This motion is the result of us working to keep the bike in balance.
When we pedal standing, we end up with the bike “floating” under us like you mention, because we aren’t restraining it with our bottom on the seat.
When one foot reaches the bottom of the strike, that puts a high force on that side of the bike. Left in addressed, this would cause the bike to fall to that side. But we naturally apply an opposing force, via the handlebars, with our body. We have to “overcompensate” for the foot force with a lean on the opposite side.
This all turns into a pendulum motion as we repeat this for each pedal stroke. There is also a subtle turn of the handlebars that leads to a snaking motion where the front wheel moves back and forth across the road. Most people don’t even realise they are doing it, but it happens.
You can see this really well by watching the slow motion parts of Pete in the recent sprinting video.
You’re talking about side to side motion, right? I’m talking about front to back.
But as long as we’re on the side to side topic, you’re leaving out an important element…leaning the bike into the pedal stroke is producing leverage, which maximizes the arm force you can put into cranking.
Also the video does illustrate the guy in blue is generating more fore/aft motion judging by his surging position over the bars. The guy in red is moving less. I’d say the guy in red spends too much time on a rigid trainer, and it shows.
The ship date on the MP1 keeps slipping. Clevertraining.com has it currently as “early December”, but it looks like this has slipped by now too. Saris must be fine tuning some things as the original ship date was early October.
Hopefully they are able to get things to the point that they can ship them out soon.
Not sure on the cause of the delays. I think Ray said last week that he got a shipping tag for one from Saris. So maybe they are working on a more defined release along with a review?
Kind of like a planned release with a defined embargo date. But that probably doesn’t apply here since it was already announced and shown at various demo sites.
One small hope I have is that they are adding adjustable springs to the design. Comments from Saris reps said it’s not adjustable. And if so, that’s just crazy to me.
There are a few people here and in the FB group that have open orders. I hope they show in the near future, so we can get more feedback on the design.
I’ve got one on order as well from Clevertraining. I was able to get an H3 at the time of the $639 deal, so will put a thru-axle equipped bike on the H3 and MP1 (once it ships). Will leave my QR equipped older road bike on Tacx Neo for now (not on a rocker).
Adjustable springs would be a great option. Back in the days of the KK Rock-n-Roll, I liked it quite a bit firmer than what a lot of people were doing.
I balked a bit at first but ended up buying one of the Saris units. ETA is early January.
The way I look at it is that these things wouldn’t sell well even at half the price, due to the price. So the manufacturers need to make their R&D money back somehow.
If it were just side to side rocking motion, I probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, but the front and back motion is tricky to replicate using off the shelf components since the rails are curved.
If the thing works the way it’s supposed to, it’ll significantly improve sweetspot workouts for me. When intervals get longer than 10 minutes, I find saddle pain to be just as limiting as leg burning.
Well I loved the new H3 for the first 15 hrs until it started to make a loud knocking sound both while pedaling & coasting. Seems that other users are having the same problem. Here’s a youtube video showing the same problem as my trainer. Very disappointing.
Notably absent is any mention of adjusting the leveling spring tension.
So, this video, along with the comments from Saris reps at the live demos seems to be enough to say that the MP1 does NOT include user adjustable spring tension.
As already mentioned, it seems like a mistake overall, and crazy to me considering the above premium pricing.
Well, they have chosen to apply a relatively strong / stiff leveling spring setting. As such, that is less problematic for trainer offsets and rider weights. Even though I firmly disagree with their choice to use strong and non-adjustable springs, I can understand it from a “simplicity” standpoint.
It is probably fine for a starting point for most users. I have people hop on mine, with it’s very soft leveling spring setting, and they are unnerved from the lack of support. I choose that so I have real balance control over the bike, and gives a very natural feel, especially out of the saddle.
I am curious to see the reception based on comments from others I know as long time rocker users, in comparison to new buyers who have not tried other rockers.
Quite a positive set of comments and experience. Not sure if its “sponsored”, but its positive press for rockers overall, as well as for the MP1.
The videos show the same backwards timing we have seem on every other MP1 demo. It is most likely a result of the high leveling spring force set by Saris.
Looks funny and is “wrong” in a pure sense. But as we’ve seen in the rocker group, people don’t seen to mind it. And even with that issue, I still feel it’s better than a rigid setup by a large margin.
