Blackburn Raceday Portable Trainer

It's not often you get a product to test that's touted as being the same size as a chihuahua. But the Raceday Portable Trainer from Blackburn is, and it's a super-portable way to get your pre-race warm-up sorted. It's not cheap but it is nicely made, and works well. If you're a committed racer, it might be just the ticket.

• Pros: Light, portable, easy to use
• Cons: Resistance can feel a bit choppy, wheelbase pinch bolt is probably the weak point

First things first: it would be a fairly big chihuahua. But the Raceday trainer does pack up super-small, into its own carry bag. I had my worries that this would make it a fiddle to open out into a full-length trainer, but they were unfounded: just pull the legs out (they automatically click into place), fold the resistance unit out, fit the fork to the stand and tighten up the pinch bolt when you've got the rollers under the rear wheel. The whole process takes about half a minute.

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Once the bike is in place (make sure you do the front quick release up nice and tight), the trainer is impressively stable. The tripod stand at the front keeps you upright for out of the saddle efforts, so long as you don't throw your weight around too much. The Raceday trainer can be set up to cope with any wheel size from a 24in junior tyre to a 29x3in plus-sized mountain bike tyre, and it can accept 12mm and 15mm front thru-axles too. So it's pretty versatile.

Blackburn uses a fluid resistance system in the rollers, which tops out at about 650 watts: not enough for a full-bore sprint but plenty for pre-race warm-ups. The rollers are pretty quiet (not that that's a major consideration in a car park), but there's not a lot of mass in them, which can make the trainer feel a bit choppy unless you really concentrate on smoothing out your pedal stroke. To be fair, that's probably something you should be doing anyway.

I found that for a 15-20-minute warm-up before a crit race it was easy enough to set up and get going, and the fact that you can't fall off the rollers makes it a more relaxing way to warm up. Once you're done, it's just a case of re-fitting your front wheel and heading off. I didn't really notice the rollers causing any meaningful wear on my race tyre.

The Raceday is designed for race day – it's not just a clever name – but that's not the only use you could put it to. If you're pressed for space at home but you still want to get some indoor miles in then the trainer will fit in the bottom of the cupboard and you can set it up in under a minute. You could also use it if your club organises a regular turbo night: it's small enough that you could sling it in a rucksack and ride there for some extra exercise.

At £349, though, the Raceday trainer is a premium product, and realistically you're going to need to be fairly committed to racing (or another of the use cases mentioned above) in order to make it worthwhile. But if you are, it's a well-made piece of equipment that performs well.

> Buyer's Guide: 17 of the best indoor trainers and rollers

My only worry about the design is the pinch bolt that you use to set the wheelbase of the trainer: it feels a little flimsy compared to the rest of the build and constantly tightening and releasing a bolt tends to wear the threads over time. Having said that, if it ever did fail then the Raceday is covered by Blackburn's lifetime warranty, so you can have a new one on them. As such, I'm not going to mark it down at all for that.

Overall, it's good: the road feel is okay and the progressive resistance works pretty well. It's more stable than I expected too. If your cycling season includes lots of opportunities to use the Raceday then it's certainly worth looking at.

Verdict

Nicely built and super-portable trainer with progressive resistance