At $3,500 the Wahoo KICKR Bike is Wahoo’s most expensive product. And one of the most expensive indoor training products you can buy. It’s also the company’s first go at creating not just an indoor bike, but actually an entirely different technological way of doing resistance within a ‘trainer’. While at first glance you may assume this is basically just a KICKR+CLIMB melded together on steroids, the reality is that technologically it’s vastly different internally.
The flywheel is a new electromagnetic design that’s akin to what Tacx has used in their NEO series for years, while the CLIMB portion no longer uses a belt, but is fully linear actuator driven. Not to mention creating an entirely flexible shifting system that can replicate your outdoor bike, from SRAM to Shimano to Campagnolo. All while trying to adhere to the normal industry standards around communicating with apps on ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart.
While the KICKR Bike just started landing in people’s homes a week or two ago, I’ve been riding the Wahoo KICKR Bike for about two and a half months. I’ve got plenty of rides on it, as have numerous visitors to the DCR Cave during that time period. Be it people at the open house to GPLAMA and DesFit, not to mention my wife… all of whom have put mileage on it. So plenty of time to find the good, the bad, and maybe a bit of ugly.
As usual, once I’m done here shortly with this media loaner I’ll get it all boxed up, tumbled down the stairs, and pushed out the door back to Wahoo. Just the way I roll. If you find this review useful, feel free to hit up the links at the end of the post to help support the site. With that – onwards!
(Note: At present Wahoo is only taking orders for bikes to the North American market. The company has previously said they expect to start on the European market in early 2020, however, given the delays with only a handful of bikes just recently delivered to the US market, I don’t expect we’ll see European sales come online anytime soon. Wahoo has also ceased taking new orders as well until they can make some progress on the huge pile of existing backorders. Due to the weight and size of these products, virtually all distribution from Asia occurs via oceanic cargo ship – which compounds the delays.)
Unboxing & Setup:
Someday I’ll get around to editing the funny VLOG-style video I shot getting this bike out of the clutches of FedEx and the Dutch customs authority. But what you need to know is that I got it out. That’s all that matters here! And then, like any true resident of the Netherlands, I pedaled it home via bike from the airport: Smart bike atop cargo bike, held only by a daisy chain of bungee cords.
Once back in the DCR Cave, it was time to unbox it. Albeit, a job partially done by the customs authority. The entire top of the box lifts off, revealing the contents inside. The main portion of the bike is pre-assembled, leaving you a box of parts and then a secondary support piece below the flywheel:
Here’s a look inside that box of parts:
And here’s the contents spread out, which includes the handlebars, seat post, power cable, a spare set of pedals you’ll never use unless you host an Open House, as well as the bike feet/frame support posts. Oh, and the manual.
And a quick close-up gallery of those pieces:
Assembly is pretty straightforward. First, you’ll attach the legs:
Then, you’ll attach the handlebars – just as you would on a real bike:
Don’t forget to plug in the two cables to the ports at the base of the front stem:
Then take the seat-post and stuff that in the hole:
While this seat-post does have a special ruler on the back of it, you can actually swap it out for any seat-post of your liking. This allows you to have two saddles (perhaps for two family members) and easily swap them. I suspect some day Wahoo will also offer secondary seat posts as accessories in an online store or something.
Then there’s this giant-ass warning card:
It asks to install these two washers:
The point of these washers is to keep your pedals (after going through the crank arm hole) from hitting the frame of the bike:
Go ahead and plug your bike in:
Oh, wait, don’t forget to double-check your feet levelers are in a happy spot so you don’t get any undesirable wobble from the base:
Then send out the Roomba to clean-up the mess you’ve made:
With that, we’re ready to cover some basics before we start into the whole bike fit bit.
The Basics:
For this section I’ll cover some of the basics of the hardware, before we get into setup of rider fit as well as things like gearing and shifting, plus app connectivity. All of which are detailed in separate sections.
We’re going to start where all things start: The wall.
Yup, your power outlet. Like most smart trainers, this bike needs power to function, and comes with a beast of a power block (and a pile of appropriate international wall connectors). Here’s a close look at the power brick specs:
Once you’ve got it plugged in, you’re pretty much ready to use it. You’ll notice that the small display near the front of the bike is lit up. This display shows your current gearing, with the most forward number indicating your virtual chainring, while the rear number indicates your rear cassette:
Below that little display is a single 2 AMP USB port. You can use it to plug something in, though there isn’t really a great place to put whatever you plugged in:
Next to that are two ports, these are where you (should have) plugged in your shifters. There’s an extra port though for auxiliary accessories. That might be triathlon bar shifters some day, or it could be some sort of other accessory. Either way, the expandability is there. in fact, the reason you see the cables as all in disarray as that Wahoo wanted people to be able to make any adjustments in size/fit and not have to deal with re-doing the cabling. While I do appreciate that sentiment, I think they could have done a bit more cleanup there.
That display though will also show your current incline using the integrated CLIMB functionality, which tilts the bike up and down. And you can manually control the CLIMB’s functionality by pressing the two buttons on the left side.
The CLIMB can recreate a +20% incline and a –15% decline. And it’s a bit different than the existing KICKR CLIMB, because in the case of the KICKR CLIMB it replicated that by raising and lowering your front fork. Whereas here it’s actually tilting the entire bike, so the pivot point is in the center of the bike (as happens on a real hill), versus just the front. That means you feel the downwards a bit more since it’s effectively raising your seat too. Here, this video snippet demonstrates it well:
(I had to very slightly tweak the playback speeds since the KICKR CLIMB and KICKR Bike have different specs, so they’d start/end at the same time)
Note though that certain bike fit positions will max out the CLIMB’s downwards incline capabilities to a lesser number (such as –10%). Also note that even when you set Zwift to 100% trainer difficulty, for some bizarre reason Zwift still halves the downhill gradient for the CLIMB position. So a 10% decline becomes a 5% decline, which means you don’t really feel it. Other apps like FulGaz don’t have this artificial limitation, and hopefully it’s something that Zwift will eventually fix (it was there on the KICKR CLIMB too).
Next, there’s the flywheel, which is the big round thing at the back of the bike. That’s where the inertia comes from that replicates the feel on the bike. It’s somewhat quiet, though it is louder than the Tacx Bike. It can replicate downhills too by spinning the flywheel forward, making it feel like you’re coasting down a hill, based on the information Zwift sends it. The overall road inertia feel is quite good on the KICKR Bike.
Now I said ‘somewhat quiet’ above, because this bike is like a jungle when it comes to making sounds. Ya never quite know what it’s gonna come up with next. But, I’ll roughly categorize them here:
A) Regular riding: For normal riding there’s a constant hum that’s not too bothersome, roughly akin to a fan on low
B) Riding at certain cadences: If at 63-64RPM you’ll hear a metal-sounding resonance that increases in volume the longer you stay at that RPM (to a surprisingly loud level). Another range seems to exist in the 78-79 RPM too, albeit more of a high pitched sound. Wahoo says the resonance is normal.
C) Harder efforts/sprints: With certain fit positions/movements, I’ve found this specific bike creaks a lot – like a bed when doing the horizontal shuffle. This seems to happen mostly at higher wattages and harder efforts, but not always. I listened to DesFit for nearly an hour the other day riding it, and he managed to creak the bed bike the entire time. I didn’t ask if he always rides like that, but he seemed to enjoy himself.
Wahoo believes the creaking is fixed on newer bikes, and have offered to send a newer bike over to see if that solves it. I’m going to guess it will be solved initially, but I’m curious to see how it handles longer term. There’s no question that as more people have gotten more riding time on this specific unit, it’s gotten louder and louder.
Now, for normal riding, here’s a comparison between the three bikes on the market. Again – this is exclusive of any funky sounds:
Now, to wrap up this section I’ve got a quick little summary of things I do and don’t like about the bike from a basics standpoint. I hesitate to call this a pros and cons list, though that’s more or less what it is. I’m sticking it here in the middle of the review so people that just skip to the end without reading will miss it (and thus hopefully read the whole review to make an informed decision – nuance matters). I’ll ignore any accuracy likes/dislikes in this section and keep it more on practical things, also ignoring spec-specific things too. Basically, this is more of a practical list of likes/dislikes:
Things I really like:
– The integration with CLIMB is awesome, feels better than KICKR+CLIMB (due to angles)
– The road feel inertia is great, especially ramping up
– The app for initial bike setup is awesome
– The app for configuration of gearing/shifting is even more awesome
– The actual execution of the shifters is the best in the industry
Things I really dislike:
– How the eff is there no place to put your phone/tablet/M&Ms/etc?
– You put a USB port there for what purpose if there’s no place to stash/connect anything?
– The gearing/incline display is in a useless position. Who looks at their crotch while riding?
– The front-end wiring looks ugly (even if it’s for extendibility)
– Single water bottle cage
You’ll see the same list formatting on all my indoor bike reviews. With that, onto the details of rider setup, and then shifting
Bike & Rider Fit Setup:
Now that the KICKR bike is built, it’s time to get it fit to you. Later on in the post I talk about multi-user considerations and swapping positions. The KICKR Bike offers plenty of adjustability, which, depending on the width of your crotch, should cover virtually every possible scenario. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to your crotch again later. Or, my crotch as it may be.
At a glance, you can adjust the bike in these five ways (plus more if you include loosening the handlebars and changing the orientation there):
1) Saddle height (up/down)
2) Saddle position (forward/back)
3) Handlebar height (up/down)
4) Handlebar position (forward/back)
5) Stand-over height adjustment (up/down)
In the case of the KICKR Bike, the seat height is actually two metrics blended together: Stand over height + Saddle height.
Here’s a quick gallery of all of those measurement bits. One odd quirk that both Wahoo and Tacx have duplicated is only putting the rulers on one side of the bike. Heck, there’s even grooves in there for both sides. Seriously folks, just do both sides – I’ll pay you an extra $1 if you really want to apply the stickers on both sides.
To adjust any given bit you’ll simply slide open the lever for that particular component. It’s quick and easy and works really well:
The only issue I’ve seen with this is that the manufacturing tolerances around the seat-post assembly aren’t great. In particular of the back seat post (horizontal movement), where when extended out towards the max there’s easily 1-2mm of play there. Wahoo says this is by design.
Wahoo offers an app integrated fit guide, and it’s incredibly detailed, all driven via an app. You’ve got three options for how to set up the fit:
A) Take a photo of your bike, and with a tiny bit of assistance it’ll automatically replicate the sizing for the KICKR Bike
B) Utilize a well-known bike fit measurement system from GURU Fit System, Retul Fit, and Trek Precision Fit, which will give you the right measurements for the KICKR Bike
C) Enter in your height and inseam, as well as preferred position (relaxed/endurance/race) and it’ll give you the KICKR Bike measurements
To get started, you’ll crack open the Wahoo App, and then choose the FIT Method that you prefer. For example, if you choose the Retul Fit option, it’ll ask you for those five specific metrics, and then you press continue:
After which it’ll give you the specific five measurements you should configure the KICKR Bike for.
Next, if you’ve got a bike that’s already configured, you can take a picture of it:
It’ll show you how to line things up:
And then you go around and place dots on various parts:
Afterwards you’ll measure the distance between the two wheels, and input it into the app. In theory, it gives you the measurements, but somehow that didn’t quite work for me (nor did a do-over). Perhaps I need to get a better bike fit…
And finally for the last FIT method, you can enter in your specific height and inseam and it’ll spit out the correct sizing numbers as well:
And then here’s all the data and instructions it’ll give you back – which was incredibly close to my normal bike fit:
Either way, beyond my specific photo-sizing issue issue, it’s the type of nuanced well thought through detail we frankly don’t see a lot of in the sports tech space.
Of course, sizing it to you is going to vary a bit based on your exact fit. And there’s no better example of that than the ‘thigh gap’ issue I talked about on Twitter recently. Which is that some of these bikes have rather large top-tubes, as such, you’ll rub your thighs against it while riding. Here’s an example of the slight bit of rub on the KICKR Bike:
I rub on both the KICKR Bike and Tacx Bike, but not on the Wattbike Atom. That’s because the Wattbike Atom frame is super thin compared to the beastly Wahoo & Tacx Bikes.
