Yup, many have done that already. I can try to find pics if you’d, but I have seen more than a handful of hacks with removal of the leveling screws and adding foam, inflatable balls, tennis balls and other compressible material at the outer feet.
Some have added a wood dowel or PVC pipe under the middle leg for a firm pivot and to locate it more accurately under the center of the bike (because the middle leg of the Kickr is NOT under the bike). Then add your choice of “spring” under the outer feel.
I am quite confident in guessing that Wahoo also saw some of those and worked up their own version, to get into trainer motion, with minimal effort.
The dowel down the centre was exactly what I had in mind. If you do find any relevant pictures, maybe you could add them to the DIY rockerplate thread? I’d be interested to hear about any solutions that don’t involve the bulky plate since I’m short on space in my flat!
New issue. “In addition, it also introduced a seemingly new issue around low-cadence. While I rarely pedal at 50RPM, for whatever reason I was doing so with my then-shot legs during a climb. And that caused the power to actually increase dramatically:”
Why would they put a telephone jack over a network jack or much better in my opinion a USB port? Wouldn’t be enough just having a USB that connects to my computer like my ANT dongle does? I feel this would almost be a plug and play solution for this issue. Of course, it doesn’t solve it for those people who want to use phones or AppleTV since I don’t think you could connect a USB port to those.
Take an already low-reliability electronic and high-speed rotating mechanical device and add 5 degrees of lateral float. What could possibly go wrong?
Edit: just saw the Axis feet that backfit… that seems a good move to me. I want to introduce some movement into the trainer, but man, with the trouble with bearings, I don’t know if that’s going to be a good long-term solution.
Great questions. From my experience and that of the others in the rocker group, no one has pointed to a rocker adding to failures in their trainer. The total amount of movement, even with a loose and active setup like mine, is 2-4* per side in most cases. I hit the limits at 7* only rarely.
The lateral physical displacement is also minimal (although I have never actually measured, I’d be surprised if the flywheel moves more than 1" total, side to side (in the arc of course).
Something capable of holding that flywheel up to the speeds we can hit at a 53x11 gear should not be hampered buy the motion from our rockers. Happy to see data clarifying issues, but my experience shows nothing to worry about in that light.
Wahoo’s claims to having fixed the issues with this model are questionable and I will be interested to see what early buyers experience over then next couple of months.
Correct me if i am wrong, but wasn’t the fix as “simple” as proper washer and bolt to avoid flywheel vibration and loosening which caused all of the prior issues. I thought the MY18 issues were basically resolved during the MY19 rollout, and while there were no changes between MY18 and MY19, they did make the design changes to avoid the vibration problems that plagued MY18.
There is no such thing as a MY19 Kickr. It is the old K18 or the new K20. It’s possible they mad a running design change, but no 19 model was ever market or listed.
Wahoo claimed they fixed it and offered kits for some users to fix vs shipping units back and forth.
But it didn’t fix the issue in all cases (new or user replaced).
There is a justifiable level of doubt that they have fixed anything, since we still see Kickr18 and Core units breaking as we speak. Some are even busted from the initial unboxing, while others take months to fail.
hence why i stayed away from your nomenclature of Kickr18 and Kickr20.
Wahoo does a release (Kickr18) and stores then put in all their orders for the year, and barring restock that is what they have to move. This would be MY18.
2019 rolls around and even if Wahoo doesn’t release a new device stores all do an order for their 2019 sales this would be MY19.
Having spoken with both store and Wahoo rep (I’ve have issues with my K14) they did make changes after the SNAFU with K18 and the MY18 stock that was sent out. As you pointed out there were lots of warranty returns and some kits that users did themselves. Wahoo then took these changes and anything that went out as part of the MY19 to stores came with those changes already installed which was “supposed” to address the issue.
Like i said, it was a relatively simple issue, but one that caused a ton of issues both reputationally and for users experience with a $1500 trainer.
I get it from a manufacturing perspective, considering what is included in the kit (all feet and 3 hardness options). The price still beats and “real rocker” options by a decent margin, and is factory approved. So it makes sense in that light.
But considering the mild effectiveness, I’ve be tempted to do a DIY hack instead for half that cost or less.
I’d didn’t realize that a cushy trainer mat would provide some side to side motion. It seems like planting this unit onto a cushy trainer mat might stunt the effect because the rear piece is getting mushed into the mat.
I’d be more likely to jump right in with the kit if it was $39.99 or $49.99. They have shown people how to do it though. You basically need four spongy pieces of material to put under the feet and something harder for it to pivot on in the rear middle if you want a good effect.
ha, yeah it kind of sucks. the cycling industry kind of seems like the wedding industry in the sense that adding a name in front (cycling, wedding) of something makes it cost 3x+ more than you’d expect.
bouquet of flowers? 20 bucks. same bouquet of flowers but now they are labeled wedding flowers? 100
I’m hoping my 2016 model lasts a long long time. This is what DC says about reliability:
As far as all the reliability issues of the KICKR & KICKR CORE of yesteryear, Wahoo says that they formed an internal dedicated quality team in Atlanta (HQ) and each of their factories, and then added additional processing/engineering checks as a result. They also say they track stats in far more detail in the past. The changes from those efforts were made as running changes into the KICKR18/CORE and roughly peaked (change-wise) around a year ago (Summer 2019). Wahoo says there’s no changes quality-wise between a KICKR18 produced more recently (such as early this year) and the KICKR V5/2020.
The thing that bugs me about a $1200 piece of equipment is the lack of parts and inability to rebuild it. A $1200 tool should be able to be rebuilt almost indefinitely. I’ve had bikes that have lasted 20 years through 2-3 groupsets and a few sets of wheels.
Great questions. From my experience and that of the others in the rocker group, no one has pointed to a rocker adding to failures in their trainer. The total amount of movement, even with a loose and active setup like mine, is 2-4* per side in most cases. I hit the limits at 7* only rarely.
This is what DC says about reliability: