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I like it. If there are any weird ‘calibration’ issues, I haven’t noticed. I just get on and ride.
It’s all about a good workout; if I’m sweating, I don’t give a shit how accurate the metrics are.
I had a fluid trainer, and found it to be so damn boring; this is a major improvement.
Today only! 12/4/18
A month of Sufferfest for $1 Code SUFF41
I like it! Thanks for sharing.
I am new to the bicycle world. Would like to purchase a trainer. Am looking at the CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer. Do I need anything other than a powercal to be able to use Zwift? Noticed the Powercal did not get that great a review. Is there a better product out there or other set ups I should look at?
Thank's
If it's in your pricerange, BFD, this is what I would get if I were buying one right now:
https://www.backcountry.com/wahoo-fi...-power-trainer
I have an older Kurt Kinetic. It's reliable and works. But I'd rather have a wheel-off trainer.
I like my wheel-on Kinetic Rock and Roll because of real bike feel. Do any of the wheel-off options have the left/right swing motion or are they all locked down? I know they are better in the long run.
After 8 hours of Zwifting in the last 10 days my rear tire is definitely worse for wear. Need to get one of those trainer tires...
Not aware of any that rock like the Kinetic. But I haven't looked that hard either.
Avoiding the trainer tire (or separate wheel) is a big plus, IMO. Makes the higher cost of the direct drive a bit easier to swallow.
I don't know if it is just me but I feel highly susceptible to KOM race format .
Half the time I get on Zwift I just tell my self "alright,this ride is easy cruise at 200 watts for a bit just to turn the legs over..."
Then 10 minutes in you cross the start line and I'll still try to hold back then some guys comes by at 4.5 per kilo then I'm like, 'damn gotta stick with this guy."
Then there I am 30 minutes later drenched in sweat gasping for air , all composure lost. I feel like a black lab chasing a stick incessantly with slobber on my face .
Im at level 7 now but I'd like to get level 10 and check out the alp du zwift route. Looks like good fun
I think the wife has a smart trainer in mind for me as an Xmas gift. I'm hoping set up is as easy as it seems. I know the trainer hooks up to the trainer via blue tooth and the trainer is synced to Zwift via the app but how does the Strava sync happen?
As you can tell, I have zero experience with this.
Carp....easy to fall into the chasing the stick analogy. I imagine it would be similarly as hard IRL, if we had 3000 other users riding nearby and people passing all of the time. :) I don't use the workout feature on Zwift, I follow my own training plans and pick my own routes based on the workout and what I want to experience on the ride. Similar to IRL, but not exactly.
Hank....easy to connect to Strava, in the setup/settings menu. You connect the Zwift acct to your Garmin or Strava accounts. When a ride is finished, it uploads and shares the data to the other sites that you have connected. Usually quickly. No problems to Strava, but I get some sort of errors when sending to Garmin (but I see no benefit to myself in sending to Garmin)
What would be the absolute dirt cheapest way to do this? I've got a cross bike, now what?
My smart trainer on cheaper side (kinetic Rock and roll ) $400Quote:
Originally Posted by bagtagley
Apple TV 4k $180
Zwift subscription $15/mo
Agree with the above. But I went for the Elite Durito for around $750 on sale and the Apple TV. Add heart rate monitor for $40 and several fans to keep cool.
But most of these Bluetooth to an iPad, so the Apple TV or a computer is not required.
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Performance bike has well reviewed smart trainer for $199 shipped.
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Link? A friend was looking to pick one up.Quote:
Originally Posted by HankScorpio
https://www.performancebike.com/shop...rainer-40-5708
It was $199 recently, priced bumped up to $229. Still a deal.
Classic Zwift action last night. I'm cruising the Mountain Loop 20 in watopia easing into a nice hour.
Hit the epic KOM start and think nothing of it holding 3.1 or so. A couple minutes in a I see a guy about a minute back doing 3.9 and I figure he's trying to catch me so I goose it up to 3.5 and I see him back by his numbers as he jumped up to 4.1.
Ah shit he is chasing me, I think. I bump it up to 4 and hang on a while then he jumped to 4.4 and held it a bit.
I waited, he started to slip to 3.6 so I gassed it to a solid 5 for like 30 seconds. He had crept up to 32 seconds back but I put him back to 48.
Now around 15 min into the Kom , I realized I'd been holding 400 watts for a bit now and was wondering about my finish split now.
The guy kept pushing and pulled up to 28 seconds. My ETA finish numbers popped up and I was close!
1st was at 22:02 , my ETA was 21:58. OMG this is gonna hurt, i thought as I am 6 minutes out.
I eased to 390 for a few and watched the numbers. I was sticking steady around 22 even. Too close I thought and goosed it for a minute to 440. 20 seconds up now. So much pain. Lungs at critical capacity. Might die soon.
The last 2 minutes lasted an eternity . Slipping into hypoxia status... No!! Stay with it!! Breath !!
! 2 seconds ahead for a 1st place finish!