But it’s not entirely black and white. See, while the Tacx Bike is thick, it only extends below the saddle, so for some people they’ll never touch at all because their legs extend forward beyond that point. Whereas on the KICKR Bike there’s no escaping it – that’s the width all the way across. The only hope you have there is that your thighs gap enough by the time your leg length cross over the top-tube.
In some cases you might rub more when lazy pedaling, and less when your legs are working harder and more extended. Now, the brute-force way of determining whether or not you’d rub is to simply take out a piece of cardboard and cut it to the measurement above, and then stick it on your bike and see if you hit it a bunch.
While I do rub on both the KICKR Bike & Tacx Bike, I’ve gotten used to it and it doesn’t bother me appreciably. It seems to impact me more when I’m easy pedaling than pedaling hard. Each person will be different here depending on your fit. For lack of anywhere else to stick it, the Q-Factor on the Wahoo bike is 150mm (Q-Factor is basically the distance between your feet, measured to the point the pedal touches the crank arms), which is about 10mm more than my road bike (but 10mm less than the Wattbike Atom). As I’ve said many times before, I think the debate around Q-Factor is hilariously overthought. After all, people swap between mountain bikes and road bikes throughout the season (or even the week) without any issue, which have dramatically different Q-Factors.
Next we’ve got crank length, which is adjustable to the following settings: 165/167.5/170/172.5/175mm. To adjust the crank length you want you simply put your pedals into the appropriate hole of this crazy 5-holed crank-arm design:
It may look a bit…bear-paw…but, practically speaking it works great. I like simple solutions, and this nails it.
So what about triathletes? The KICKR Bike does not include any aerobars, but you can add your own. There are no practical limitations here, as it’s just like a normal road-bike handlebar with a normal front stem. Attach your bars, and go forth riding. Again, down the road Wahoo says they’re going to offer some sort of integrated aerobar accessory kit, but there’s no pricing/availability/pictures of that at this time. Here’s my RedShift aerobars attached to the KICKR Bike:
Beyond the aerobar attachment, all other TT/triathlon-type aspects would really fall more under the rest of the FIT section above. Given the flexibility here, I imagine most folks will have no issues finding their right fit here.
Finally – what about multi-user scenarios? Well, not today. But soon.
Wahoo’s working on the ability to create multiple bike profiles with the app. The idea being that you can customize the exact gearing and shifting setup you want, and then label them. For example perhaps one for a general road bike setup, another geared more towards climbing, TT, etc… But that doesn’t directly solve the multi-user scenario.
Instead, Wahoo says that the plan is that once any user connects to the bike with the app on their own phone, it’ll push down that configuration to the Wahoo bike, inclusive of the rider’s weight (which is super important for correct road feel). That should roughly work, though I’d love to see a bit more thinking around that concept. Since the KICKR Bike lacks a meaningful display, there’s no way to know (or even confirm) it’s got the correct rider profile details. What’d be an interesting solution for that is to update the name of the bike as broadcast over BLE & ANT+, so that when you paired it Zwift it’d say “Ray’s KICKR Bike – TT” or “Bobbie’s KICKR Bike – Road”. Or perhaps that equation is driven more from the apps like Zwift itself – able to change all these settings based on who is logged in.
Still, it’s a general problem that hasn’t really been solved for the industry yet, but with Zwift looking to build their own bike – it’s something that’ll need to get solved sooner or later.
Shifting, Braking, and Steering:
There’s no bike on the market, indoor or outdoor, that has nailed shifting and gearing as well as the KICKR Bike. It’s not that it feels better than an outdoor bike per se, but rather that you’ve got endless customization of the shifters. Want to ride eTAP? No problem – done. Switch it up tomorrow for Shimano Di2? Sure. How about go all Italian with Campagnolo? Sì.
And that’s before we even talk things like chainring and cassette customization – or the planned upcoming multiple bike profiles.
But stepping back a second – the purpose of adjustability to shifting in an indoor bike may not seem obvious at first. But this bike is replacing your outdoor bike, and on that bike you’ve got a specific gearing setup you’re used to. Be it the shifters type (such as Di2), or having a different gearing combination (like a compact crankset). If you’re going to do an app with lots of climbing, you’ll want to replicate that compact crankset (or, change into such a crankset).
And while the software side of the Wahoo bike’s shifting realm is by far the star of the show for the entire bike, it’s equally as much the actual hardware. You’ll find these shifters feel like real outdoor shifters – this seemingly perfect blend of SRAM and Shimano shifters, all with some semi-hidden buttons on the insides that could be used for later functions. You can even squeeze the brakes if you’re bored (it won’t immediately stop your avatar in Zwift though).
First, let’s start on the app. The Wahoo bike supports the ability to configure your gearing via Wahoo’s app. It allows you to specify 9/10/11/12 speed cassettes, and then individually choose the range of the cogs in the cassette. For the front chainring you can choose 1/2/3 chainrings, and the sizes of each. Note that functionally speaking what you see below is virtually identical to what Tacx does on their bike, but practically speaking it’s faster/easier to configure than Tacx.
Next, there’s the configuration of the shifters themselves. It’s here where you can specify Shimano (Di2 or Mechanical), SRAM eTAP, SRAM Mechanical, or Campagnolo. Once you select a given shifting type there’s also a little menu that explains them all, in case you aren’t familiar. You can’t do any of the complicated synchro-shift type stuff at this point – but I suppose there’s always something for down the road – it would be a mere software update.
Again, the shifting setup is the star of the show for the Wahoo bike – I can’t overstate that enough here. And here’s how the shifters look, which mirror that of real bike shifters:
Now, the one downside of the Wahoo shifting system is that the display is in a really bad place. As I talked about elsewhere it’s just not good location-wise, since you’re always Chris Froomeing trying to see it.
Atop that, Zwift isn’t displaying the shift data yet from the Wahoo bike (only the Wattbike Atom at this time). For Tacx bikes, it’s not as big an issue because you can see it on the display in front of you. Now, Wahoo actually does send this information over to Zwift in their data stream. In fact, FulGaz displays it today already:
It’s worth noting that none of the indoor bikes today (including wahoo) support the ANT+ Shifting Profile at this time. While not a big though, it’d be cool if that data was transmitted and then recorded by apps or bike computers, just like it is on a real bike. This really shouldn’t be that hard and I’ve yet to think (or hear of) any technical blocker here. Wahoo already supports this ANT+ profile in their ELEMENT/BOLT/ROAM bike computers.
So what about steering? Well, physically it’s there – but there’s nothing hooked up yet software-wise. Like other bikes on the market, the KICKR Bike has two steering buttons, one per side, on the inside of the handlebars in almost the same spot as you’d find additional remote buttons on a normal set of Di2 handlebars. For braking, they’ve got levers identical to outside road bike levers that have a fairly similar feel to a real road bike.
When you hold the brake levers, it’ll stop the flywheel at the back of the bike. But it won’t actually stop your avatar in Zwift immediately. And in fact, if you try and pedal while holding the brakes, it’ll actually make your avatar go faster.
The reason is that Zwift is looking at power output to drive your avatar’s speed. So when you apply the brakes, it simply stops the flywheel – it doesn’t control the speed within Zwift (and Zwift has no concept of integrated braking yet). And extending that further, if you apply the brakes while pedaling, that (understandably) spikes your power, which in this power-driven world means it actually makes you faster (versus in the real-world you’d still slow down).
Ultimately, for all these companies – these features are really on Zwift to implement. The gearing shifting data is already there and documented/broadcasted by Wahoo (as seen, FulGaz has implemented it). Zwift has already implemented a variant of this for the Wattbike Atom on certain platforms. But nobody is using any standards here, which is somewhat ironic because there actually is a gear shifting standard, so it’s unclear to me why the indoor bike and app companies just wouldn’t use that (and funnel it over BLE, akin to what Tacx did back in the early days of ANT+ FE-C over Bluetooth Smart).
Still, I’m going to continue to give Zwift a hard time on this. They’re the industry leader here on the trainer app side, but lack any sort of cohesive hardware integration team or even a single individual that ensures these sort of features are lit up when companies bring them to market (at the request of Zwift no less). I could write an entire novel on all the Zwift hardware integration stumbles there…and that’s just from this year alone.
Nonetheless – the good news for Wahoo is that once Zwift decides to do something about it, it’s not hard for Wahoo to implement it. Hopefully for people spending $3,500 for this bike – that’s sooner rather than later.
Apps Compatibility:
The Wahoo Bike follows some but not all of the industry norms you’d expect from most trainers these days. As you probably know, apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, SufferFest, Rouvy, FulGaz, Kinomap and many more all support most of these industry standards, making it easy to use whatever app you’d like. If trainers or apps don’t support these standards, then it makes it far more difficult for you as the end user. And while I used the term ‘most’, the reality is that the leftover bits not yet following the industry standards (Bluetooth Smart FTMS) are handled by most apps supporting Wahoo’s own Bluetooth Smart protocols anyways (and Wahoo says early 2020 they’ll implement FTMS).
With the latest firmware, the Wahoo Bike transmits data on both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart as well, allowing interactive resistance control across both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart. By applying resistance control, apps can simulate climbs as well as set specific wattage targets.
To be specific, the Tacx Bike supports the following protocol transmission standards:
ANT+ FE-C Trainer Control: This is for controlling the trainer via ANT+ from apps and head units. Read tons about it here.
Bluetooth Smart Wahoo Trainer Control: This is Wahoo’s private method of controlling the trainer. At this point it does NOT yet support FTMS, but that switch-over is planned in early 2020 according to Wahoo last week. I suspect the issue is the same as Tacx not supporting it, in that the FTMS standard doesn’t support a way to configure the rider’s weight, which is important for correctly applying the ride feel.
Note: At this time (Dec 2019) the KICKR Bike does *NOT* support transmission of standard ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart power meter data streams, like all past Wahoo trainers. The company says this is coming shortly – perhaps as soon as the end of this year, but it may slide into early next year. The ramifications of this are most apparent if you use a watch or head unit to record your training data for training load/recovery purposes. That’s not available at this time.
Update – Oct 1st, 2020: With the latest firmware update released yesterday, the KICKR Bike now supports both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart power broadcasting, inclusive of cadence data. Woot!
The Wahoo bike includes cadence data for any of the connections, so that data is baked into the power meter and trainer control streams. When you go to pair an app to the KICKR Bike you’ll see the cadence channel shown as well:
It’s these same standards that also allow you to connect via head units too. For example the Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT as well as Garmin Edge series support ANT+ FE-C for trainer control (or Wahoo Bluetooth Smart trainer control), so you can re-ride outdoor rides straight from your bike head unit to your trainer. But you can’t yet pair it as a regular power meter, only a trainer.
(In case things are still a bit confusing: You can connect to the trainer via ANT+ FE-C, but just not as a regular power meter. Meaning if you want to re-ride an outdoor ride on your Wahoo/Garmin unit, no problems. But if you want to do a Zwift ride and then just record a copy of your data to your Garmin for training load/recovery purposes, that’s not yet possible like it is on every other trainer/bike in the market.)
For me, in my testing, I used Zwift and TrainerRoad as my two main apps (which are the two main apps I use personally). In the case of Zwift, I used it in regular riding mode (non-workout mode, aka SIM mode), whereas in the case of TrainerRoad I used it in a structured workout mode. I dig into the nuances of these both within the power accuracy section.
In any case, here in TrainerRoad using Bluetooth Smart on an iPad:
What you may notice though is that the calibration option is actually present. In reality, if you try using it, it’ll fail. This is by design, the Wahoo KICKR Bike doesn’t require any calibration (nor does it support it) – that’s identical to how the Tacx NEO & NEO Bike series works.
Beyond all of the gearing/shifting features we discussed in the app, as well as the rider fit options, there’s not much else app-wise for the KICKR Bike. Except firmware updates of course. These usually just take a couple minutes. Quick and easy.
Note that the Wahoo KICKR Bike does have downhill drive simulation, which means that as you go down a hill it’ll drive the flywheel forward so it feels like you’re going down a hill. I’d say this is OK, but it’s not quite as realistic a feel as Tacx’s. Something about the speed doesn’t quite feel right. Though inversely, I feel like Wahoo’s flywheel realism while you’re pedaling and specifically accelerations feels slightly more realistic than Tacx’s.
