I had worked a few overtime shifts in the past month so decided to use the money to splurge on one. I’ve had it for about two weeks now.
For perspective, I have previously had two smart trainers. A Tacx Vortex (wheel on, used for 2 years) and an Elite Direto (direct drive, the original version, used for 3 years). I’ve also had 5 different powermeters (Garmin Vector V1 & V2 Pedals, Powertap Pedals, Quarq Dfour, Quarq Dzero, Power2Max….I still have the latter three). I was always good about calibrating them per the instructions each ride.
Pros:
- The biggest one for me was adjustability. I like the idea of switching between me road fit and tri fit within just a couple of minutes and not having to move bikes. It also means I can play around with the fit (try different crank lengths, stack and reach, etc). Also, it meant my wife could easy jump on the bike for a short spin if she wanted to as well
- No more maintenance or chain mess. Also, the bike was pretty easy to put together. Took maybe 30 minutes to get it all set up
- The climb feature is fun. I have yet to use Zwift (I have a free trial card somewhere that I need to find), but for TR I’ve been increasing the grade on intervals to make it more similar to climbing. It’s neat and I am sure would be a ton of fun with Zwift
- It’s quieter than my previous setups
- There is a little bit of side to side movement. Not as much as the rocker plate I have for my Directo, but enough that it doesn’t feel unnaturally stiff
- It use a regular round seatpost which means you could just pull the seatpost and saddle off of your outdoor bike and stick it in here. This would make switching between users specific saddles cheaper and/or faster than the Stages, Tacx, or Watt bike.
- The setup wizard worked great. I put in my Retul numbers and bam, great fit
- No more Erg mode circle of death. With the Direto, often times at the start of the workout or at the beginning of an interval where I was having to push >100watts more than intended before things balanced out. Super frustrating. With the Wahoo Bike it gives you some sort of ‘assist’ when you start pedaling from a stop which seems to prevent this.
Cons:
- Handlebar and seat post slippage. One the first practice ride both the seatpost and the ‘headtube’ (the part where you can raise the handlebar) started slipping on me. I had to really, really tighten this down in order to get it not to slip. So much so that I am not sure my wife will be able to undo to make adjustments on her own. I think part of the issue is that the clamp/cam mech itself seem pretty stiff. I wish they would have used a knob like the Stages bike (or even a hex bolt rather than the old-school style seat post-collars). I’m really hoping the clamp itself loosens up a little bit with some use. Otherwise this makes it harder to share a bike with my wife and to mess with the fits which was one of the major reasons I went with a smart bike.
- High top tube makes it harder to get on versus a step through design like Stages or Tacx. This is nothing new to anyone here, and doesn’t really bother me. But my wife would prefer a step through design rather than
- I don’t know if it’s really a con per se, but when I was doing a VO2 max workout today it seems like it jumped around more than the Direto did (I always turn power smoothing off). I pulled an old 120% interval for comparison and posted screenshots below. I usually turn Erg mode off with VO2 work as it feels less smooth to me, but both these ones happened to be done in erg. It would be nice if it was less spiky, but I think maybe you need a Hammer H3 to be better?
- Final con, and this is a bit subjective and may get some eye rolls from other posters, but it measures WAY lower than my other trainers/powermeters. Second workout I did on the bike was a ramp test and I scored a 322 which was a massive 24 watts lower than I the 346 I tested at 5 weeks prior on the Direto (in the middle of full distance IM base mid volume). I thought maybe it was just a bad ramp test performance (and maybe that is part of it). I decided to just split the difference and set my FTP at 330. In the workouts since I feel like any given wattage is harder than it used to be. Just a few weeks ago riding at 300 watts on the Direto wasn’t too bad. But now it feels like a ton more work. I know that every trainer and powermeter are going to be a bit different (when doing comparisons in the past the Tacx Vortex would read higher than everything else, and the pedals read higher than the Direto and crank based meters). But whenever I would compare my two Quarqs or my Power2Max to the Direto they were always within 5 watts of each other. So I would feel good knowing that my indoor and outdoor power numbers/performance would be similar. Now I will be left wondering when I am riding up a 25 minute long hill if I need to be shooting for a power goal 25 watts higher than what I might normally do on the trainer. Also, I’m not into Zwift racing, but if I was I would be doing it on the Direto or with the Quarqs rather than with the Wahoo bike. Again, not really Wahoo’s fault I don’t think, it could be that all my past power meters have read abnormally high. But it is a little disheartening that it doesn’t match better with the PM’s on my three outdoor bikes and does make me like the bike a bit less
Dade -1 with Wahoo Kickr Bike
Spencer +2 with Direto
