Okay, let's get the obvious negatives out of the way first. The X-Train isn’t going to win any design prizes, you wouldn’t wear it out on a date, its syncing and monitoring are occasionally a bit hit-and-miss and the display is definitely on the small side.
However, you have to remember this is a £30 monitor and for this kind of money the positives far outweigh the negatives. It doesn’t come with a bar mount so we used pipe lagging and, once on, it looks no worse than a standard computer.
Syncing took a bit longer then the more expensive brands, and you do get more strange peaks, troughs and lost signals, but overall performance is fine and seems to get better as your ride goes on.
The fabric body strap is comfortable and the little red LED that indicates it’s transmitting is a really clever touch – we’re surprised none of the pricier brands has adopted it. Once home you can access the maximum, minimum and average heart rate data along with the essential ‘time in zone’ stats.
Although the first three stats might be affected by some of the data blips, the key ‘time in zone’ will be largely unaltered. Having this level of recall on a monitor of this price is practically unheard of. If you’re looking to dip you’re toe in the water of heart rate training the X-Train is a great place to start.