On the flip side, Tacx has their ‘road feel’ on the NEO & NEO Bike, which simulates cobblestones and such. Wahoo could look to implement that as well in the KICKR Bike (assuming no patent issues from Tacx). That feature works by stuttering the flywheel at just the right frequency (we’re talking milliseconds here) to replicate the different road conditions/patterns.
Remember, this is a very different technology than on a typical Wahoo KICKR. This is an electromagnetic flywheel (essentially the same as the Tacx NEO series), versus a more traditional flywheel found on a Wahoo KICKR trainer. That’s the direction I suspect you’ll see the entire industry take for mid to higher-end trainers, going into 2020. The point being the potential for how Wahoo decides to tweak/leverage that is just beginning.
Power Accuracy Analysis:
As usual, I put the bike up against a number of power meters to see how well it handled everything from resistance control accuracy, to speed of change, to any other weird quirks along the way. In the case of indoor bikes it’s a bit more tricky to have 2-3 other power meters, since you typically can’t swap out the crankset or rear hubs. So you have to rely upon other power meter pedals.
No problem, I’ve got plenty of those. I’ve set up the bike in three different configurations over the past few months:
Config 1: With Garmin Vector 3 pedals
Config 2: With Favero Assioma Duo pedals
Within this timeframe I’ve also seen multiple firmware versions, with most of the data below from either the most recent or version prior to it. The most recent firmware version adds in the ability to turn off ERG mode smoothing, which gives us more granularity for measuring ERG mode power accuracy.
We’re going to start this parade with today’s ride actually, a Zwift Race. Or, well, it was supposed to be a race until the Zwift Apple TV app froze as the starting line clock struck zero. Again. So, I just rode instead. In any case, here’s that data from a high level against the Favero Assioma pedals:
For the purposes of the above chart, I applied a 10-second smoothing factor simply so you can see through the haze of constant shifts in power as I bridged various groups. Here, this is what it looks like for just a small couple minute section without smoothing:
It is actually really quite close – with the only differences being at the single-second level (meaning, second to second there might be variances due to recording/transmission timing rates). If we smooth the above chart to a 5-second rolling average, here’s what it looks like:
There’s some very slight shifts in who has a higher power versus the other – usually within a couple watts, which is within the spec of both units. Even on a bike like this there’s still going to be some very slight drivetrain losses. So in theory the Favero Assioma pedals should be marginally higher than the KICKR Bike power.
Here’s a look at a casual sprint. For sprint closeness – this is actually astoundingly close. Very rarely do I see two power meters/trainers this close when we’re talking 1-second power (the below is not smoothed), let alone at these power levels.
And cadence accuracy? It seems incredibly close to the Favero Assioma – albeit, always 2 RPM offset (lower):
Whereas on another ride comparing against the Vector 3 pedals, it’s precisely the same:
So let’s shift to that other ride. This one another Zwift ride up/around the Volcano – a race I believe. This set is compared against the Garmin Vector 3 pedals. Here’s that data set:
Again, this is so silly close it’s barely worth analyzing. The only times it isn’t close are where I’m having some sort of ANT+ drop issue on the head unit connected to the Vector pedals. It might be the pedals, though I saw some other drops this week on other devices too – so my guess was something was interfering with ANT+ signals in the DCR Cave that week from a WiFi standpoint. When it happens, it seems to happen in rashes.
In any case, here’s a random snippet – as you can see, crazy close with zero smoothing applied:
Ok, because the Zwift simulation mode bits are boring, let’s shake things up a bit and head over to TrainerRoad. In this case I’m using ERG mode (the fact that I’m using TrainerRoad is irrelevant here from an accuracy standpoint – it behaves identically within Zwift). We’re gonna start with my famed 30×30 test. I do this for *every single* trainer I test, and the KICKR Bike is no exception. It’s simply a repetitive interval of 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy. This tests how quick the trainer responds (or bike, in this case), and how accurately it does so.
Not only am I testing for underlying power accuracy, but also the ability to hit a given wattage target correctly within a specified timeframe. Typically I target about 2-4 seconds to ramp up from approx. 150w to approx. 400-430w. Note this is with the latest firmware that now disables ERG mode smoothing (so we can see the actual power info):
Here’s the workout and results from TrainerRoad:
Well…huh.
That’s not terribly ideal.
What’s not ideal you ask? This isn’t ideal:
It’s overshooting the intervals (and the undershooting the exits of intervals). My cadence on these was crazy constant. Like, robotically perfectly constant. Yet, the trainer has a really hard time holding the correct initial setpoint wattage for the first 1-3 seconds. That’s 40 watts over (468w vs 428w). That’s basically the *exact* same issue I saw with the NEO 2T and Tacx NEO Bike when they first launched (since solved on the NEO 2T, and slightly less pronounced of an issue on the NEO Bike, at least in the above test…more in a second).
In the case of Tacx, their issue was that their flywheel was so powerful they hadn’t refined that swing in power yet. A brute that hadn’t yet learned finesse. Now, before I show it getting worse, let’s talk about the responsiveness – did it get to the set point (even if correct) efficiently?
Yes it did. And it did so smoothly too (smoother than the beast of a Tacx Bike). It felt right. So good work there, just gotta stick the landing next time.
And what about the actual power meter accuracy side of the house? Well, that’s pretty good too. The Favero Assioma and Wahoo KICKR Bike are very very close once I apply a 3-second smoothing to take care of any recording latency type issues. Here’s the data:
So ok, power accuracy is fine. And responsiveness is fine. But what if I try a different ERG mode workout?
Thus I pulled up Adams, which has a bit longer sustained efforts.
Holy fuzz line balls Batman!
Now – at this point I’m sure a bunch of Wahoo employees are saying:
“But DCR, you disabled ERG mode smoothing, of course it’ll be fuzzy! That’s why we wanted to keep you from disabling it!”
And sure, that’s correct, but that’s also missing the point. It shouldn’t look like this. Period. It doesn’t for *any* other trainer or bike I test. More work is clearly needed here to find the right balance. But, that’s actually not what I’m concerned about.
Instead, it’s these spikes at the start and end of every interval that are the problem:
Yes folks, that’s 130w over the actual set point. Mind you, the others aren’t magically better. They’re only better by comparison. The others range from 50w to 75w over the set point.
And, lest you think this is just an ‘ERG Mode Smoothing’ setpoint thing, check out the underlying data:
The Favero Assioma is showing the exact same power. Meaning – my legs really are having to put out more than 100w higher than what the workout specified. Coach Chad of TrainerRoad (or my own Coach Alan) would be displeased at this. But on the bright side, at least the bike is accurate.
Note that I’m seeing this behavior on the latest firmware across all ERG mode workouts, be it TrainerRoad or Zwift.
Ultimately from a power accuracy standpoint though, the KICKR Bike seems pretty much spot-on within all my tests. However, folks on TrainerRoad (or Zwift) will at this point notice the overshooting and undershooting of the unit in the first few seconds of any structured ERG mode workout. While the actual power is accurate, the KICKR Bike is not correctly hitting the right target outputs – usually by 50-75w high, but as high as 125w.
As noted, this is essentially the same issue as seen by Tacx with their new NEO 2T/Tacx Bike flywheel design. And I suspect it’s gonna take Wahoo a bit of time as well to sort out their issues there too. This is more noticeable on shorter intervals of higher intensity than longer ones. On the bright side, at least the power itself is accurate – even if the set point isn’t. But again, I suspect they’ll be able to sort this out.
Note: All of the charts in these accuracy sections were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.)
Indoor Smart Bike Comparisons:
Here’s a complete spec comparison between the three bikes. Though, many of the nuances of above aren’t necessarily captured in the tables below. Instead, these tables focus on the major specs between them. Still, they’re good for a quick glance. I’ve also included the new Stages Bike in there, though that won’t ship till Q1 2020.
Again, just go visit my massive shoot-out post for a more detailed dive between them.
| Function/Feature | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) |
|---|
| Copyright DC Rainmaker - Updated November 23rd, 2023 @ 2:27 pm New Window |
| Price for trainer | $3,499 | $3,199 | $2,599 | $2899 |
| Trainer Type | Indoor Bike | Indoor Bike | Indoor Bike | Indoor Bike |
| Available today (for sale) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Availability regions | Limited Initially | Global | UK/South Africa/Australia/Scandinavia/USA | Global |
| Wired or Wireless data transmission/control | Wireless | Wireless | Wireless | Wireless |
| Power cord required | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Flywheel weight | 13bs/5.9kgs | Simulated/Virtual 125KG | 9.28KG/20.4lbs | 50lbs |
Resistance | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Can electronically control resistance (i.e. 200w) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Includes motor to drive speed (simulate downhill) | Yes | Yes | No | No (but kinda) |
| Maximum wattage capability | 2,200w @ 40KPH | 2,200w @ 40KPH | 2,000w | 3,000w |
| Maximum simulated hill incline | 20% (and -15% downhill) | 25% | 25% | |
Features | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Ability to update unit firmware | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Measures/Estimates Left/Right Power | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (actually measured independently) |
| Can directionally steer trainer (left/right) | Yes (with compatible apps) | YES (WITH COMPATIBLE APPS) | No | Yes (with compatible apps) |
| Can simulate road patterns/shaking (i.e. cobblestones) | No | Yes | No | No |
Motion | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Whole-bike physical gradient simulation | Yes | No | No | No |
| Can rock/tilt side to side (significantly) | No | No | No | No |
Accuracy | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Includes temperature compensation | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes |
| Support rolldown procedure (for wheel based) | N/A | N/A | No | Cross-references power meter data |
| Supported accuracy level | +/- 1% | +/- 1% | +/- 2% | +/- 1.5% |
Trainer Control | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Allows 3rd party trainer control | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Supports ANT+ FE-C (Trainer Control Standard) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Supports Bluetooth Smart FTMS (Trainer Control Standard) | Yes | Yes | Yes | YEs |
Data Broadcast | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Transmits power via ANT+ | Yes (added Sept 30th, 2020) | Yes | Yes | YEs |
| Transmits power via Bluetooth Smart | Yes | Yes | Yes | YEs |
| Supports Multiple Concurrent Bluetooth connections | Yes, 3 Concurrent | No, just one | | |
| Transmits cadence data | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Indoor Bike Features | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Shifting type | Normal bike levers | Button Based | Buttons | Buttons |
| Can customize shifting (Shimano/SRAM/Campagnolo) | Yes (Shimano/SRAM/Campagnolo) | In future update | No | Yes (not yet SRAM) |
| Can customize gearing | Yes (both cassette and chainrings) | Yes | Mininimal | Yes |
| Supported Crank Lengths | 165/167.5/170/172.5/175mm | 170/172.5/175mm | 170mm | 165/170/172.5/175mm |
| Display | Small display near top-tube | Yes | No | No |
| USB Ports | 1 USB port | 2 USB Ports (2AMP) | No | Two Ports (Fast Charging) |
Purchase | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Amazon | | Link | | |
| Backcountry.com | Link | | | Link |
| Competitive Cyclist | Link | Link | | Link |
| REI | Link | | | |
| Other | Link | | | |
DCRainmaker | Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 | Tacx NEO Bike Smart | Wattbike Atom V1 | Stages Bike (SB20) | | Review Link | Link | Link | Link | Link |
Oh, and before you ask why I haven’t included some products into the above – here’s the quick and dirty answers:
Peloton Bike: It’s not a ‘smart’ bike in the sense of the above, it doesn’t allow you to set a specific power level (it does tell you the current power level). Rumors are Peloton is working on such a bike, but nothing today.
SRM Bike: I just don’t see this as a competitor in this space. At $5,000, it’s mostly for various research purposes and is designed in that realm.
True Kinetix Bike: It’s not really shipping globally (just in the Netherlands), and by their own statements is still in a bit of a pre-production state.
VirtuPro: It could also get escalated into the above chart, I’ve talked about it in the past. But I need clarity on when they’ll (actually) ship it with ANT+/BLE support, and realistic timelines to that. Else, it’s a proprietary solution that doesn’t really fit what the tables are designed for (the rest of the bikes here are compatible with all industry protocols).
Again, I’m more than happy to add products into the database. In general, my rule of thumb is I want hands-on time (or butts-on in this case), and I want some realistic level of clarity on delivery time frames.
