I purchased this 1up trainer back in 2004. At the time, I was living in Florida and I really didn’t use it much. The main reason I chose this particular trainer was because of all the positive reviews and glowing recommendations I found out on the interwebs.
Fast forward to 2007, and I found myself living in the mountains and rapidly achieving max density body wise. Between the effort to ride in the hills at my weight, and the strange white stuff found on the ground during the winter, I turned to riding the trainer.
For quite a while I absolutely hated the trainer. This hatred didn’t have anything to do with the 1up its self, rather the experience in general. I would do anything I could to exercise other than ride the trainer.
At some point I got over my trainer phobia and started using the 1up more frequently and for longer durations.
In the beginning it seemed to work well enough, and it’s very quiet, so watching movies or listening to music isn’t a problem. You don’t have to crank up the volume, and other people can watch the movie with you and still hear it over the sound of the trainer, it really is quiet.
The resistance unit works like a centrifugal clutch, using large ball bearings to apply force to the friction material. Initially, the resistance was very smooth and progressive, but it became ‘jerky’ after extended use. It’s important to note that the resistance unit I’m talking about is the original one with the small silver aluminum flywheel.
I was able to restore the smooth action by cleaning and re-lubing the ball bearings and bearing tracks, for the most part…
Toward the end of last year’s Tour de Garage the adjustment track on the left leg of the trainer gave way…
I honestly don’t think the trainer or the design should bear the brunt of the fault for this failure. Several factors need to be considered. The trainer is used nearly daily, most of the time by me and my wife, which means that the closure system and the adjustment mechanisms are constantly employed.
In as much as it is very easy to mount a bike on the trainer, and I have taken to doing it by way of articulating the lever with my foot, it is entirely possible that I mounted a bike with the adjustment too tight, and thus created the fracture…
The trainer has a ‘life time’ warranty, and I’m happy to report that 1up really stand behind their product.
An email was sent, and a response was quickly received. 1up offered to either send me the part which would have me up and running the quickest, or they would have UPS pick it up and fix it for me.
I opted for the pick up and the UPS guy showed up at my door that day, I had to ask him to come back so that I could get the trainer packed for shipment…
While the 1up was being repaired, I still had training to do. Fortunately the LBS had a 
trainer available for me to rent. As fate would have it, it was a Blackburn Trak Stand Ultra, and had the exact same resistance unit as my 1up.
It took about a week to get my trainer back from 1up, and when I opened the box, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only had 1up replaced the broken part, but they had replaced the resistance unit with their newer spec one. The new resistance unit has a different flywheel, and some different internals to my original one.
So far, and I have around 500 hours on the new unit, the resistance unit has been perfectly smooth and progressive. I don’t have a power meter, so I can’t quantify the power curve of the resistance unit, but I always seem to go faster outdoors than I do on the trainer.
With regard to the power curve, Trainer Road has a power curve that they use to produce their ‘Virtual Power’ while using the 1up, it’s Beta, but they have one…
There may be others I’m not aware of…
All in all I’m very satisfied with my 1up Trainer, even more so with the new resistance unit. 1up build a quality product and they definitely stand by it.
Unfortunately, I can’t compare the 1up to any other trainers, as the only other trainer I’ve been on used the same resistance unit…
However, my trainer is in daily use by either me or my wife or both, to the tune of more than 1,500 hours of use in the last 3 years. The trainer could easily have twice that much time on it but I haven’t always been meticulous about recording usage time for the both of us…
