I think for the price, its hard to argue with the jet black,
The Saris is (was) on sale for $3xx this past weekend. I know is an older model, but might be worth to consider.
My problem with the Saris is that I think they’re closing down, so I suppose there won’t be support in the coming future.
apparently they just announces a new trainer.
So maybe not?
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They aren’t “closing”, at least not that I have seen. They are up for sale and were using an accelerated process available to them that is unique in Wisconsin. DCR has a good article on it if you want more details.
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We lack any conclusion right now, but perhaps we will learn more in the near future… possibly even from the DCR debut we are expecting today.
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What’s that?
Still no official news, other than the short mention in the video clip linked at the OP of this topic:
FWIW I had a Suito for a while and was happy with it. I ended getting a good deal on a Direto XR and sold the Suito to a friend. I had no connection issues or dropouts. The only downside I’d say is the flywheel size, not as much momentum as some of the other units. It was noticeable racing Titans Grove on Zwift, you just have to stay on the pedals over the hills.
I checked it out. If there was no Volt option I’d go with Saris probably, but once I throw in a cassette I’m already at 435. The ability to use amazon credit is a plus as well.
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yeah man… i think wait might be your best best at this point…
@dcrainmaker said the next few days will be interesting. So who knows.
Do you think I should wait on the Volt?
wait to see what’s on the hopper. I think there will be new trainers announced soon… so if you can wait a few weeks, I would wait.
Days yes, weeks… not really.
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I see…
In that case, I dont think you can go wrong with the Volt, specially if they include a cassette.
I’ve got no experience with the other trainers but I’ve had my Kickr Core for 3 years now and I’d buy it again if I was buying a trainer today. It’s been great.
But… correct me if I read correctly into this. What we’re implying is that the new Zwift trainer will lower the price of the other trainers. However, that doesn’t mean that the price of those will be lower than 499. The Volt received a solid review by DCR, if it maintains what it promises, I don’t think I’ll mind the inability to get a Core discounted at $700. Does what I write make sense?
My casual take on the landscape (USA centric) of smart trainers before the recent markdowns was:
- Kickr at $1200
- Kickr core at $900
- Tacx neo at $1400
- Hammer H3 at $900
- Everything else was not widely available, or had notable limitations/tradeoffs. The above is what I would consider ‘mainstream’ tier 1 trainers.
This had $900 as the ‘base price’ for mainstream top-end smart trainers. If the zwift model works well, it seems to have features that would put in in this category, or at least very close. This sets the ‘base price’ at $500, and now all these models need to justify their premium compared the the zwift trainer. I don’t think prices will drop to $500, but there will be conversations at other trainer companies if $1000ish (ie double the price) is a sustainable price. I could see Wahoo do something like drop the kickr core price, and possibly make more changes to differentiate the core vs the Kickr. (and this includes deliberately crippling the core in software). We may not see this in major price drops of current trainers, but if the Zwift model works well and sells well, I think we will see it changing how future trainers are designed/specified. Maybe Garmin will invest more in a trainer to compete with the zwift trainer, rather than an updated Neo model.
Yes it does. For the most part you will probably not miss the difference between a 1200 trainer and the volt at 499. You wallet will notice the difference tho.
Fwiw I do think prices will come down.
The price point of this trainer will probably cause other companies to keep making older trainer at a lower price point (Saris will sell the h3 at s lower starting point from now on, for example).
When or if this will happen, I don’t know. But if you can’t wait and see, you could do much worse than the volt for 499
Especially because I don’t expect prices to drop below 499. The saris H3 may be an exception related to the company economic situation.
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I think the H3 radical pricing is temporary - I have a hard time seeing how any of the improvements in the H4 will cost them much, if any more to manufacture. The difference is also not enough to justify the price difference, even $600 vs $900.
Once they move through enough H3s so that they can sell the remainder at $600ish in a reasonable timeframe the price will go up I think. I guess they could sell them all if cash flow demands that - I guess it really depends on how dire their financial situation is.