Summary:
For a first go of a smart bike, what Wahoo has done is pretty darn impressive. While I disagree slightly on the practicalities of some aspects of the bike, the actual execution of much of the details for the riding experience is spot-on. As I’ve said numerous times in this post and elsewhere, by far Wahoo’s shifting and gearing setup is easily the best in the industry. It’s not just the software, and not just the shifting hardware – but the blend between them. It’s what everyone should be aiming for as a starting point going into 2020, anything less just won’t be acceptable. And the Wahoo KICKR CLIMB integration into the frame is the cherry on top (even if downhills while at 100% trainer difficult are still halved by Zwift for no logical reason). The natural sway and movement of the bike is much appreciated too, it just feels more like a bike. It rides more like a bike, than the others.
Still, Wahoo made the choice to replicate an outside road bike, indoors. Whereas Tacx in their decision tree essentially upscaled a trainer into a full-fledged indoor bike. In the case of Wahoo, that gained them things like the natural movement and shifters, over Tacx. But it also meant that simple things like ‘Where do I put my phone?’ or ‘Why is the gearing display in such a bad spot?’, seemingly were incomplete afterthoughts. One of the big strengths of the Tacx bike is the entire display console that doubles as a place to store things and hold tablets (with multiple USB ports). Sure, I could add a $250 Wahoo KICKR desk, but even that is clunky due to the CLIMB portion going up/down. I’d love to see Wahoo create some sort of KICKR-bike specific tray off the front to hold phones/tablets/gels/etc – all the things you use on an indoor bike versus an outdoor bike.
And certainly, some of you will think that’s a funny thing to complain about. And then I’ll ask to see pictures of your cave setup and find you using a $35 hospital bedside tray jury-rigged next to a $3,500 indoor bike – to hold your gels and phone carefully strung to the USB port of your bike going up and down, for that long trainer session. And then it won’t seem like such a trivial thing.
Still – I think Wahoo has set the bar for the ride feel and execution of the pedaling part of the bike. Aspects like the bearpaw style crank length system ‘just work’, and the app integration around bike fit are also exceptionally well done. And hopefully one day the aux ports will mean shifting on the bar ends of triathlon/TT aerobars too. Of course, I do worry about shipping timelines, and early production issues (which based on early regular user reports, don’t seem limited to my sample).
If Wahoo can sort out those early product quirks, then they could be in a very strong position in mid to late 2020 to crown themselves the best indoor smart bike king. Until then – I think it’s a bit early for anyone to carry that title. But, Wahoo’s bike on paper is the closest to it.
Found This Post Useful? Support The Site!
Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
If you're shopping for the Wahoo KICKR Bike V1 or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot.
Here's a few other variants or sibling products that are worth considering:
And finally, here’s a handy list of smart bike accessories that most folks getting a smart bike for the first time might not have already:
There's no better bang for your buck in getting Zwift (or FulGaz/etc) on your big screen TV than Apple TV - it's the primary way I Zwift. Even if you don't have a 4K TV, the 4K version has more powerful graphics than the base, worth the extra $30.
This is a super basic trainer mat, which is exactly what you'll see me use. All it does is stop sweat for getting places it shouldn't (it also helps with vibrations too).
I use Apple TV for Zwift the vast majority of the time, but also just for watching YouTube/Netflix/etc on the trainer. The Apple TV remote sucks though. This $8 case fixes that, it's a silicone strap that makes it easy to grab, but also has a strap to easily place on the edge of your handlebars. Boom! Note: Not compatible with 2021 Apple TV Edition.
I've got three of these $12 fans floating around the DCR Cave, and I frequently use them on rides. They work just fine. Sure, they're not as powerful as a Wahoo Headwind, but I could literally buy 20 of them for the same price.
Lasko High Velocity Pro-Performance Fan (U15617)
One of the most popular trainer fans out there, rivaling the Wahoo Headwind fan in strength but at a fraction of the price. It doesn't have smartphone/ANT+/Bluetooth integration, but it does have secondary outlets. I've been using it, and a similiar European version lately with great success (exact EU variant I use is automatically linked at left).
This desk is both a knock-off of the original KICKR Desk, but yet also better than it. First, it's got wheel locks (so the darn thing stays put), and second, it has two water bottle holders (also useful for putting other things like remotes). I've been using it as my main trainer desk for a long time now and love it. Cheaper is better apparently. Note: Branding varies by country, exact same desk.
This is by far the best value in trainer desks, at only $59, but with most of the features of the higher end features. It's got multi-tier tablet slots, water bottle holders, non-stick surface, adjustable height and more. I'm loving it!
And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Quarantine Corner video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!
Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
Thanks DC, a great review as usual. I’m very tempted but the bike looks quite unstable in use. I know you are saying that is all to do with the outdoor bike feel, but I worry about the long term impact of all that rocking and swaying around.
Indeed – it does look unstable, but it feels great. :)
I agree with you about long term (like, years) usage on some of the joint/movement points. Wahoo says they’ve taken that into account on engineering. Ultimately we’re just going to have to wait and see. But, we do know that Wahoo’s customer service is pretty much top notch – so hopefully if issues do arise they’ll take care of them (as they did with the KICKR’s this past year).
Those Kickr problems (for me going back a couple of years, not just last year) really weren’t great.
It’s fair to say that Wahoo’s customer services impressed me more than their quality control.
So I guess that’s what’s making me nervous… maybe I’m not cut out to be the early adopter!!
But hey thanks again for all your work Ray… it really has been invaluable over the years and I’ve finally made # 1 post on a review!!!
I think the Kickr bike is pretty awesome, but the crazy things they goofed on seem troubling.
Hearing about people having issues with stem and seat posts slipping, I think I understand some of it. There was a TON of grease inside both the seat and stem clamps. (Is the ‘grease’ actually some form of anti-seize compund?) So much, I actually swabbed some of it out. And the collars should be ‘pre-stressed’ so owners have an easier time getting them tight enough to stop slipping. The power connection seems sketchy. Something flopping around like that makes the computer engineer in my nervous. It has a lot of rubber backup, but repetitive motion is going to fray the best of intentions.
It seems to rock slightly, and I’ll be putting a level across the back legs to see if it’s not level. It’s interesting, going from a trainer that flops all over the place (Neo 2T) to the ‘stiff’ Kickr.
It freaked me out that the flywheel spins for a few seconds if I push down on a pedal. Just weird…
It’s not so quiet as I thought it would be. I heard a high pitched whine during my first ride.
I also experienced the ‘flat line power’ that someone on another thread commented on. The ERG mode programming keeps my power really close to -1/+0 which is kind of freaky, although it IS doing what ERG mode was supposed to do, though to a fault in this case. I also assume that the ‘climb’ feature does not work in ERG mode.
But, hey, I had my first ride. It’s weird when compared to the Neo, but it worked. I’ll be changing the saddle before the next ride.
I had major second thoughts over taking delivery of the Kickr bike due to the rumors of ‘quality issues’. I don’t need to be stuck waiting for weeks for a replacement bike because they have yet another ‘quality control issue’ (Seriously? After getting a beating over the Kickr quality issues?). I knew of several people that had gone through a succession of dead Kickr units. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the bike I have will last longer than the Neo’s I killed (And it’s the plastic failing, not the electronics).
But, back to the ‘flat line power’ issue. Was there a ‘fix’ for it? Should there be a fix for it. Do I need to tweak something? It looks odd to see the power being a totally flat line.
Hi Ray,
Thanks for the review. This bike is definitely on my list. Just wondering how Wahoo (or even Tacx) plans to carry out maintenance and/or replacement units given the size and weight? It’s not like your current Kickr where you can just throw it in the back of your car and take it back to your local LBS. And if you’re serious about your training being without a trainer for several days/weeks will wreak havoc on your training plan.
Definitely a valid concern. And honestly, I think we’re just gonna have to wait and see.
We know from some Tacx servicing already for example that some pieces are very modular and easily serviced with support kits. While other parts are whole bike shipment/replace scenarios.
I gotta be honest, I don’t get the “pivoting from the center is more realistic climb effect” comment. Didn’t make sense when GPLama made the same comment, doesn’t make sense now either. When you’re riding your bike, your front wheel starts rising up first doesn’t it? Once the gradient stabilizes, it stays like that, and when you crest the climb, your front wheel starts loosing elevation first.
I know we’re just talking these transitional states of just-starting-the-climb, and just-starting-the-descent, but to me, the stand alone KICKR climb’s version of simulating the hills seems more realistic.
I’m sure some math wizard can explain it better than I can with angles and such. I was actually going to put a little level on the saddle today but forget to do it.
But from a feel standpoint it feels quite different. Maybe it’s because your butt is pivoting locations now (going backwards or forwards), versus before it was just your handlebars going up/down?
It appears from Ray’s video that when the center pivot simulates descent, seat is elevated as the handlebars dive.
Ray nailed the butt feeling. Wait… that doesn’t come across as it should.
If I’m riding up a hill outside, the bike pivots around the bottom bracket. On a Climb the bike pivots from the rear axle. The Kickr BIKE tilt feel is subtly better… It’s a less “I’m on a hoist” feeling on the bike.
I Don’t doubt your (both you and Shane’s) reflections and “butt pivoting” comment helps clarify understanding the subtle difference you guys say there is. It’s just that I can’t wrap my head around it. To me, the front wheel is the initial point of “impact” so to speak. Perhaps if one to have a fixed pivot point, pivoting bottom bracket it is a better approximation of a variable pivot point (outdoor riding) than pivoting rear axle
I Don’t doubt your (both you and Shane’s) reflections and “butt pivoting” comment helps clarify understanding the subtle difference you guys say there is. It’s just that I can’t wrap my head around it. To me, the front wheel is the initial point of “impact” so to speak. Perhaps if one to have a fixed pivot point, pivoting bottom bracket it is a better approximation of a variable pivot point (outdoor riding) than pivoting rear axle.
I’m also in the ranks of the confused. if a bike begins an incline, the front wheel rises and the bike pivots on the rear wheel – the point of ground contact. Pivoting around the bottom bracket necessitates the rear wheel dropping every time the front wheel is raised. This just doesn’t happen. Of course, I could be missing something here…
Tomorrow I’ll try and science it up with some measurement of different points and angles.
Hey ray
Great reviews and really appreciate the in depth analysis. I can’t decide if I should take the leap and buy it. I’m a triathlete doing 5 ish hours a week on the trainer and I really hate switching off my tt bike to go inside vs outside. Should I wait for v2.o or take the leap now? Seems like you might be implying wait.
It’s honestly tough. I think it’s a great bike but one that I think will see various quirks for early adopters for some months to come. If you like the early adopter life – than go forth!
I have no doubt that people in Eurobike 2021 or something will be like: Oh, that was so early in smart bike land…so much has been dealt with now (like steering, braking, manufacturing issues, accuracy, maintenance, etc…).
The grey area is people that want one in the next 1.5 years. Obviously, Wahoo isn’t going to have a KICKR Bike 2020 or anything – they’ll still likely be trying to catch-up on back orders by next August. I suspect we’ll see Tacx make some minor improvements to their bike next summer for the 2020-2021 year. They’ve mostly got production stabilized now, so there’s no reason to not look to make improvements for some of the areas that people dislike the most (or like the most on the Wahoo bike). Plus we’ve got Stages jumping in with their bike in the coming months, and Wattbike with the Atom X for commercial usage too.
Frankly, the best deal right now in smart bikes is probably the Tacx NEO Bike scratch and dent sale at $700 off. That’s almost something that you could buy now, and then probably offload next fall for the same price you bought it if you found a hotter dance partner (since those scratch and dent units will soon go away) – given it just looks like normal wear anyway.
Thx ray for the always insightful analysis.
Did you notice any wear and tear on your inner thigh or bib shorts from the thigh rubbing? That is a big concern of mine…
No, though from a kit standpoint I’ve got so many kits that I rotate through – and a lot of them are pretty worn from years ago.
Between the Tacx and Wahoo bikes I got used to the rubbing. They rubbed in very slightly different places/ways, so the first few rides I felt it, and then my leg HTFU’d up.
I was going to order one, until I saw this comment on the rubbing. That would drive me nuts, especially for something so expensive. The whole thing looks kinda prototype”ish” in execution, frankly.
I could only see buying this if I was willing to unload it next year, when they actually come out with a version that has the kinks worked out….
