Given those of us in the northern hemisphere are plummeting out of the heady heights of summer and into the cold dark depths of winter, a discount on a fan probably isn’t hard to come by, and certainly not something most of the population will be getting excited about.
But this fan is unlike most. It’s a Wahoo Kickr Headwind, and as anyone who’s ridden indoors for more than about 10 minutes will tell you, it can be a game-changer.
I own one of these fans, and it gets almost daily use. In fact, after a day of searching for the best Prime Day cycling deals yesterday, I decided to cap my day off with a 90-minute training ride (3 x 20-mins sweetspot if you care). The weather outside was rubbish, so off I toddled to the spare bedroom where my latest review trainer – the Zwift Ride, complete with a Wahoo Kickr Core Zwift One – is set up, and there, staring me in the face, propped next to the TV on which I watched Sina Frei win the latest round of the UCI XCO World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne, was the Kickr Headwind.
It’s an item I’ve had since around 2019, and it’s been put through some serious hardship. It has suffered flooding and temperature swings of -8C to around +35C in its time, but it still goes (and blows) strong every time I ride inside.
I’ll be honest and say that many other fans would easily do a similar job, especially the industrial fans that have a powerful flow with narrow air direction, rather than the massive round ones with huge propellers that blow air in a general direction, but its app-based controls and automation based on speed or heart rate are just some of the things that set it apart.
It’s not the only indoor cycling deal worth looking at today, the final day of this latest Prime Day sale, but if you’re looking to kit out your own spare bedroom (or garage, shed, wherever…) for a winter of indoor cycling, and you don’t have a high-powered fan, then at least consider it.
And if you are getting set up indoors for the first time, here’s a collection of offers that we’ve pulled out of Amazon and elsewhere that we think are worth considering. These are all products that either my colleagues or I have personally used and rated highly.
