BACKGROUND
I ride my bicycle to work for most of the year (when the weather is decent and I have enough daylight), and I was looking for a way to maintain my fitness through the winter months after my exercise bike died of old age. A number of fellow cyclists recommended that I look into getting a trainer. Since I am not a competitive cyclist (FTP 250-300 depending on how/when I measure), I wanted something that would have mimic the experience of riding on the road fairly well without breaking the bank, so I decided to try this fluid trainer.

THE PRODUCT
The trainer arrived securely packaged in a double thickness cardboard box with molded styrofoam to hold the pieces in place. Despite this, I noticed that the main bolt and nut (for attaching the fluid brake/flywheel assembly to the frame) were miss when I laid out all the parts and tools. There was a card in the box suggesting that I e-mail Alpcour's customer service department if there were parts missing rather than returning the item. The card indicated that they would respond within 24 hours, so I decided to give it a try before attempting a return over the holidays. Customer service did indeed reply within 24 hours, notifying me that replacement parts had been shipped and would arrive in 3-6 business days. I received no further communication and the parts arrived 17 business days later (shipped domestically from about 200 miles away). I realize that no manufacturing process is perfect, but the presence of the card and the poor communication about the shipping and arrival of parts makes me wonder if they have a QC problem. One star removed due to this negative experience.

ASSEMBLY
I have seen complaints about how difficult this product is to assemble, so I wanted to add my perspective. I found the product assembly to be quick and painless, with the exception of the above-mentioned missing parts. I am a mechanical engineer, which may have helped, but the instructions (complete with photographs of each step) seemed pretty straight forward.

NOISE
Since reports also seemed to vary on the noise this trainer generates, I took some measurements. I bought a new tire for my rear wheel that was designed to minimize noise when using a trainer, so bear in mind that your results may vary if you are using a road tire. For my test setup I used an iPhone 12 to measure the sound levels and placed it about 6 inches to the right side of the saddle (the side where the drive train is located on my bike). For both pedaling tests, I put the bike into its highest gear ratio to maximize the rotation speed of the rear wheel.

Background room noise: 40 dB (average)
Bike suspended off of the trainer and pedaling as fast as possible: 65 dB (average)
Maximum pedaling speed with the bike on the trainer: 70 dB (average), peak 72.1 dB

According to the Center for Hearing and Communication, 60 dB is similar to the nose from a sewing machine and 70 dB is similar to TV audio. I listen to music with in-ear headphones without active noise cancellation while I ride and found that I could not hear the trainer while listening to music at a modest (half) volume. However, if you intend to use this in a living space, it is not subtle. Sleeping would likely be difficult and I could see it getting annoying for anyone without a wall between them and the trainer.

PERFORMANCE
As someone else commented, the resistance feels very low initially but ramps up over 10-15 seconds. The variability in resistance cited in the product description was noticeable, but reminded me more of wind resistance at various speeds than the difference between going up or down hill. If you want to use this trainer to stay active and get some exercise, it should work great. If (like me) you want to train for road rides, I recommend using a bike with multiple speeds to allow some resistance control without getting off the bike. I would say even this is more similar to the experience of shifting gears on a constant grade, but it is better than constantly stopping to adjust the tension knob.

CONCLUSION
Customer service was good, and the trainer does everything I wanted, so 5 stars from me. If noise is a significant concern you may want to look at magnetic trainers, and if you are an athlete trying to get a competitive edge you may want something with a bit more features and flexibility. But if you're looking for a modestly priced trainer to keep those muscles in practice until you can hit the road again, this device should do the job nicely.

As many of you who have purchased this item, you will find that there are no assembly instructions in the box or online. The product reviews on this page highlight this issue are responded to with a "figure it out, it's easy." Well, I needed a second set of eyes to figure it out and though the assembly is easy, it isn't intuitive. So here is a quick write up of how to put it together.

1. unbox everything. You'll find bags with the spindle, tools and bolts. You'll also find the stand pre-assembled which is nice. The flywheel comes in a separate foam container.
2. Stand up the trainer it's facing away from you (imagine its already assembled and you are behind your bike.
3. Take that bolt with the spring on it and detach the knob. hold the spring and washer assemblies together.
4. Insert the L shape into the slot at the bottom of the trainer and mate the spring loaded assembly to the through hole opposite the front-face of the trainer (it will make sense if you oriented it in step 2).
5. Re-install the knob to the bolt behind the bike trainer (you should see plenty of thread on the bolt piece that is protruding from the through-hole not constrained by the spring.
5. Mount the flywheel to the trainer stand
6. While keeping the tension on the flywheel, insert the bolt across the flywheel bolt area and tighten across the back of the bike trainer. (note, the tools they send are nice but I found my socket set and ratchet to more effective in tightening the cross-bolt).

Proceed to follow the bike mounting/installation instructions.

I hope I wrote these up correctly. If not, just ping me and I can make adjustments. Finally, don't feel dumb for not being able to figure it out if you can't. It took me a second set of eyes and once he gave me some pointers, I was able to figure it out (thought the assembly isn't all that intuitive.... at least it wasn't for me). Thanks.

I just opened and assembled it, and rode it for a few minutes, so I can't really comment on how it stands up in the long run. The assembly instructions are perfectly clear once you already know how to do it, but need fixing for those of us who don't do this for a living. Fortunately, YouTube came to the rescue.

I was a little worried that my bike wouldn't fit (I'm 6'4"), but it did.

I hope to get some good use from this.

The trainer I first received had a defect. The legs did not open out completely. My first email to them was somehow overlooked, but my follow up email was answered pretty quickly. The response was better than I expected. Not only did they offer an immediate replacement with no hassles, but they were extremely apologetic too. I haven't put my new one together yet, but I did make sure that the legs do open out completely. My only concern is that there was very little resistance in opening and closing them. The flywheel is relatively quiet with smooth motion. What I didn't realize when I bought it was that my bike would sir up higher than on the ground, which is only an issue because my bike was already slightly tall for me and I'm getting a bit less limber at my age. Overall, a very good quality product with excellent customer service and warranty.

Noise is not noticeably less than my earlier Blackburn Mag 6 (magnetic) stand.
Assembly was easy but the company's instructions were useless, I had to use 3rd party instructions from the internet.
The stand is solid, but a component broke when I had not tightened the bike enough onto the stand, causing me to crash. It was definetly in part my fault. The company replaced the broken part without being asked, and I am grateful.