Thanks for yet another deep review.
This all leads me to really want to see the 2.0 version of the Kickr, Neo and Atom bikes.
Maybe Stages and others can even capitalize on the learnings from these early wins and losses.
Do you think there will be discounts anytime soon (biannual 20% off trainer sale for example)? I’m really torn between buying now and selling Neo 2 or waiting until version 2.
Approx a 0% chance. They aren’t even available to order right now. My guess is we won’t see any discounts till maybe Black Friday 2020. And even that might be questionable.
Wouldn’t a trAy to store phone (or M&Ms) need to be on a gimbal or something because of the climb feature?
Perhaps. But that’s why man or woman invented ziplock bags. If you just zip-tie the ziplock bag to the handlebars, the M&M’s will stay perfectly accessible and oriented at all times, using gravity.
I’d like a lot to evaluate this bike, but I have an issue: I use an oval chainring on my MTB (I ride and compete only on MTB), and I managed to mount the same chainring on the bike I use on my kickr setup, as far as I’ve understood I’d have no chance to do it here.
Would this affect my training? I’d be afraid to train slightly different muscles and to suffer from this once I switch back to the oval chainring…
Any idea?
I’m with you on the storage Ray, for a trainer that costs so much I would expect a tablet stand to be included
I have the entire Wahoo training eco system and was really looking to this bike… And then got super close to getting the factory blemished Neo Bike. But like many have noted I think there’s a lot that they can ‘easily’ improve upon. The top tube design, phone/tablet holder, better usb placement, perhaps even integrate a small fan and/or desk space. Okay, the last one might be a bit of stretch but certainly they can add a small flat space for food/phone/table/etc.
I usually have no qualms about being an early adopter or first gen guinea pig but for this price point I have to hold back.
Excellent review as always. Quick question – do you know if the regular Kickr Climb has the same problem halving the gradients on the downhills in Zwift?
Sadly it does indeed. If I remember correctly there’s some hack you can do to trick it though. I haven’t attempted that on the KICKB Bike to see if it applies there as well.
The only hacks I’m finding online have to do with changing the wheelbase, which would change the descent % but would also change your ascent % too (so doubling the descent might halve the ascent?). At least I think that’s how it would work but I don’t have the gear available to test it or your mad coding skills.
Correct, that’s the hack. I haven’t personally tried it, so I’m unsure how it works on both sides of that equation.
Blueooth has the User Data Service (UDS) for configuring things like weight, height, age etc…
True. I think the thinking though is rather than spinning up another service, the companies would prefer FTMS just took care of it.
Great review Ray. Always a pleasure to read. Love your deep dive into the details ;-)
“Still, Wahoo made the choice to replicate an outside road bike, indoors. Whereas Tacx in their decision tree essentially upscaled a trainer into a full-fledged indoor bike. In the case of Wahoo, that gained them things like the natural movement and shifters, over Tacx”
This particular sentence is the reason why I think the KickrBike is 1-2 generation ahead of Tacx. Also this is very good spotted from Wahoo. Fixed indoor bikes is not the future. Flexible “outdoor replicable” are.
I have many years of experience riding a Kettler Racer bike. That bike is ROCK solid. It doesn’t flex a mm anywhere – at all! This works, it does… But rest asure the difference from a Kettler bike to my current Neo2T is massive in comfort. There’s a huge difference with that little flex Neo has. I’m very suprised Tacx never transformed that into their NeoBike..?!
So if you’re considering one of these bikes, you must evaluate your need. If you do trainings less than 2h and don’t care much about tranferring the feel of your roadbike, the NB is an option. But if you’re the more advanced rider (like me) and want the ultimate package – the KickrBike it is.
That the way I see it…
Yeah, I think it’s a blend. I think the KICKR Bike is a generation ahead of the Tacx Bike on paper and in specs, minus some of the logistical basics things. For example the lack of place to put stuff (together with that USB port), or the gearing display locale/visibility – those all Tacx lead.
Tacx also leads from a production stability standpoint (where they are manufacturing-wise and some of the bugs to deal with). We were actually chatting about it on the podcast just yesterday (should go live today or tomorrow). The way I see it is that Tacx has roughly a 3-5 month lead on Wahoo, however, I think that lead will evaporate by next spring sometime. At which point Wahoo will have sorted out all their teething issues (hardware and software). Sure, it won’t fix the display/front end, but accessories could.
Which is just about perfect for Tacx to come back to the table with a Tacx Bike 1.5 for Eurobike 2020. Personally, if Tacx simply redesigned the front end of the bike to duplicate Wahoo’s shifting/handlebars, that’d be huge. Sure, it wouldn’t solve the CLIMB/movement aspects, but, if they lowered the price to $2,999 or something, I think it makes it really compelling.
And then there’s the ATOM X wildcard…
Hello,
Maybe instead of redesigning the whole bike they could offer a shifting/handlebar upgrade? The handle bars are removable?
A redesigned shifting front end would be great, and it would be great to be able to buy it as an upgrade to the existing Tacx Bike. I hope they go that route.
They have to!
Imagine a mini KickrBike without the climb module, for around the same price for a NeoBike. What would you choose…?
If Tacx want to stay in this game, they will have to offer upgrades at an affordable price. The same goes for KickrBike! Both these bikes are so expensive that this has to be possible.
Hi, first of all thanks for your awesome reviews.
I am from Spain and I am thinking in a smart bike because I have an old spinning bike (Fassi) and it was very old.
Related to the 3 famous smart bikes, tacx is the one that convinces me the most but I am a little worried about your comment about the rub of the thighs.
In the search of the different options, additionally to the most famous (and expensive)3 bikes, I have seen the bike that seems to be the substitute of the bkool bike: the zycle zbike (link to fitnessinn.co.uk).
what do you think about it?
It´s more simple but I would like to know your opinion.
And I would like to know your recommendation for me : I use normally workouts to my indoor trainning (this is, short trainings with different intentsity intervals) and the possibility to use simulated routes like zwift or bkool is new for me (I am very curious).
Do you think that it´s better for me the (smart bike roller + bike) or a complete indoor smart bike.
The first option would fit better if I was thinking in go out for ciclyng outdoor but I am not sure about that because I have a limited available training time.
Thanks in advance.
Hello,
i am also interested in this zbike. Are there any knowing About the compatibility to Zwift and Rouvy ?
Hello,
I am also interested. Are there any experiences with quality and compatibility with Zwift and Rouvy?
The Zbike is just a rebadged Bkool after the company split up the hardware and software parts of the buisness
link to magazine.bkool.com
The reviews i have seen have been somewhat mixed
Put in my first ride on the KICKR bike today by riding a route i do outdoors all the time via my Garmin. Initial thoughts:
Wow – the incline really works – almost too well on the downhill. not perfect as the downhill needs more overspeed to better simulate a real downhill.
The power feels right and my ‘road speed’ almost perfectly matched my outdoor use. Total time and power were very representative of a ride outside.
It felt like riding a bike more than riding a stationary trainer. The small movement on it was good.
No issue with any leg rub at all – I seem to have loads of space (i’m 5’7″ and 140lb)
Like the gearing system but it doesn’t reflect the gears I use outside. The hills seem harder, but I may just be getting used to this bike to be honest.
Overall very happy so far with the interactivity and only expecting it to get better with time.
If I already own a kicker and a climb, along with a dedicated bike for it, is there anything else this brings to the table. Any major difference in ride quality. Trying to replicate the outdoors as much as possible indoors. Zwift and the climb do a great job, just curious if this is another step, or too similar for that huge price job.
No need at all unless you want to free up your frame. I bought for multi person family use and to free up frame for my son.
So if you were buying one for your own use to replace a perfectly good trainer would you buy now or wait and see what comes out next year?
I took the leap and jumped in and got one from my LBS. Biggest early adopter issue is the fitting system has not worked for me at all. I got the same error you did using a photo of a bike that fits me (calculation error) and the fit system using my measurements is way off. Wahoo support has been very slow as well. Got one response in three days and it asked me to send a second round of pictures (after sending pics with the intiial request). Found a facebook group for the bike and it appears that this is a wider issue with the best solution being a tape measure and plumb bob. Pretty disappointing on the issue and the lack of Wahoo customer service response (given their rep for being responsive).
Regarding the Wahoo fit system, I wasn’t able to get it to work using Guru fit data, Retül fit data, or using the photo analysis. It kept telling me to “try again later” (no message about calling Customer Support). Ended up spending a bunch of time making adjustments until I ended up with something that felt acceptable.
Thanks for the info. Got a reply from Wahoo today that they are looking into it. In the meantime, they suggested doing a manual fit as you did. Please contact their customer support to maybe help light a fire that it gets addressed asap. Thanks.
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Hi Ray,
I use 150 mm cranks. Can the crank arms be changed?
Thanks for the review
I have the kickrbike. Frustrating to have issues with the Standover Height setting as during rides the bike becomes unusable as it continually falls from my “E” setting down to “D”. Appears to be too much “slop” (not tight enough tolerance) between the “sleeve” and the “post” in my frame. Feeling fortunate I bought from a local dealer as an exchange appears necessary.
Wow……just spoke to the local IBD that I purchased it from and they said Wahoo has told them they cannot exchange the bike, but that the local bike dealer has to “fix ” it. Yet, it is not a part that was assembled by the dealer. The issue is with the assembly as it was shipped by Wahoo. Weak sauce Wahoo. Keep this up and you will submarine your product launch….
I’m very on the fence about buying or waiting. Your comment might seal it for me. Also if they want the bike store to fix it what would happen if bought online? My bike shop has some great mechanics but I don’t think I’d want them messing with the internals of a trainer.
This is getting surreal! Last year we had the Kickr gate. That must have cost Wahoo a shitload of cash. Then this year Tacx was slightly hit with their Neo. But that must have cost them something.
Moving forward to both bikes today. Now this strategy that these companies seems follow is really quite alarming! They simply just release the units though they’re not ready for it! In each their way both Tacx and Wahoo hava their release issues.
Now imagine the car industry did the same! Wonder how long a brand new super car would last with the same amount of issues and maintenance support.
It’s really that alarming.
I’m definitely in the first-mover category. But I was -at least this time – fast at spotting the issues, so I returned my bike for a refund – waiting for fall 2020 to buy one (KickrBike).
But thing is, at current state, with the picture of current manufacturing capabilities your comment just makes me nervous. It definitely tells me they’re not in control with the processes.
One other thing. Is this bike build on Wahoo own factory in US or is it “made in China”? Not being able to support with spareparts could indicate that.
Maybe you can you DCR crab tell us that? Where is this bike build?
But with this, I hope that they (Wahoo) read along and understand the severity in this. They must do everything they can to sort it out FAST!
Currently they are playing with their customers loyalty and their own brand reputation. That game can readily end in a catastrophy if not played well.
And my last point. I hope that Wahoo have learned their lesson with this. Don’t release products that are not ready for daily use.
I chatted with the Wahoo folks late last night their time about this thread, they’re on it and sorting out what’s up. It might take a couple days for that game of telephone to get untangled. Hang tight!
As for the KICKR Bike’s, they’re made in Vietnam.
Thanks for the reply Ray.
From the place where I work, we have had similar experience in what I believe is going on right now. We are producing frequency converters. It’s absolutely not the same, but the similarity lies in the sourcing. I’d bet Wahoo placed their production in Vietnam for one reason only – cost reduction. That’s ok as long as they can make SURE and that’s a big MAKE SURE they can deliver on quality. If they can’t, the cost reduction beyond gone.
I know from own experience how difficult it is to fix quality issues abroad. Although everyone are trying their best, not being on site, not having the absolutely same understanding of things just adds to complexity. Also culture can play a role here.
The only way for Wahoo to fix this is to standardize ALL their processes and remove all possibilities of error. That’s a loooong haul to do that and it takes people on site to do this.
I can now understand why Tacx is in a MUCH better position on this, doing their bikes on their own site in the Netherlands. I’m not saying Wahoo can’t get there. They sure can. But the response time will always be longer.
Wahoo’s been in Vietnam for a while now – the KICKR18 and fans are made there for example.
(While there were/are some KICKR/CORE issues, Wahoo’s been pretty clear those were/are engineering/design issues and actually not factory QA type issues.)
