LOL right now she has an Electra Townie for riding a mile to the farmers market on Sunday. Its a start!
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These are a few of the reasons why, when I had the opportunity, I bought a Wattbike. I love having a dedicated platform set up in my garage which I can just hop onto and begin training. That it’s chunky and stable is a huge bonus too. Mine is an original ‘pro’ model, good for more watts than I’ve got in my legs (and I’m a track rider!) and the only disadvantage is having to adjust resistance manually. I just put my iPad over the monitor and run TR instead of the native software.
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Ha, mine too!
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Exactly and the IOS features were available 5+ years ago in their previous app. The worst software release of all time.
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With Tacx, I like that they build their trainers in the Netherlands not China (NL employees probably like this too…), plus they’re not a “me too” company and have followed their own path with what is apparently a large engineer input.
I don’t like that they’ve ploughed a load of resources pursuing development of a training/sim platform that’s (a) vendor-specific and (b) desktop only. In the present era, (a) is just crazy.
On paper, the acquisition makes some sense for both parties, but I’ll wait and see. If I was in line for a Neo Bike, this wouldn’t change my buying decision - that product is essentially done - and for non-European (esp. US) customers Garmin’s involvement should eventually bring distribution and service benefits that may be particularly beneficial for a physical monster of a product like the Neo Bike.
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I think something like this happened:
- Zwift raises $120MM with the story to sell a bundled hardware and software package like peloton.
- Zwift approaches Tacx for acquisition
- Tacx approaches Garmin and says they are willing to sell
- Garmin wants winter revenue, knows the trainer market is growing and that Zwift is growing the entire market
- Garmin outbids Zwift
- Zwift will look to purchase cycleops
Now Garmin needs an awesome software company! 
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@Nate_Pearson …and Zwift still has money slushing around looking for a higher return that it gets from the market… so needs to make an acquisition or other big investment decision… soon… to pay off the loan/funders…
(Keep your head down Nate) 
PLEASE.
…or was that an offer document, or an open door, I just heard? (SORRY)
Do you have some particular company in mind?
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Sure I see those posts on the Edge 520 forums however my 520 has been very reliable with only two glitches in 3+ years. I’m an engineer working in electronics and software my entire career, and generally have a low tolerance for crappy software. But the 520 has been surprisingly reliable even though I apply updates immediately (with just a couple of exceptions). That said, they do release updates with new bugs which can be annoying but hasn’t impacted me.
I’ll say this: after my recent experiences with Wahoo, in the future if I know I can get “local” support, I’d be far more likely to get a Tacx and swap to a Garmin head unit (away from my Elemnt Bolt) considering I also run the Vector 3s. I’m just out on Wahoo anymore, and honestly wishing I’d gone with a Cycleops Hammer, P1s, and head unit considering my Fluid2 and PowerTap were beasties for more than a decade.
I hope like hell Cycleops doesn’t sell to Zwift, or if they do, that it doesn’t affect the quality of their products. They weren’t the first smart trainer, and that bit them, but I’m guessing they’ll end up being the best… again.
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I think Rouvy already has the base engine and would be the quickest route into online augmented reality cycling to go head to head with Zwift
That really isn’t Garmin’s main issue, though it is an issue. Garmin’s problem is just like Apple, completely locked down unfriendly horses$^! of a product.
Locked down? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve got apps on the 520 and my rides are automatically sync’d to TrainerRoad, RideWithGPS, Strava, Xertonline, TrainingPeaks, Stages Link, MapMyFitness, and Endomondo (most of those for testing or historical reasons). Plus I can easily track equipment mileage. While Wahoo has pretty good sync, there is no 3rd party apps at all. And Garmin’s shape based routing means that Strava routes have some turn-by-turn instructions on 520, while on Wahoo there is nothing. I’ve been loading maps on the 520 since day one. And I can backup the entire thing to a computer drive. Not sure how the 520 is locked down.
Unfriendly? We can argue both sides of that coin, and it absolutely doesn’t look like a modern UI. Color is good, and I don’t have any issues seeing the screen at 56 years old. Configuration from a phone or website is often (not always) better, however in three years I’ve only configured maybe 3 or 4 times so its never been an issue. Wahoo has the phone configure. Stages is going to allow configuration on device and with mobile and web.
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I’m not talking about just the 520, I’m talking about the entire Garmin range of products from their aerospace and marine divisions down to the bike stuff. Highly proprietary, highly restricted. The only reason you can do anything with them is that other standards have come to their position, not the other way around. Thankfully, Wahoo is blowing that to smithereens and Garmin is being forced to adapt somewhat.
Loading apps and stuff is not the point, iPhones can do that as well. They are still completely aimed at being kept in their own ecosystem for profit for the maker and cutting off the user from using the device the way that suits them best.
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I think its great news! Anxious to see what the future holds for everyone. And FWIW, I run Elite trainers and Wahoo computers. But for sure a rising tide will raise all the ships.
Peleton
Yeah I’m surprised the Hammer doesn’t get more love, maybe because it isn’t as sexy as far as accuracy percentage for the price (although in practice I found it lined up almost identically with some p1s pedals I briefly used this past summer), or accessories like the climb or stuff like the road feel on the Neo. But it’s rock solid in my opinion and they’ve been responsive when I did have questions. I think the fact that it hasn’t really required a firmware update in maybe a year is pretty indicative of what type of product it is.
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I think it’s probably price point. I bought a Kickr Core as it seemed like the best value for me. Then I had to replace it after five rides… For $100 more I should’ve gotten the Hammer.
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Peloton (and Zwift) are content + community first, and hardware as a support for those. Having hardware available does not bring you into a competitive position. Zwift buying a trainer company makes sense (and having a training bike rather than the pretty complicated bike + trainer setup makes even more sense). But Garmin (or Tacx alone) having a trainer bike and hoping to compete against Peloton or Zwift is like Samsung trying to compete against Google because they make phones. Not impossible, but would require either massive investments or acquisitions and a lot of time to bring in the content platform, and even more to get the community.
I would tend to disagree. Garmin has been by far the force behind ANT+ widening its scope, and that standardization brought BLE on. Go back two decades, open standards for sports electronics were unthikable; look at what this standardization has done to the market. You wouldn’t dream of buying a piece of sports electronics that didn’t support ANT+ or BLE now, and preferably both, and you can merrily mix-and-match sensors (HR, speed, cadence, power), recorders (watches, head units) and actuators (trainers, etc).