Tacx Neo Smart Bike (dedicated bike)

13 Likes

I know you aren’t defending this position, but god would that be an awful rationale if that’s where it is coming from. I drink 2 bottles/hour on the trainer and even if I’m an outlier on regular duration on rides (90-120 minutes being my most frequent rides) I still can’t imagine why you wouldn’t put a second cage on there

4 Likes

NSBD

(New Smart Bike Day :stuck_out_tongue: )

Have fun!!!

1 Like

Jealous.

Okay, got it all built and mostly setup.

Currently I’m just trying to solve an issue around being able to grab the power data via ANT to some type of headunit. It’s only showing up on Zwift; TR and Wahoo can only detect it as a smart trainer for some strange reason, and since it has the same ANT ID, I’m a bit at a loss for how to get that going.

1 Like

@Bryce quick feature request (or clarification if this isn’t on your end). It looks like TR isn’t picking up the Ant+ Power Meter channel for the Neo Bike. It picks it up as a “Trainer” just fine over Bluetooth and Ant, but there is another channel that you can get on Zwift that will just pull the power meter profile. It would be great if y’all could add this for us nerds that like to run multiple different ways. If not, no worries, I have a solution that works for right now.

1 Like

Edit: belt snapped during a sprint. Update tbd.

Okay, initial impressions as follows. I’ve only really gotten it built, and messed around with getting the connectivity set up the way that I like with a few super short tests, but I’m going to not talk about that stuff yet.

Setup was mostly straight forward. It took me around an hour. I won’t go into great detail here since Ray covered it really well in his review linked at the top. I agree with him that about the handles, cords, and the pedal installation. You don’t want to be swapping pedals on this thing regularly; fortunately I have both myself and my SO on SPD-SL with 172.5 cranks, so there won’t be any of that nonsense going forward.

Super short first impressions (no actual proper works, just spinning around for a few minutes):

  • This thing is built like a tank. Seriously. It’s heavy AF and built like a gym-type spin bike :+1:

  • Adjustability seems pretty good at first glance. I was able to easily replicate my on-bike position well enough to not think about it. I’ll tweak this a bit over time.

  • Road feel is solid. I’ve never ridden a Neo, so it will probably take some getting used to, but I will say that I prefer the H2 at the current moment. But this is just based on like 15 minutes.

  • Shifting is really cool and almost too good. It’s basically instant. For the big ring, it feels a little over the top fast. I’d like the transition to be a little closer to what you would get out on the road between the little and big ring (probably something that can be tweaked later on).

  • It’s basically silent. Without any fans, you probably would easily forgot that someone was using it. I think that Ray’s video makes it seem way louder than it actually is. Seriously it’s super quiet, to the point where if you had quiet fans, you wouldn’t wake anyone up in the next room even with the door open. This is a huge plus for me since I live in an apartment building and I won’t have to worry about waking people up if I start a workout at 6am.

  • A bit of wonkiness with the connectivity at first. The Tacx app didn’t detect the firmware version correctly until later and then after the update, things seemed better. One "gotcha’ is that if you are using a Wahoo device, it will pair as a Fitness device and then you’ll have to swap it to “Passive” mode if you want to run a TR workout or ride on Zwift while recording to a headunit. I’m not sure if the Garmin’s will have this problem. This is mostly sorted for now, but I’d still like to see a power meter only channel available for TR, since the shifting and gradient that is available on the bike is a nice feature.

Overall, first impression is that this is definitely a generation 1 device but a pretty solid one, and I’m cautiously optimistic that it will last me for a long time. It solves a huge problem for me and my SO given the limited training space that we have and the stability and There is nothing that can’t easily be fixed with some firmware tweaks and some improvements to the handles and cords. Agreed with Ray about the B+/A- comment. I think it will probably quickly be in the A- realm with the next firmware update, and better handles would take it to a proper A.

7 Likes

Thanks for the info, Steve. Sounds like a great start despite a few hiccups.

I will be interested to hear you longer ride impressions in comparison to the H2. I know I like the overall feel on the H2 compared to the Neo 2. Both are great, and I love some of the special features on the Neo, but the H2 just feels “right”.

2 Likes

I was thinking of ordering one, but sold out in the UK. Not sure when more stock is meant to drop. I know @dcrainmaker says he doesn’t like to publish reviews until customers can buy the product. By this I assume on mass. So hopefully will be able to order soon.

Snapped the belt this morning on a standing start test sprint :man_shrugging:

1 Like

MegaWATTZ.

Sucks. Curious how they handle your problem. Keep us posted :slight_smile:

Chatted with Garmin support and they have no spare parts…so we will see how long this takes to get sorted with Tacx.

It was working great until this morning lol and got in a few solid workouts.

What belt did you snap? :scream:

The belt that they use instead of a normal chain, that wraps around the crank.

3 Likes

OMG :scream: that shouldn’t ever happen. Completely went by me that they needed to use something else instead of a chain…

Wow, that’s concerning. Sounds like the belt could be a weak link in the system.

You mean my puny 1250w Pmax shouldn’t snap a belt drive? No faith! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

3 Likes

What the ever loving heck? :open_mouth:

You just raised the bar for GPLama to break one in the first week. :rofl:

Seriously bad news. Sorry for that.

2 Likes

Damn, that sucks. I hope they make it right. Could be a big flaw.

Belt drives are used in motorcycles. Tacx couldn’t find one strong enough for a bicycle??