Before I sent my bike back I had a belt issue as well. In high torque situations I could make the belt slip and squeal on the pulleys. Fortunately, nothing broke.
Would you mind snapping some photos of the belt replacement? I’m curious to see what it looks like, in there. You’re the first I heard of, to break the belt. I haven’t seen anyone post the internals, yet.
Unless you’ve already done it and buttoned it up, then don’t worry about it.
Is that an automatic belt tensioner? It looks like it, with a spring and a pivot bolt. I’d imagine that there would be replacement parts for the spring (or a part number), when it wears and the belt starts to slip.
I’ve always wondered why Wahoo doesn’t use tensioners that you would find in a car with a serpentine belt, that has wear indicators and automatically tension correctly, vs a screw and some mystic art to properly tension the belt.
On my Kickr1, I had managed to have support tell me the torque specs to tighten to, and to verify that audibly, to measure the note when plucked. The tensioner on the Tacx bike is a definite welcomed sight to see.
A direct-drive trainer with a step-down belt-pulley system makes use of the bike’s gearing to drop the torque down, so the belt system faces lower torque values (and higher rpms). The Tacx system is from the “chainring”, so faces a higher torque. This said, step-down belt-pulley systems on trainers have not proven to be too great so far - both Wahoo and Tacx have seen multiple reliability issues. It appears the design decisions may have erred a little too far to the cost management side.
I’m guessing a bit here, but I’d imagine that the profile of the belt will play a role in whether a tensioner is possible or not.
I know that for many belts, you don’t want to fold them past a specific point (i.e. the Gates belts) and I’m not sure how this plays into a toothed versus v-belt
Even with the tensioner I was able to get my belt to slip and make squealing noises on the pulleys. I would think that means that the belt was too loose for the torque that I developed by standing up. It’s not like I am a huge powerhouse or something. The power was set for 350W and I was just accelerating from a stop. TR kicked the resistance in and I stood up for 5 or 10 seconds. At least it didn’t break.
After almost a year since I ordered the bike, my Tacx Neo Bike arrived today. Its one heavy unit!
Unfortunately I have the same problem with my thighs rubbing against both the saddle ‘slider’ unit and the seatpost itself in the same manner you describe.
The unit also had a ‘pinging’ sound every few seconds in the resistance unit at some RPMs.
Whilst this second issue may resolve itself, or under warranty, the first is a fundamental design issue (at least in relation to my body type), and so sadly I’ve already sent a note over to the shop for a return.
Matthew, or anyone else with a unit and a ruler – how wide is the seat post? Hoping to compare to my current setup, or perhaps mock it up (cardboard?) and see if it’s likely to be problematic.
For those with the bike, is it easy enough to clip on aerobars? Looking at the images I can find online, it looks like it should be - although of course it will need to be set quite wide to clear the centre console.
No problem with clip on bars fitting on the handlebars. However the display is really in the way and makes the bars quite far apart. Not that it matters for aero reasons . However, I wanted to have the same position as on my actual bike and that didn’t work.