Ultimately, there’s just not enough information yet to understand the issue here on asking an LBS to swap parts. Maybe the idea is that an LBS can pull this off more easily than the average consumer. I don’t have a problem with that line of thinking for very specific mechanical things, but it’s definitely a shift. Generally speaking I wouldn’t trust an LBS to do anything with a trainer, it’s just not what they specialize in. But…times are changing – and as many LBS have learned – either change or go out of business.
Wasn’t the KICKR their initial start in Vietnam a few years back? I think I recall reading about that quite some time ago.
In all honesty, I don’t think Wahoo always tell you the REAL quality issue. They simply would reveal their weaknesses in doing so. Also sometimes it’s hard to tell what is actually the problem/root cause. So whether it’s in enineering or manufacturing. Hmmm yeah I’ll leave that one open ;-)
Both the KICKR and the FANs are much simpler products than the KICKRBIKE (assembly parts, tolerances etc.). The KICKRBIKE is much more complex.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Wahoo will deal with service in the future? Maybe the LBS can do it, as long it’s the mechanical parts.
Kettler actually has a 3. party service team to fix their bikes! I have had a visit from them once. The bearing in the flywheel was done. I emailed them, they replied with an date. The guy came to my adress, fixed the bike within an hour. While the bike was still under warrenty it didn’t cost me anything.
The point here is that Kettler has early realized that sending these heavy bikes back and forth makes no sense. So they teamet up with an external service partner. Maybe that’s solution on a long run. Taking your KB or NB to your LBS is also not easy. Both bike are assmbled and difficult to move around.
Couple of thoughts:
A) It is the market standard to produce items such as this in E Asia
B) Thanks Ray for you terrific Ambassador – ship. I have not heard anything from Wahoo, or their local IBS (who has my number), but my fallback is to take it back this week and wait for another unit hoping that this issue is not wider spread.
C) If there is ONE item on this bike that Wahoo should QC/QA with authority and complete thoroughness prior to shipping it is the frame assembly. It is the most meaningful part of the shipping weight and bulk. Pain to replace. And its performance can not be inferred to be correlated to after shipment assembly
D) My wife just sold my kickr and climb so I don’t have a fallback plan :( Unless its Tacx if the resolution process fails.
E) Neither myself, or a friend who also has the kickrbike have noticed any issues with some of the other items discussed (rubbing of thighs, or vibration or resonance at certain rpms)
On E.) This is because they know what they’re producing, but they’re not within six sigma in their processes. This result in some units that is actually perfectly good. But also units with issues. All this in random order.
Having the manufacturing on the other side of the world doesn’t make easier to fix. I’m not saying they can’t. Eventually they will. But they definitely choose to do it the hardest way.
@DCR try asking Wahoo’s CEO whether he still thinks it was the right decision to start the unit on Vietnam? Products with this importance should have started in their own manufacturing and then slowly moved to Vietnam once ready for it. Having backup manufacturing ready until all transfer issues are gone.
Maybe I got a bit technical here. Sorry for that. I don’t mean to say Wahoo choose wrong here. Like I said, they just choose a harder way. And at the same what have questions stating to pop up about spareparts. Which will also be a clarification. Eventually it will be all good. But as I see – patience may be a big part of it.
Nobody starts manufacturing in their own non-existent facilities. That and they simply don’t exist. You manufacture in facilities that are designed for manufacturing and that you have pre-existing relationships with.
I have zero reason to believe any of this has to do with Vietnam, and more to do with Wahoo working through early kinks. Just like the Tacx bike. After all, the Tacx bike is manufactured in the same building as everyone at Tacx – and they – of all companies – have had more QA issues than anyone else in the industry. Heck, they’ve had to effectively write off hundreds of NEO Bike’s after shipping them across an ocean because nobody looked at them during manufacturer apparently.
Manufacturing isn’t about having a factory in your own backyard. It almost never is. It can certainly help, but again, Tacx proves it isn’t a deterministic factor. It’s about having a manufacturing partner that:
A) You control with all your own processes laid atop theirs
B) A product that’s actually designed well (which usually takes a while)
C) QA/QC processes that validate things going out.
Finally, as Chip himself said – he’d love to be able to blame a manufacturer. That’s the easy button. Nobody would know any different. It’s what most companies do. But he very openly admitted they were their own engineering issues. There’s no real logical reason to do that unless you just want to be honest (which, is a good thing).
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not defending Wahoo here. The vast majority of my concerns of the KICKR Bike are around things I don’t consider acceptable for a $3,500 product. But having dealt with plenty of those things over the last 3 months, at almost every turn the answer was a variant of ‘Huh, we’ve added a new process or design change to change that in future builds’ – not ‘Huh, our factory didn’t do it right’.
Fair enough – openness is good. Don’t get me wrong here either. I’d actually like to buy one of these bikes. But not until they get it right.
However I’d still argue that it’s easier to solve issues in your own backyard than abroad. I have personal experience in this and believe me that what seems crystalclear to us can seem total opposite abroad. I’m not saying Wahoo are experiencing this. But issues will be harder to solve.
Now let’s finalize this by wishing they soon get their issues fixed so that we can buy that damn thing :-)
I don’t believe that Wahoo has any significant manufacturing facilities in house. Manufacturing in the US would mean using a US based contract manufacturer. Then, once things are sorted out in the US, moving everything somewhere else. And going through the learning curve a second time. I think that the long term easiest path is working through things with a manufacturer that they already know and trust.
My bigger concern is after sales repairs. I am hoping that they locally stock most of the replaceable parts and have replacement instructions. Sending trainers back and forth to Atlanta is both slow and expensive. Most of the parts except the frame could be replaced at your house provided that they were available..
I don’t believe that Wahoo has any significant manufacturing facilities in house. Manufacturing in the US would mean using a US based contract manufacturer. Then, once things are sorted out in the US, moving everything somewhere else. And going through the learning curve a second time. I think that the long term easiest path is working through things with a manufacturer that they already know and trust.
My bigger concern is after sales repairs. I am hoping that they locally stock most of the replaceable parts and have replacement instructions. Sending trainers back and forth to Atlanta is both slow and expensive. Most of the parts except the frame could be replaced at your house provided that they were available..
David,
I had a similar issue dropping from B to A. I had a response from Wahoo about how to tighten the lever that secures the frame. Basically do it up, then loosen the 3mm bolt and turn the lever back to 11 o’clock position (there are spines to align to) and then retighten the 3mm bolt and tighten the lever back to 12 o’clock. This has solved the issue of the bike dropping for me.
I just wish they included some kind of built in Tablet / Phone Holder :( But I can see myself investing in the one of these in later iterations quite easily.
How many BT channels does the KICKR bike use to transmit cadence and power? One or two? I’m wondering if you can use the KICKR bike and HR monitor with AppleTV without resorting to a BT bridge.
A single channel.
Great Review as Always!!! Out of these four Smart Bikes, I would also like to know which one(s) are the easiest and most convenient for a multi-user setting. Maybe detail on the changes required for each rider, such as fit and computer settings or profile switching and which one has the least amount of complexity.
There isn’t actually a multi-rider setting for any of them. :(
Thus, the physical changes are relatively similiar between them (knobs and such, some slightly better than others, but overall roughly a wash). The app changes all require a user connect to the bike to update the weight and/or gearing changes.
Wahoo is planning on allowing bike profiles in the new year, which should help considerably in that respect.
Thank you!!! Profiles would be awesome.
Profiles are out now in a firmware update along with Di2 Synchro shift! Wasn’t expecting that this side of Christmas.
Checked Synchro Shift and it all worked perfectly last night.
Got my kickr on Thursday night and finally got it up and running on Zwift. I had tried the TACX bike previously but had issues with rubbing and didn’t like how “solid” it felt. Here’s my thoughts after a few rides:
– assembly was super quick. The longest part was getting the app to recognize and pair with the bike (had to uninstall and re-install the app).
– I have zero rubbing issues on the wahoo but had terrible rubbing issues on the TACX (goes to show that each person will be different)
– I love the natural built in movement on the wahoo. This actually feels like an outdoor bike being ridden inside.
– I’m going to be in the minority here, but I like not having a table or holder of any kind on the front of the bike. This bike looks like an outdoor bike and simulates it well. Unlike the TACX bike where I felt like I was on a trainer with a tablet, etc. I have a table next to the bike and that works perfect for me.
– The climb is great and works perfectly with zwift if you turn up the trainer difficultly setting.
– I get resonance noise at 62-65 rpms and 100-105 rpms, but it is still much quieter than an actual bike.
– My watts seem low and it is sluggish at times. I’ll have to check my weight, etc in the app.
Overall very happy with the change from the TACX to the Wahoo. I think each bike has its merits and people will like them for very different reasons. I just have to figure out the watts (maybe I was too tired on those first rides).
I agree with your experience. Zwift is really engaging on the Wahoo Bike.
I also get some different resonances and the occasional clicking, but i’m putting it all down to being an early adopter. None of them are very loud or bad to the extent that they cause any issue. It is more just that you notice them and that the expectation is silence.
My Watts seem to be pretty spot on with a ride I did yesterday.Basically hit my outdoor numbers on similar climbing grades and HR numbers were spot on too.
The gearing yesterday seemed to be pretty spot on, but the day before on the NYC course I seemed to be undergeared.I was laboring up climbs that were not that bad, but had me in bottom gear. Its hard given you don’t get an incline reading to directly compare while you are doing it.
I also feels (I stress feels) like the change between each gear is more than the equivalent of the same gear change on a real bike. I notice this the most on downhill sections. On my road bike i would be in 52/11 or 2/11 yet I hit the same speed in a much lower gear on Zwift. It is like the downhill isn’t being aggressive enough to let me freewheel as i would on a road bike.
The gear changes seem pretty good and I suspect can be better with more time replicating them in software.
Overall I am very impressed and more importantly enjoying the indoor rides much more than before.
I have had the Kickr Bike for two weeks now. I’ve done structured workouts in ERG mode, Zwift races over and under an hour long, and a couple of easy recovery rides. Overall, I like the ride. The tilt is so good that I turned it down a bit, putting the Zwift trainer setting at 75%. It was like a roller coaster so I calmed it down a bit. The noise was a bit surprising, as it can howl at the right rpm/power combination. Under most riding conditions, it has an electric hum which isn’t too bothersome. My only suggestion concerns the gear changes. The first pedal stroke or two after a gear change is quite hard, unlike a gear change IRL. Can they work on the firmware to make gear changes less jumpy in power/resistance feel on that first pedal stroke?
My experience with the Kicker Bike is the same as the others. I had a Tacx bike for two days before I sent it back. I had bad rubbing. No rubbing on the Kickr. I like the ride feel. I think that it is better than Tacx and I love the Climb in Zwift. I have the same resonances at particular power/cadence combinations but it is not loud enough to be annoying. It is quieter than my drivetrain was on my Neo.
Exactly the same issues here. The resonance I can live with but it was very unexpected. My two neos (2 & 2T) are so silent I hardly hear them at all so maybe I’m just spoiled?
What really bothers me is the up-shifting where it gets quite heavy for 1-2 seconds and then comes down to the right gear. Have you figured out if this is working as intended?
My third issue is that I can’t broadcast to my fenix. While this is working as intended it is a major design flaw tbh and should be fixed asap.
Thank you for your always excellent work.
I’ve had my Trek Domane 5.9 in my computrainer for the last 2 years. Today I broke the drivetrain side rear dropout and need a new bike for the CT, or one of these. I ride about 400-500 km on Zwift per week as I don’t ride outside anymore. I am going to buy something 8n the next day or so.
Wondering if the Garmin Edge 1000 would Bluetooth to the Wahoo Bike so the gearing data would be displayed on it? It does that with my Di2 set up on the Domane.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Jeffrey
Hi DCR
Great post, very insightful, thanks. Just one quick question: do you know how low the saddle will go on the Kickr Bike (and ideally on the Stages Bike and Neo Bike too)? I am looking at buying one of these 3 machines but it will be used by both my wife and myself equally, so it will be a disaster if it doesn’t fit us both. I am 5’8 and she is 5’1, so the saddle needs to go pretty low! Do you have any view on which bike will be the easiest / least annoying to live with if we need to change the setup (to fit my wife or myself) on a daily basis?
Cheers
Could this bike perform the same function as MUVE Retul or Exit II by identifying through 3D analysis the size of a future bike?
