, I felt like I was tipping over to one side. My view is that inflation is highly individual. There’s no pressure gauge on the pump, so just get to a sensible looking baseline and test it. Then put a little air in or take some out until it feels right. What’s right will no doubt differ significantly by trainer and how its weight is distributed, as well as individual preference.
Once the trainer is on the rocker, it makes more sense to me to only use the spirit level after you’ve got your setup feeling right for you. This would only be if you wanted to get pedantic about fine tuning any very minor imbalances. I suppose this could be the sort of thing that could develop into a fit/soreness problem over time if left unchecked. Once I was happy with the feel of my setup, I simply laid the spirit level on a couple of central places on the trainer during a workout and glanced down at it at various points. It tended to show the right-hand side was higher more often that not, so I deflated the ball on the right a little. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve now got it so the bubble in the spirit level stays within the central area, but sways to each edge to mirror the rocking of the trainer as I pedal. I pay no attention to how level it is without me on the bike pedalling.
So how is it?
The first ride ( Boarstone – 2 hours Z2) felt a little harder than expected – it was probably because setting up the rocker plate physically affected me worse than the few strength sessions I’ve done this year. I noticed my cadence was about 10rpm lower than usual to begin with (it eventually returned to normal) – I was probably a little tense and sub-consciously worried about letting loose straight away.
Sensations
I did the first ride just with music, to tried and focus on how it felt. It actually felt good and pretty normal straight away – not exactly like riding out on the road, but much more similar.
Riding out of the saddle is a revelation compared to a static trainer – I’ve done a 1 minute effort, and several 30 second bouts in recent rides including near the end of a 3.5 hour workout. It’s not completely natural, but much closer to being out on the road. Out of the saddle efforts on the static trainer just feel weird to me. The longest I’d mustered previously was 20 seconds, but usually it was 5 or 10 seconds before ‘quad burn’ sets in and I’d have to saddle up.
Looking back at myself with my phone camera, the main thing I notice when riding is how the seatpost seems to sway toward the downward pushing leg. This is stating the obvious, but essentially the trainer is now dynamic – it moves with the input of your body rather than being a static thing with something dynamic on top of it (a recipe for rubbing in my case).
Thrills and spills
The rocking motion doesn’t feel perilous even when deliberately leaning a fair way over. I soon felt happy to take my hands off the bars, sit upright etc. Climbing off the bike is the closest I’ve come to falling over so far. You need to take care – the platform itself isn’t massive, and the rubbery parts of the surface are mainly under the trainer. As we all know, cleats are slippy, so it’d be much nicer if the whole surface was covered with rubber rather than just the trainer contact points.
Comfort
My sole reason for getting a rocker plate was to enhance my comfort on the trainer. I’ve been using TR for about a year now and generally tolerated a bit of butt discomfort. Until now my sit bones would feel achy from pressure after about 30 mins Z2, and I occasionally got a bit of saddle soreness in the perineum which was worse with some of my shorts than others. I started a traditional base plan a few weeks ago, so my riding is suddenly 90% long Z2 – with less pressure on the pedals and more saddle time. After a couple of rides with my old static setup I knew it wasn’t going to be sustainable, so I dialled things to the extent that it wasn’t keeping me from training, but I would always have a sore patch or painful spot here or there (sorry if TMI!).
With the rocker plate, so far I’ve noticed that I am still getting a little discomfort during longer rides, which I think is to be expected, but no pain. I don’t seem to be getting what I assume was rubbing which was causing the soreness before, and it feels like I’m slowly healing up.
In conclusion
Hopefully I’ve conveyed that although there wasn’t much ‘assembly’ involved in getting the rocker plate set up, it was nevertheless a real chore, and it took about 1.5 – 2 hours. Barely being able to reach the inflatable balls with the pump is a pretty bad design flaw in my book, considering this product is supposed to be compatible with the Flux. I’m sure with a different shape of trainer it’s a complete non-issue though.
Moving past setup… it’s early days, but I like riding with this rocker plate a lot so far. It’s delivering more comfort in-ride, and seems to have alleviated my ongoing saddle soreness already. The more natural motion means I can get out of the saddle longer and more often, which also helps with comfort.
I take claims of the rocker helping to improve core stability with a grain of salt. My core ain’t great, my wobbly side planks are testament to that, but holding steady/stable on the rocker plate isn’t a challenge whatsoever. This product won’t make me a better/faster cyclist in itself, but it will let me carry on riding pain free through these cold wet winter months, which hopefully is the same thing.
For the price, it’s easily cheaper than 2 nice pairs of bib shorts or 2 saddles, which you could easily go through in your quest for comfort. Even if it wasn’t needed to fix an issue, I’d be surprised if anyone found using a rocker plate worse than a static trainer. I couldn’t buy the tools and materials to make this product for less, so I’m a happy customer!
