I think all providers, including Tacx, Wahoo, Saris, Wattbike, and others have had issues.
Ideally the products would be perfect, but as they are not, the customer service becomes pretty important.
Wattbike seems to be pretty good compared to others?
Iâm not denying that there are sometimes problems - but the internet makes it easy for the dissatisfied few to make lots of noise compared to the many contented customers. Theyâre all good products - read the reviews and pick the one that seems best for you.
I donât race and never had a smart trainer/bike before. For what it is worth, I chose the Watt Bike Atom (last November) as it had been out for some time and Wattbike have a history of making bikes. I found it interesting that @gpl and @dcrainmaker said that a smart bike is not a frame with a smart trainers attached. I was surprised to hear about the Neo issues considering their history with trainers.
The other bikes werenât available in large numbers and for the extra ÂŁ1000 didnât seem worth it for me. I spoke to support a couple of times as I waiting for my Atom to come and they were really good.
I am having the same issues with my Atom V2, especially at lower watt recovery intervals. It is slow to react and overcompensates resulting in an endless oscillating loop that is near impossible to get out of. Example below - similar workout V1 versus the new V2.
V1:
V2:
I wasnât saying that wasnât how it worked, but I am sure you both mentioned on the podcast that from a manufacturing point of view it wasnât as simple as bolting them together. Ray mentioned Stages experience building bike where Tacx and Wahoo donât.
There is a longer seatpost available for taller riders
On a side note, I took my Atom apart on the weekend to rotate the bars a little - Having put it all back together a considerable number of the squeaks and rattles have gone.
As a comparison to the original Wattbike it really is poorly built.
I was thinking of changing the handlebars to narrower ones to emulate my road position better.
Deda Piega bars should fit the 26mm clamp, should be easy enough to do?
Also contemplating removing the iPad mount and adding a more permanent Zwift/TV solution.
You have to remove the bar adjustment piece which is 3 hex screws and then you can lift the bar out and make the relevant changes. Fairly simple to do once you get the adjustment piece out of the war.
Exactly what I have done with Piega bars. I did find it hard to get the bars where I wanted them to be in terms of the tops to hoods transition. The front of the WBA is ridiculously over-engineered!
DCR: Iâm going to publish the review with ERG mode as it is*
Wattbike: Please no we can fix it we just need more time!!!*
DCR: You have 1 week.*
*may or may not be actual dialogue
I feel a bit invested in the new Atom - i really want it to work well and think it will fulfill my requirements nicely if ERG gets sorted.
New firmware focused on ERG issues was released yesterday (v1.03.20). It makes a big difference. They are definitely getting closer to getting this right.
Thatâs great news. Do you have an example workout with the new fw you can share?
Old firmware:
New firmware:
It still has a tendency to drop off a cliff when it moves from interval to rest period and I had 2-3 weird drops in watts in the last interval but apart from that felt a lot better than before.
Well that looks much better tbf
It still sucks to be fairâŚI downloaded the new firmware yesterday and it still massively jumps over when the interval starts by up to 60 watts before coming back downâŚit just comes down a bit quicker.
Itâs slightly better but for ÂŁ1900 we shouldnât be having to beta test and be fingers crossed that it gets betterâŚit should work from release. They take our money in full and make us wait 3-4 months on delivery and then it still doesnât work anywhere near as well as it should 
Any other views on the Atom firmware? Supposedly its a big improvement.
Also there is a beta firmware for the OG Atom. Anyone tried that yet?
Somewhat close - but mostly cause when I said they could have two weeks it was cause I was leaving the next day for a two week vacation.
Then upon returning plenty of other things have gotten in the way. That said, Iâve tested the latest ERG firmware, and itâs no better (and is exactly as shown a few posts up from another user). Itâs not acceptable to me. Sure, you can add more smoothing in an app, but ultimately, I think thatâs a bit much to pay that much for a bike and have to smooth it all out in app.
Iâm going to try and get out my final review this week, thatâs my plan. Though, I ran into a hardware snag over the weekend that might impact that timeline if they have to send me a new bike (theyâve already fixed the issue inline in production ack a month or so ago). Going to see if I have what I need in the morning to finish the written and video reviewsâŚ
Had a call with Wattbike today (finally⌠theyâve not been responding to emails or voicemails) to book in a service for our v1 Atom (we had a v2 on order but decided not to go through with it as we didnât want to be Guinea pigs like last time). I asked the service agent if the chassis on both the v1 and v2 were the same. He said yes, the difference was only the internals. I said - well just an idea, but why not offer an internals upgrade for v1 owners? Iâm sure there are plenty out there who would pay to upgrade if the price was right. No plans to do that he said. I assume that the most problematic and time-consuming part of the Wattbike build is the frame. All the rest iâd imagine would be like bits of a PC that slot together. An upgrade kit canât be that difficult to make surely? I bet many v1 owners would upgrade. Surely itâs better to keep them as Wattbike customers rather than have them go elsewhere when they want to upgrade their bikes. Am I barking mad?
Its a completely different resistance unit, I think you very much underplaying the easiness of swapping them out - And if it was viable, my money on is on cost would not be reasonable along with the impact on trying to support these franken-modelsâŚ