Yes, I think you could use any of these bikes (Kickr, Neo, Atom, etc.) as a Sizing & Fitting tool. The large range of adjustability and general similarity to “regular” bikes could be used for that task.
These bikes are notably less expensive than the dedicated fit bikes from companies like Purely Custom and Retul. There is a give and take to them, since the dedicated fit bikes often allow for position adjustments while the rider is on the bike and pedaling. But at roughly 2-3 times the price, they are quite an expensive buy for a shop.
I think these could be a nice alternative to the other “real fit bike” options.
Just set up my new Kickr Bike. Things have progressed a long way since the Elite Real Axion using CDRoms. I like to use Rouvy, and see some wattage spikes out of nowhere. do you have any experience with Rouvy? It is my understanding that Calibration is not necessary so I am just wondering? Thanks.
Calibration is not needed or even possible with the Kickr Bike
Is it louder or quieter than a Tacx Neo 2?
At most cadences it is quieter than a Neo2 (which I also have). The drivetrain with a Neo2 is louder than the Kickr Bike. However, at certain cadences the Kickr Bike has a metallic sounding resonance that is a lot louder than otherwise. To my untrained ear it sounds about the same as Neo2 plus drivetrain so certainly not super loud but louder than at other cadences.
Thank you for the response. Happy with the upgrade so far? I’m having a real hard time deciding if I buy now or wait until next season. I do like biking more outside but when reviewing my strava stats I sadly realized I did more miles (and hours) inside this season than outside.
Yes, I m happy with the Kickr Bike. I much prefer it to my real bike on the Neo. Quieter, less maintenance, less wear and tear on my real bike, and the Climb! Originally, I thought it was a gimmick but it really does add something to Zwift.
Yes, I m happy with the Kickr Bike. I much prefer it to my real bike on the Neo. Quieter, less maintenance, less wear and tear on my real bike, and the Climb! Originally, I thought it was a gimmick but it really does add something to Zwift.
How The Ride feel between taco Neo 2t with kicker bike? Besides the feature like tilting on wahoo bike and road simulate on Neo. Also I don’t count factor like bike degradation when use on trainer.I want to know how road feel and inertia between them
I have both and I think the ride feel is better with the 2t. If the kb had the same feel it would be close to perfect (some small annoying things, kinks to work out).
Thanks for sharing
How you can describe better though?
Daniel, The difference is, as you describe. The Neo does ‘road surface’ simulation, where the Kickr Bike does ‘inclination’ simulation.
My experience was the climb experience can be easily overplayed, as the Bike goes up and down at a higher amount at times. It’s also surprised me occasionally as it reared up like a horse, seeming to want to buck me off.
I *prefer* the less up-and-down of the climb, somewhat from the Neo. It’s pretty cool, experiencing the ‘surface’ that way. But I’ve had long rides where those cobbles, and wood decking simulations have felt so good on the Neo 2T! So welcome to my hot tired abused feet. The ‘Climb’ function just doesn’t quite do that for my abused feet. But, you do you…
Oh Sorry climb fearure and Road surface simulation is not my concern, I prefer they off actually. What I mean is pedal feeling which one more feel real especially inertia I try Magene gravat T300 which people say close to wahoo kickr feel and have my garmin to simulate familiar route, and I feel much much harder even on flat section. Now I’m searching which trainer can simulate closely with real road inertia feeling
So, with the Garmin driving your trainer, you are looking for one that duplicates the same in-real-life-feel?
My limited experience with Garmin Edge driven trainer rides was, not prime. The ride seemed too *strange*. I remember the ride not feeling ‘good’.
I tried twice, and haven’t done it since. It’s been about 2 years.
The software has been updated, I’d hope, but I haven’t tried it since. Maybe DC has some input/experience doing this, and I should probably try again, just seeing if it’s better.
I would appreciate if someone could help me out. I am a little fuzzy when it comes to some of this. Just keep in mind I am new to Zwift and indoor training.
I am interested in getting the Wahoo bike and using it with a 4k apple TV for Zwift. The part that I am struggling with is the ability to go back and look at the data. Right now, I mostly (99%) of the time use Garmin to do that. Specifically, I use a “old” edge 800. It looks like I would not even need to use the edge to sync to Garmin. I can just sync Zwift directly to Garmin. Is that correct? From what I understand in its current state everything (speed, cadence, etc) will sync over to Garmin except for the power data? Is that correct? Just trying to get a idea of what would be missing.
I also am looking at pairing a heart rate monitor, in addition to the cadence and trainer bluetooth connections. The next thing I noticed is that there are not enough bluetooth connections. Apparently the 4k Apple TV only allows up to 2 bluetooth connections besides the remote. I saw someone mention a dongle but it appeared to be battery powered. For myself, I would rather not worry about yet another battery. Is there a better way around this?
I don’t use Apple TV, but this might help anyway. All your data (including power) can be synched to Garmin and Strava and other platforms. On Garmin you get all the data, but Garmin connect won’t ‘work out’ your training effort and so you don’t get the productive/peaking/unproductive info. This is due to how Garmin use firstbeat (on a Garmin device) to calculate that and pass it to Garmin connect…. i.e. Connect is dumb even though it has the data is has no algorithm to calculate the impact. I use Elevate on Strava which does do this for you. Today you can’t ‘connect’ your Garmin to the bike (except as a trainer) to also record the output while you are riding on Zwift. I imagine that Wahoo will add ANT+ broadcasting in a firmware update in the new year as this is a highly requested feature.
You can have one Bluetooth channel for the bike (it has the power/cadence in that one channel) and use the heart-rate monitor on a second channel. I would imagine that would work. I use a PC so it isn’t an issue for me.
Hope that helps. Let me know if it doesn’t make sense and i’ll try better at explaining it.
Hello
Maybe using the companion app could help the bluetooth issue, this youtube link may help:
link to youtube.com
Thank you both for the info. The companion app looks like it will solve the bluetooth problem, which is great. Thats also good info on the Garmin connect. That was more positive than what I had in my mind. So with that now it’s just a matter of saving enough money up to purchase. Thank you again for the info!
heh, anyone else having the issue of wahoo not posting their less than stellar review on their website?
What is your review?
I guess I’ll just post it here. Tho seems kind of dumb given there is a giant ass review from DC above, but it annoys me that I typed it all out and its doomed to the abyss, so eff it. I gave it 3 stars, 5 for quality and 1 for value
I have several hundred hours on a tacx neo and this is basically what I will be comparing the kickr bike to as it’s the only other smart trainer I’ve ever used.
First off, the two things most people are probably interested in, noise and thigh rub. It is most definitely louder than my neo, there is also an annoying high pitched whine that varies depending on the RPM and power. It’s not terrible, when I have music and my fan on, it’s not super noticeable, but I will catch my inner voice occasionally “whine whine”‘ing along to it, which is annoying. but for the most part its fine, but it’s definitely a step down from what I’m used to. I’m 6’1” and about 200lb and slightly more muscular than your average cyclist and my thighs definitely rub. Personally it doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I only notice it when I pay attention to it, but if you are OCD and this is something that is going to bother you and you are even close to my measurements it’s something you are going to have to deal with.
Unpacking and setup is incredibly easy and smooth, it maybe took a half hour max to have everything set up. I bought this trainer specifically because I only have room for one trainer and my girlfriend has gotten into biking and having to change bikes on the trainer is not something I wanted to deal with so this seemed like a great option for us to both be able to use. It also just looks sexy, especially compared to the tacx bike which looks like an ugly fitness gym bike.
That said there is a lot lacking with this trainer. It doesn’t broadcast via ant+, so if like me you want to do a sufferfest workout while riding on zwift and tracking the workout on your garmin you are SOL. It also doesn’t work very well when you are outside of a normal RPM for your cadence, it doesn’t matter if you are in ERG mode or cruising along in your smallest cog on the little chainring, if you do more than 130rpm the power ramps up, so doing high cadence drills are out of the question. I was doing 700 watts in my 34/32. It also seems to not work well at low RPM, at 60 rpm the pedal stroke is not smooth, its not like this constantly it seems to be dependent on power, sometimes it’s fine and other times it’s terrible. Shifting is also another problem, the way the display is set up if you have a towel over your bars it basically covers the display and there is no real feedback for when youve changed your gears, so unless you are on a flat “road” at steady cadence lots of times you are left wondering if you actually switched gears or not, and when you can tell it’s because it suddenly got harder. It’s just kind of jarring, not like a real gear change This is all something I’m assuming can be fixed with a firmware update, but who knows when or if ever that will happen. Do you really want to pay almost 4 grand for something in hopes that some day it maybe works as good as something less than half the price?
There is some good with this trainer tho, it seems to be very well made, and switching between setups is pretty easy. The climb aspect of it is fun, tho for serious training it’s mostly a gimmick you wont use that often because your workout rarely lines up with the terrain you are riding on, but it’s very engaging for the casual ride or zwift race.
Bottom line is that unless you are buying this specifically because you only have room for one trainer or because you want the latest tech or the sexiest looking trainer in your pain cave, it is not worth it. You can get a more functional smart trainer and have $2K left over to upgrade your current bike or buy an entire bike that is pretty decent to stick on it.
I’m giving it three stars because it seems to be well made, it definitely is sleek and sexy, and I’m optimistic that firmware will fix in the future all the things that are currently wrong with it. But if I’m being honest, it’s probably more because I just dropped $4K on this and I need to feel good about it rather than it’s actual merits, because there is a lot lacking and it doesn’t perform near as good as the Neo I have that was less than half the price (and that is also portable and I can take to races or on road tips)
Great review thx so much
Daniel I think you are being a little harsh in this review.
First off the ANT+ broadcast will happen in the coming weeks, and it is only Garmin’s system that is effected by it because of the way Garmin license firstbeat(per device) and connect is dumb, in that it just takes in the numbers and doesn’t actually calculate them. Connect has all the data, it just doesn’t calc the impact… Elevate does as an example.
Second you are saying that ‘outside of normal RPM for your Cadence” – I don’t think I have ever hit 130RPM and a rarely go under 60 (though I did the Epic KOM on Wattopia yesterday at 56 and the bike felt perfectly fine at that RPM). So I think you are trying something outside the bounds of a normal user/system. Yes maybe it should still function perfectly, but as i said I think it a little harsh to highlight an out of normal situation.
I agree that the shift display is not great, but I don’t have a shift display on my road bike either! + I use a fan so I don’t need to cover my bike – the Wahoo Headwind (with HR synch) is bloody fantastic at stopping me sweating all over the bike. I bought it with the free credit on Clever Training for buying the Kickr Bike and I have been ‘blown away (sorry) by how good it is. Wish I had invested in this years ago. I also agree that the gear change isn’t perfect, but it is pretty good and in Di2 synchro mode works really well up and down the cassette.
Third – The Climb mode is really excellent and the first time I can practice hills using the right muscle groups and out of the saddle. I have been blown away by how great Zwift is on the hills with the bike. Very immersive (almost sickeningly so with a big screen in front of me). It isn’t a gmiick for me and is one of the main reasons I think people would go for this trainer of a standard one.
I, like you, bought it so my wife and I can easily swap between our settings. I have her saddle on a separate seat-post (27.2mm standard) and the swap takes 1 min between us. + you don’t have to have a bike and the associated wear and tear all set up…actually two for to of you.
I’m very aware that i’m on an extended beta program with the firmware, but given they already added Di2 synchro I have high hopes for things to just get better and better. Given the beta view I am really happy with how the bike is engaging and has made my training much more involving.
Finally, yes it does make some noises, but I don’t really notice them and they are certainly not an issue for me.
I hope you feel better about the $4K… I feel pretty good about it – oh and buy the Headwind!
I can see how some of my complaints can come off as harsh and maybe picky, but I’m complaining about things that I regularly do on a trainer that costs over $2K less, not things that no trainer does or only something a more expensive model can do that I wish this one did (not that such a thing exists in this case), so I don’t think they are invalid criticisms. I regularly do cadence drills as part of my training, and can no longer do them on the kickr bike. And I don’t need a shift indicator on my road bike because I can always tell when I’ve changed a gear (tho technically we do have an indicator, its a glance down at the cassette). I don’t think these things are that outside of a part of the markets use case that such information has no merit, which is why I wanted to leave a review, so that other people would have that information. I made sure to justify my reasons so that anyone like you who wouldn’t care about those gripes would be able to take what I was saying and discard it in their decision making process, and why I think it’s pretty crappy wahoo didn’t post it.
