I’ve had this trainer since 2020 and used it exclusively at home as my primary indoor trainer. I’ve used a variety of smart trainers at friends’ houses to see if I wanted to change, and nothing has convinced me yet. Also the main trainer for my wife.
So four years of pretty much constant use. That’s included three Zwift ZRL seasons and a ton of Ladder League racing for me, and year-round training on TrainerRoad for both wife and I. Winter time, it sees between 10-20 hours of use per week between us. That means we are constantly swapping bikes, and in the summer both of our bikes are regularly on and off the trainer. Having to only remove the front wheel is a huge bonus.
No weird pairing issues. No firmware updates. No blown power units.
Although there’s no coasting, I find the ride feel (resistance progression) very similar to outdoors and the no-coasting is just riding my fixed gear… no free miles! It’s also helped me to understand my gear/cadence/power relationship much better than ERG mode on a smart trainer. When racing Zwift, I’ve learned to anticipate changes in terrain instead of relying on the trainer changing resistance and just watch for cues on speed and power changes in the riders around me.
As far as I’m concerned, and maybe I’m a very specific use case, but I think dumb trainer and smart bike is the way to go for those of us riding both inside and outside and mostly with just one bike. For the cost of the good smart trainers, I put power meters on both my road bike and gravel bikes, bought a new helmet, and renewed my TR subscription.
I’m running 48-10 bottom gearing and my sprints racing in Zwift are definitely spinny above 900w, but high cadence is good training! For VO2 and anaerobic workouts its not an issue at all. Tyre-wise, I tend to kill my tyres outside way before I wear them out on the trainer so no issues there.
I have zero regrets.