The crowd goes wild
I gimped through the remained 20 cruise back to sea level.
Here is what I learned: with in a ride during 20 interval if you surpass you previous FTP results it automatically ups you FTP status without you having to take actual test.
I had a 1 second at 858, 1 minute at 499, 5 min at 393 and 20 min at 328 bumping FTP from 308 to 312
Science!! Maybe cut back on the fat joints in general...
I bought the rock and roll trainer the other day. Carpathian seems to like his. After my purchase I received a discount code. I paid $399 from bicycle outfitters. You can try the code happycart for 10% off.
Thanks for the suggestions, but this is much more my speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by HankScorpio
Also looks like I could get my hands on a used trainer for under $100, and attach a sensor. Anybody used a speed sensor?
I've used a speed and cadence sensor with Zwift's "virtual power" meter. It works, but it can be slow to update the wattage in the app. It can be annoying if you're doing a workout with any short bursts of high intensity efforts. Sometimes by the time its showing a roughly accurate wattage, the interval is over. But for more general use it works fine if you're trying to keep things on a budget.Quote:
Originally Posted by bagtagley
Well, somewhat inspired by this thread, other folks I've met who have really gotten into smart trainers, and the general darkness of November I picked up a used Wahoo Kickr to try out this odd habit. I have a hard time getting intense cardio regularly in the fall/winter and had been missing it. I run a little bit but don't have a passion for it. Skinning is awesome but it can be hard to get to the hill all the time. So far, riding a smart trainer is much more appealing than a regular trainer so I understand why people get hooked on these.
Likes so far:
- This trainer feels a lot better than a couple of other resistance trainers I used briefly years ago. Having real weight in the flywheel might be the trick. It's just more satisfying to pedal because you build up momentum.
- It's surprisingly easy to motive for a 45-60 minute trainer ride before work. The fact that I don't need to go anywhere, do a ton of setup dress for the weather, etc. just makes it easy. I've only had this thing for a couple of weeks so we'll see if I can stick with it.
- After said ride, I have much better work day.
- ERG mode seems to negate the need to shift entirely, which is kind of nice.
- Most importantly, having the resistance and intervals determined by an outside source (i.e. not you having to shift to make it harder) is much easier to deal with psychologically. You decide to do the ride and then have to deal with the consequences of your past choices rather than opting into more pain on a moment-to-moment basis. It feels closer to choosing to climb a hill or trying to keep up with someone else on road/trail.
Dislikes so far
- Standing to pedal on this trainer (and I most I assume) feels pretty terrible and awkward. I know there are fancy trainers that adjust for this, but that seems pretty extreme to me.
- I get saddle sore pretty easily and riding a trainer seems even worse than road riding in that respect because your position is so static.
- I had this in a heated area at first which didn't work well - the basement is a much more pleasant home for it.
- All the apps services are targeted at roadies and cycling nerds. I'm certainly a bike nerd, but I'm not following the TDF every summer and so all of the cycling slang seems pretty silly to me. I'm sure most people dropping money on a smart trainer are very into riding, but I think there are potentially more people out there who would benefit from it who aren't training for a race.
So far I've tried the free trial of Zwift, Kinomap and The Sufferfest. I'd be curious to hear of any other apps/services that people like.
Zwift: I get the social/competetive aspect and the mind trick of moving through a virtual environment. It's hard for me to get over the fact that it looks like a Wii game from 2006. (I tried this on a decent PC as well as an iPad.) I also think the general style is really cheesy and the interface is kind of confusing. That said, I might sign on just because it's pretty effective at motivating you to ride.
Kinomap: I admittedly only tried this on my phone briefly, but found it poorly executed and not interesting.
Sufferfest: I've tried a couple of their videos and thought that they work pretty well in terms of giving some guidance, scenery and a little distraction. However, the droning about "Sufferlandria", "getting out from the office" general roadie-specific lingo is pretty limiting to road racing / triathlon people.
Ok so Santa brought me a smart trainer and everything appeared to connect yesterday via Bluetooth. I did a short ride and something was way off. Zwift said I covered 7 miles in 18 minutes which is twice the speed I should be going.
I’ve fiddled with pairing it endlessly but only the Bluetooth connects.
I’ve scoured the internet looking for way to calibrate my trainer’s speed sensor but can’t find anything.
Does the sensor adjust itself as ride it more? Clueless here.
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How tight do you have the clamp on the wheel? I didn't realize there was a clutch on knob for mine, so spin it until it clicked. Google yours, see if there's something like that?Quote:
Originally Posted by HankScorpio
Hank, which trainer? Most that I know about have a calibration that needs to be performed. Wheel tension for the wheel off trainers. Spin down for the wheel off trainers.
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It’s the Travel Trac Fluid Smart B+. I’ll mess with the wheel tension when I get a chance. I also did some more troubleshooting and Zwift says to you may have pedal for a few minutes to get the trainer to show up on the app.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowagriz
It recognizes the Bluetooth but not the ANT sensor which I believe does the calibration bit.
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