If the thought of wrestling your road bike onto the turbo every time you want to ride indoors fills you with dread, JetBlack may have the answer. We gave the JetBlack Victory Smart Trainer with Zwift Cog and Click a rare 10/10 review here on road.cc last year, so we’re interested to hear about the launch of the JetBlack Victory Indoor Trainer Frame, which costs £599 if bought alone or £899 with the Victory Trainer. The idea is that you can get an indoor riding setup for under a grand, and you don’t need to spend time mounting your outdoor bike to your trainer every time you ride indoors, or taking it off afterwards.
> Read our JetBlack Victory Smart Trainer with Zwift Cog and Click review
JetBlack Cycling says, “With an impressive adjustment range equivalent to approximately 48cm to 62cm frame sizing, Victory can be customised for different rider heights, riding styles and positions – from relaxed endurance through to aggressive road, time trial and triathlon setups.”
The Victory Indoor Trainer Frame allows you to adjust your saddle height and setback, and also alter the height of the front end and the reach to the handlebar. You also get a choice of crank lengths. The frame uses a standard threaded Shimano external bottom bracket interface, and you can also fit your own cranks or crank-based power meter if you like.
“The result is a dedicated indoor frame that can more closely replicate a rider’s preferred outdoor-bike position,” says JetBlack. “Rather than adapting the rider to a generic indoor bike, Victory is designed to adapt to the rider.”
The broad range of adjustment means that one frame can accommodate very different riders, making Victory an option for couples and families.
JetBlack says, “Created as the ultimate companion to the JetBlack Victory Trainer with Zwift Cog and Click, the frame also works out of the box with all Zwift-ready smart trainers equipped with Zwift Cog and Click, giving riders greater flexibility in how they build their indoor training setup.”
Zwift Click controllers don’t come included in the package, but they’ll integrate into the custom mounts on the handlebar hoods/levers if bought separately.
You get two bottle cages and what JetBlack calls a removable trainer tray up front.
Pre-sales begin in mid-October for deliveries at the end of November. As mentioned up top, you’re looking at £599 for the JetBlack Victory Indoor Trainer Frame alone, or £899 with the Victory Trainer.
8 thoughts on “JetBlack launches £599 indoor trainer frame so you can leave your outdoor bike alone”
I’m interested to see if Zwift drops the price of its Ride + Kickr Core setup in response to this. Ive looked at getting one ‘used’ and the £600 is roughly to price you see. So this make the rival setup quite appealing if you’re in the market for an indoor specific setup.
@Smoggysteve Genuine question, if budget is a consideration, as of course it is for most of us, why not buy one of the cheaper trainers that features Zwift Cog and Click, like the Van Rysel D100 (£279rrp) or D500 (£379 on special at Sigma Sports) and a sound and solid old bike to put on it permanently for £100 or less (easy to make a stand for the front fork if space is a consideration and you don’t want to leave the front wheel on). £599 just for the frame seems an awful lot for what it is.
@Rendel Harris Thats just a trainer. im talking about the Zwift bike frame instead of your own outdoor bike. There is no other direct competition other than getting a wattbike or similar. I have a Tacx Neo 2 trainer I use.
I looked at the Zwift bike specifically for its setup specifically and this is direct competition for that one particular item
@Smoggysteve Yes I get that, I was just wondering what the advantage is of a purpose-built frame like this or the Zwift bike compared to just having the same trainer with a dedicated standard bike? I can see that if several family members of significantly different size are going to use the trainer then the adjustability is definitely a selling point but I can’t see much advantage for a sole user, apart from maybe that is aesthetically more pleasing.
@Rendel Harris For me its partly adjustability, partly having something I can encourage the kids to use.
My biggest issue is I might be ok putting my bike on my trainer , but because its disc brake and everyone else in my households bikes are all rim braked the adapters are different and then its storage etc . 1 bike everyone can use is much more attractive and for the fraction of the cost of buying something like a wattbike.
@Smoggysteve Fair enough so! For me, with only two of us who can ride roughly the same size bikes (she rides 54 cm, me 56/58) a dedicated cheap secondhand bike would do the job but obviously if you want something that can be adjusted for kids and adults that’s where this comes into its own.
@Rendel Harris If budget is the sole priority, I would agree it’s probably possible to cobble together a cheaper setup. But I guess this has the advantage of simplicity – just buy it, wait for it to be delivered and you know you’re good to go.
To get a £100 “sound and solid” old bike, I assume you’re having to scour the internet and deal with the cesspits that are Facebook Marketplace, eBay etc., avoiding scams and obviously stolen bikes. You need to find a bike that fits, and although it doesn’t need to be in perfect working order, you’re still using most of the drivechain so you need to check that’s all serviceable condition. If your £100 bike needs new chainrings, new chain, new bottom bracket etc., then it’s no longer a £100 bike. You might also want things like new bartape, new saddle etc. Find a bike that looks good, and you normally still need to faff with arranging collection from the seller.
This gets even more complicated if you’re pernickety about fit. Many older and/or cheaper bikes won’t have geometry charts available online so you might have to guess whether you can replicate your desired fit measurements. Some things you can adjust easily (e.g. saddle height – assuming the seatpost isn’t seized!); some things can be amended with a bit more time/effort/money (new stem, new handlebars); some things you might discover are pretty much impossible to change to your desire parameters (e.g. effective seat tube angle will be limited by the range of fore/aft adjustment on the saddle rails; maybe +/- another couple of cm if you switch an offset to/from an inline seatpost – at additional expense).
Building a stand for the fork might be relatively easy for you, but it requires a degree of competence, some tools, probably a trip to a hardware store etc.
No insurmountable challenges, but I can see why someone might decide to just splash some cash in order to have a nice, new, known quantity turn up at their door, ready to go.
@Rendel Harris yeah, I struggle to see where the costs in these things is coming from. They don’t have any of the constraints that a normal bike has to worry about when it comes to alignment at the front end, bearings, weight, tolerances. Its literally just a adjustable frame with a small amount of electronics.
I understand the convenience angle vs an old bike but it just feels like a lot for something very simple and cheap to manufacture.