Recommend a cheap smart trainer for Erg workout with Power Match

Equipment
1

Been using TrainerRoad for years with power meter and Kurt Kinetic Road Machine. Would quite like to do some workouts using ERG mode.

Will not be spending loads of dough on a top end smart trainer. Happy to keep using wheel on and since I have a power meter I’m not bothered about accuracy.

I’m tempted to get the Kurt Control Power Unit add on for my current trainer but Kurt seemed to be dogged with issues of late and I had a really bad experience with an InRide Smart add on a few years ago.

2

What country will you be buying in? The 4iiii fliiiight seems to be relatively cheap at the moment.

3

I’m in the UK. Just read DC Rainmaker’s review and that trainer not recommended for people with FTP higher than 250w. I last tested at 316 and hopefully going up :slight_smile: so that one is probably out for me.

4

Is noise a concern?

not much has changed between the H1 and H3 short of the H3 is quieter, some great deals on used H1’s and even new H2’s.(before the pandemic atleast)

5

Noise is not a concern at all, neither is weight, portability etc. My only two concerns are that it works well with power match and isn’t loads of ££. I’ll go have a look for those H1 units. Have you used one?

6

It’s what I ride on. bought it 2nd hand for $400usd a year ago. It’s heavy(IIRC it has the heaviest flywheel of all smart trainers) and can be noisy at higher speeds. They do have an issue with a clicking noise but it’s from having a dirty belt and it being a cogged belt. It’s not something that effects it’s use or durability really.

7

Have you looked at your options yet? Pretty much every retailer is sold out of every trainer. You might not have a lot of, or any, choice at the moment.

8

Halfords the best place at the moment. Just got an Elite Direto last week. Worth keeping an eye in their website and their eBay account too (halfords_1). They’re selling out in minutes whenever they have stock.

9

Not sure if you can find one in your area, but the tacx flow smart is probably the lowest price smart trainer out there. Just picked one up for a family member who just started riding. It’s no kickr, but it does the trick in terms of erg mode and controllable mode (terrible with BT but works great with Ant+) GPllama did a nice video on it and had a pretty decent review. If you’re a bigger rider or with peak power over 850, it may be too little for you, but does the trick for day-to-day riding.

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10

@bpmessenger what is the issue with BT versus ANT? Thanks

12

I have that trainer, if you use a tablet or cell phone the BT is just fine, the problem is with a laptop… So if you want to use the laptop the best option to avoid huge headackes is to get a ant+ stick. Other wise you will have to reset the BT connection a lot of times.

13

Just found that connectivity is pretty weak with BT. YMMV but found that ant always seems to work better. For the 15 bucks it’s worth getting an ant stick

14

I have a kickr snap - has worked flawlessly for 2 years - picks up Bluetooth quickly - my FTP is 298W and I’m no where near overpowering it. Folds away nicely as well and doesn’t take a lot of calibration - that said as mentioned panic buying in the UK seems to have included turbos as well as loo roll and liquid soap so you may struggle to get one! :crazy_face:

15

I’ve also been using a tacx flow smart consistently for two and a bit years. Got it in Halfords for c. £200. Started at about 160ftp and am now at 262 so I can’t vouch for the kind of numbers you need, but it’s never had a problem when the numbers jump to 360+. Only issue is those very short sprint bursts at 400+ which last a few seconds, by the time you’ve gotten to the right power, the interval’s over, but I think that’s a normal lag on smart trainers, isn;t it?

17

Thanks for the shouts everyone. Looks like Kurt Kinetic have their Control Power Unit in stock for 300 euro and free delivery so might take a chance on that. I know they have had some poor reliability with some of their electronic products recently but I’ll give it a bash. If it’s junk I can always send it back.

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18

One of the cheapest would be Tacx Vortex. Is it great quality? No. But it’ll work. And it’s cheap usually.

19

Have the same issue on my Kickr, so likely not a trainer issue.

20

Thanks everybody. I just ordered the Kurt Kinetic Control Power Unit (new version with Ant+). Was the about the cheapest option going and in stock so took the chance. Should be here next week so will put a post up with a review of sorts once I;ve used it a couple of times.

1 Like
21

Hey man Im thinking of getting the kinetic power unit as well to upgrade my fluid road machine. Seems you’ve had yours for a while based on this thread. May I ask how is it performing? Thanks

22

Hey @Simon1975 yeah it;s performing okay now. There are a few good and bad points but in general I’d probably buy it again. Here goes;

Bad

  • I cannot calibrate the trainer using TrainerRoad, only using the Kinetic app
  • Even when freshly calibrated the trainer consistently reads 20% below my Vector pedals (dual sided). This is not a huge deal for me as I always use it in Power Match mode with TR
  • When using Trainer Road it is not possible to switch from ERG to resistance mode. If you try it just locks the trainer up altogether.
  • To use the trainer in resistance mode you need to start a free ride workout in Kinetic app and disconnect the trainer from TR
  • The Kinetic app for Android truly sucks. It’s buggy and sometimes suffers memory leaks which crash it and you need to clear out the file system to get it working again.
  • In addition the Android android app has no way changing the resistance levels (I believe it can be done in the IOS app)
    *You cannot use the trainer as a ‘dumb trainer’ disconnected from power as it offers no resistance. Apparently it’s possible to set it up to do so using the IOS app but again not with Android
  • In the Kinetic app (Android again) when you start a free ride it tells you to calibrate after the first 10 minutes. If you do this the app crashes and the only way to recover is to restart the app and disconnect the trainer from the power and start again. To calibrate you need to use a separate calibration menu in the app. There are no effing instructions to tell you this. I lost literally hours of training time trying to figure this out
  • Kinetic support have been awful. Taken a very long time to respond and basically told me there’s nothing wrong with the app “thousands of people are using it with no issue” and basically pointed the finger at TR for it not working great in TR.
  • Kinetic support told me in June that a new app was due in May which would be much slicker for calibrating, setting the resistance level and allowing you to set th trainer as a dumb trainer. Still not seen any sign of this and the last time the Android app was updated was January 2020

The Good

  • The trainer works well in TR in ERG mode with Power Match turned on. So good that I do all my workouts in ERG mode even microbursts. You do need to get the hang of making sure you cadence is set right before the intervals begin but once you do it’s fine.
  • ERG mode is brilliant for longer efforts like sweetspot, threshold, and even VO2
  • TR support team have been properly amazing in helping me get the most out of the setup and have added me to the tester list for the new app version they are working on which should solve the calibration and resistance mode problems. I’m still waiting to test it though
  • The bigger fly wheel on the resistance unit compared to the standard fly wheel that was on my Kinetic Road machine feels awesome

By the way, I use TR on a windows laptop with an ANT+ dongle on the end of a 3m USB extension that sits right up close the the trainer.

Hope that helps. Any questions, just ask.