Hi, I’m looking to get my first smart trainer after a few years on my KK road machine.
In the UK I can get a Cycleops H2 or a refurbished Wahoo Core for about the same price (£600).
Any advice on pros and cons and which one to go for would be welcomed. Thanks.
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Welcome to the forum!
This gets asked a bunch. My money is in the H2 for reliability. The Core is a coin toss in terms of whether you get a bad unit or not. Eventually you will find a working unit but how long it will stay that way is another toss of the coin.
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H2 is the better unit, IMHO.
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I’m very happy with my H2.
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Thanks for the advice gents. I was leaning towards the H2.
Just to throw a curve ball in I’ve just been offered a lightly used Cycleops Magnus for £150.
Would this be a step up from my KK road machine or will it be a case of ‘buy cheap, buy twice’??
H2!! 
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X2 for the H2
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No comparison. H2!
Pass on the Magnus. Workable but you will be MUCH happier with H2.
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Hey @Nate_Pearson,
Just for transparency, and I ask this question in the politest tone possible.
Myself and others would put a lot of weight on what trainers you stand behind, hand to heart: Have the trainer company’s provided you/or your colleagues with trainers to ride?
Regards
Gary
Some companies give them to us, some companies give us discounts.
We’ve bought our own Hammers at retail so far, but we’re trying to get a pro deal with Saris.
No one pays us to use them or talk about them (and we wouldn’t accept it).
We basically get things at bike shop pricing if we can, and almost every company gives us early units to test.
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H2 is a great unit.
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I had a core. It died in three weeks. H2 has been going strong for 8 months.
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I bought H2 a few weeks ago and it is good stuff. A few points though which might be important to you and your setup:
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ANT+ connection has been terrible for me. With USB cable + garmin dongle positionned next to the trainer, I was getting dropouts every 15mn. Tried to play with wifi 5ghz and so on but with no effect. My Quarq and HRM had no dropout, so it is really the ant+ antenna of the H2 which is weak.
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ANT+ was slightly better after I made the trick with screw driver for the pin of the power supply (micro power supply drop causing the antenna to reset?), but still very unstable.
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Switching to Bluetooth was the game changer. It works perfectly since then. No dropouts, and powermatch works perfectly.
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Calibration of the H2 with the Rouvy app only. Spindown with TR app was useless for me. After each interval, the freewheel was turning like crazy, and I had no resistance during recovery. Very annoying. After calibration with rouvy, everything is perfect.
So I can only recommend the H2, I just wish someone mentioned to me the points above beforehand, because I wasted 2 workouts with the differents problems.
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Thanks for the info guys. I was looking to just use Bluetooth anyway with my iPad so that’s good to know it works well on that protocol.
Seems there’s a lot of love for the H2 out there!!
I only got a Kickr Core last week and it’s my first every trainer so i can’t really compare them to anything else. So far the unit has been good tho. Quick response to ERG changes and i did a bit of riding in Zwift and that also felt quite good.
The bad thing thus far has been their Android app support. Had to use an old Android tablet to get the firmware to update, just wouldn’t update on my OnePlus 5T or a Pixel 2XL. More people on this forum have had the same issue. Same goes for registering the Kickr via the Android app. Just didn’t work. Got in contact with Wahoo support and they acknowledged the problem and sent me all the discount coupons by mail within a day, so the support is quite speedy, although i still believe that it should just work in the app.
Like i said, can’t compare the two but just my 2ct on the Kickr Core in the short time i’ve owned it.
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I’ve been training on a core for about a year now with no issues. Responds quickly, no complaints
First one I got was immediately busted and replaced for free by Wahoo, but that is the fundamental problem with that trainer - either you have a good one and there are no problems or you have a busted one and need it replaced/fixed
If you get a good one, and odds should be relatively high of that happening, it’s a great trainer - but that if clause simply doesn’t exist with the H2
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I bought my Kickr18 (very similar to the Core) about 6 months ago and it has been replaced under warranty once for a known bearing issue. I suspect it was headed the way of the infamous clicking sound, seen on the Kickr18 and Core. My replacement unit has been faultless thus far and is really a great piece of hardware. If I could start over I’d buy an H2. I’ve heard only good things about the H2 and it’d also be nice to ride on my trainer without the constant fear that something could go wrong at any moment.
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What was the issue with the bearing?
They did not give any specifics, but the video clip I sent them showed that at low flywheel rpm, there was a sound that could be heard, similar to the clicking but just softer and deeper. Funny thing is, that sound could literally only be heard during a short window before going away and not being able to be reproduced, which I mentioned to support. The local support immediately requested that I submit a ticket so that they could get a replacement unit out to me.
Did it feel like a clicking style or was it completely different? Sometimes I feel that at lower RPM mine almost has a dull sound as it rotates