I’ve actually thought about getting the headwind, but I’ve been skeptical about it because it looks so small and I sweat more than most. I’ve got a 20″ floor fan I’m using that is loud and ugly….maybe I’ll see if there is anywhere around me that I can actually see how the headwind works, because if it did the job that would be much preferable!
Agree with you that Wahoo should publish your review and that this should all be better. I think i’m just more comfortable with being on a beta product. Totally agree that at $4k that shouldn’t be the situation.
My observation is that as every company becomes a software company, they are all finding it hard to produce complete products on release. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is a car infotainment system, a camera, a phone, or in this case a bike trainer. in many ways the ability to update the software(firmware) over time means that you can release early and correct over time is a double edged sword. Products are not even feature complete on release in many occasions.
p.s. I sweat out 3lbs of net weight in an hours ride – it used to pool on the floor around me and I needed a bike bra and towel to protect my bike. With the headwind set to HR synch I only sweat out 2lbs now and 99% of it just evaporates off me, with only a few drips of sweat on the hardest efforts. I was very skeptical about it an only got it as it was effectively free. I assumed the HR synch would need a lot of adjustment, but just went with the initial settings where it maxes as I go over 150BPM. Very impressed with the result and could probably do away with the bike bra, except it has two front pockets for my phone and tv remote control and a small towel :-).
Hope you get to try it somewhere and it works for you.
Are you going to return it or keep it?
I’m going to keep it. I only have room for one trainer and I’d still rather deal with it’s faults than hassle with constantly swapping bikes on my neo. If I had room for two trainers or if I was the only person who would be using it, I definitely wouldn’t keep it.
Thanks for a great review of the Kickr bike which I just
Pulled the trigger on yesterday and finally unloaded from the back of my truck this morning. Unfortunately the guys at Brands cycles in Wantagh weren’t too conversant with the nitty gritty of the communication between the Kickr bike and the Apple TV display. When I asked any questions, they said things like, “sorry, I only know android, but it’s easy. I am planning on using the fullgas ap with Apple TV and since I have a Garmin 820 I wanted to know if my current Garmin heart rate monitor will automatically be shown on the tv screen or do I have to purchase a Kickr sensor. Sorry if I missed this in your review but I zoned out a bit about 3/4 of the way through. I actually have not set it up yet. I am still recovering from humping it into the house. I am old whic probably explains why I had so much trouble getting it up the stairs and certainly why I am not really conversant with all the Bluetooth and ant+ terminology. I did find my ant+ dongle after a long search yesterday, which I used to use with ZWIFT and my cyclops dumb trainer which I will never be using again after I get this thing set up.
You can just use your garmin heart rate monitor as long as it’s bluetooth with the apple tv. you don’t need the ant+ dongle
Hi Ray,
awesome review along with Shane’s. thank you very much.
there is one issue that I’m having and not sure if you or anyone else has a solution (so far I keep getting standard answers from Wahoo).
the Kickr Bike works great on Trainerroad (ERG mode) and one of the test I did today was to ride in resistance mode and had no issues. when I ride in Zwift, I’ll start in the big chain ring and big cog in the back 54/28. every time I change gears, the power increases until I keep a steady cadence, then the power drops. this happens every time I change gears. normally on the road, using 54/21 @85 rpm, I should be around 180 watts, but on Zwift, the power increases until I get to 85 rpm, then drops to around 60 rpm. I’m using iPad and HDMI cable.
any suggestions would be welcome. hope to Ride On.
Hi Masuo-
Honestly not sure what to say there. I’d say that’s definitely not normal, at least if I’m understanding the scenario correctly. My only bet would be to circle back to Wahoo support again and push back a little more.
Or, at least understand what they think should be happening. But assuming TR has set an ERG mode, and assuming you’ve held a given cadence and aren’t shifting – then it shouldn’t be changing power output at all. That’s for sure.
Sorry!
Hi DC,
thanks for your insight. I also tested in TR w/o ERG mode (resistance) and all was good. power was steady when cadence was steady. this lead me to believe that it’s Zwift, but I’ll check with Zwift.
sorry. the standard answers came from Zwift, not Wahoo.
thanks again.
I have seen the same sort of thing- change gears and the power spikes. Then drops down after a few seconds. I suspect it is a power servo problem.
Hi David,
thanks for your comment. what was the outcome?
did they have to replace the bike?
funny that it works in TR, but not Zwift.
will wait to hear from you before contacting Wahoo support again.
Hmm, just wrote a long comment which was erased because I didn’t click a box correctly. Won’t bore you.
Thanks Jared for the answer on the Garmin HR sensor. Just set up my Kickrbike and tried to match it to my IF road bike. The problem is that I am 6’3″ /190 cm and the seat post is 5cm too short all the way extended.Do i need to buy a longer seat post? I am old and I am shrinking but I can’t wait that long to lose the extra 5 cam. I don’t want to be switching it out with my road bike post.
I’m assuming you have already extended the main unit to the E setting(i think that is the biggest). If so then you can use any standard seatpost (28.2mm?) in place of the one that ships with the Kickr. I have one for my wife with a seat that she prefers that we just swap in when she is riding.
Big WHOOPS and sorry. Reread the great setup review and discovered the adjustment for stand over height and fixed that issue. Sorry if I wasted anyone’s time.
Thanks. My bad. I discovered that about 5 minutes before your post ?.
I’ve got about 6 weeks and 700 miles on the KICKR so far. Loving it more each day. The natural built-in movement makes it very easy to stay on the bike without getting uncomfortable. I did a 3 hour ride a couple of weeks ago and felt better than I have on a ride that long in a long time, which I attribute to the natural movement and flex (plus the climb feature).
The resonance continues at the 62-65 range and hasn’t gotten any louder or quieter after the miles.
Overall, I still say it’s definitely worth the money for someone that wants a smart bike. I had the TACX but the lack of movement and rubbing issues didn’t work for me.
The only thing is a few firmware issues. The KICKR Bike has a slightly longer lag on Zwift than other trainers I’ve used (maybe 3 seconds as opposed to 1-2 seconds on other trainers). When you change gears, the first couple of revolutions are harder than they should be. And finally….. where is BROADCASTING? I thought Wahoo would have sorted that out by now.
At least it’s allow able to be fixed via updates. Other than that, I am very happy with my choice.
I’ve been using a new set of Garmin Vector 3 pedals on the KICKR Bike and capturing power data from my Zwift rides on a Garmin Edge 530. I’m also capturing the power data from the KICKR Bike in Zwift. When I compare the average power for each ride I’ve found that the value reported using the Vector 3 pedals is typically about 4% lower than the value reported using the KICKR Bike (sometimes it’s 2 – 3%, but mostly it’s closer to 4%).
This power difference seems to be the same regardless of the length of the ride (1 to 2+ hours) and the difficulty (recovery ride or a hard ride).
Since I use Vector 3 pedals for all of my outdoor rides, this is a little concerning since 4% is quite significant and my rides (indoor and outdoor) are all logged Training Peaks and Today’s Plan which would throw off the data if the KICKR Bike power data is included. On the plus side, it is nice to have a method to put out 4% more power in a Zwift event ;-)
Anyone else notice the KICKR Bike reporting higher power values than other power meters?
I don’t have any data to prove it but mine feels like it’s reading slightly lower than my tacx neo it replaced. It could just be that my fit is more dialed in on my ride bike.
I’ve compared my Bike to my Assioma pedals and they agree quite well. Usually well under 5W at 250W.
So, got a Kickr Bike today. Got it all put together (pretty easy), set up and, boom, creaks like a mofo. I’m 6’2” and 185, so not tiny, but certainly not so big as to cause creaks. It’s creaks with any pedal stroke done at over 30-40 watts and it’s pretty loud. Very, very annoying. Had to take a day off of work to take delivery and there is no way to send the damn thing back without paying freight.
Hopefully, Wahoo has a fix.
Other than the horrible creak, I was fairly impressed.
Further investigation revealed that the creak is not present when the bike isn’t plugged in (i.e., just rotating the cranks without AC power). Also discovered that the flywheel makes a metal-on-metal grinding sound when coming to a stop. Don’t know if that’s normal,
Yeah, realistically Wahoo will likely have to replace it. There are a few things that can have WD-40 applied, but realistically it only goes so far in that scenario.
One minor thing to double-check though is that larger frame up/down sizer is correctly in (any) slot. Meaning, that it’s not in-between holes and that the lock-pin is fully locked. This can actually happen where you think you’ve got the pin in (the main portion), and it’s actually not fully engaged.
I will check it. Thanks for the feedback as always and great site.
I had to have 2 bikes replaced. It was annoying but Wahoo support was great. They send you two boxes to put the old bike in and send a new bike. I’m not sure if you bought direct from them or from a dealer. I actually bought from Clever Training but Wahoo handled all the issues directly.
That’s good to know Jared.
What was the issue with your bikes if you don’t mind me asking?
The first bike had a ding in the flywheel that had touch up paint applied. It also had a big scratch on one front of the bike. The second bike had a scratch some resonance at ~100RPM. Third bike is good so far.
As an update, Wahoo has been a little less helpful so far than their reputation, but I’m trying to be patient. This has been going on for five days now and I’ve submitted about 5 separate videos that they’ve requested. Clearly, something isn’t right and they say it’s a noise they haven’t yet heard (which I find hard to believe since it seems to be clearly documented above by DCR). Feeling very much like a beta tester for them. It would be better if they would send a replacement and then figure out the issue on their end rather than having me help them with it. We shall see.
Follow-up: they will replace the bike. Hopefully the second is a bit better.
Thanks for the detailed reviews Ray! I’m stuck between the Tacx Neo Smart Bike and the Wahoo Kickr. I like the Tacx Neo front end (display, phone tray, etc) but I did also have some thigh rub when I demo’d one and don’t know if that would drive me nuts! My biggest question to you is re: the Wahoo Kickr – if I understand what I’ve ready, there is no display at all to read your watts/HR/cadence other than through whichever app you are using?? I noticed that you had your bike computer mount in the Kickr’s handlebars, so is this a way that you can still see your data without having to use a separate app that you are watching from a TV (yes Wahoo, this would have been nice to have a way to attach a Tablet, etc!) ;)
Thanks!
The short answer is yes – put your Garmin/Wahoo and then link it…
Longer question – Why would you want a(nother) display? it’s just something else to fail.
Either you are using an app (Zwift, Rouvey, TrainerRoad…) via a pc/iPad/Apple TV or you are using a ‘bike computer’ to control the trainer. I don’t get why having another display is a good thing?
if you want to attach a tablet you already have then there a re a tonne of mounts out there already to attach whatever you already have in whatever way you want to do it.
Am I missing something?
p.s. I hope this come across the right way. I’m genuinely interested in ‘why another screen’ ?
I don’t always use a specific training app and sometimes like to do my own work out. For these times it’s nice to know what my data is without having to figure out a place to attach a tablet or TV
And you don’t have a bike Garmin/Wahoo device/watch to sync that data to? i.e. you wouldn’t be recording the data?
Certain data types aren’t shown in all apps. For example – gearing. Yes, the Wahoo bike has a gearing display, but it’s in a crappy location. And at present Zwift doesn’t support gear display information. FulGaz does however, but that’s it.
I don’t get the gearing issue though…
Yes it would be nice to know what gear i’m in (looking forward to Wahoo broadcasting power/cadence/gear so I can have my Garmin record and display at the same time), but why does anyone care what gear they are in? (When i’m outside i don’t have gear displayed, but do tend to ‘just know’ what gear i am in) especially with Di2 Synchro shift…
if it’s too hard to pedal then you change down, if its too easy you change up… at either end of the spectrum nothing happens… :-)
It isn’t as though the bike + Zwift is so perfectly reproducing the experience of being outside that it matters. Outside, my gear choices on the flat and hills are different from what I experience in Zwift on a similar climb or TT route by a gear or 2. Being on a trainer i tend to have a higher cadence 100+ vs 90-95 ish on my road bike so unless it was perfectly reproducing the outside experience then it is always going to be slightly out…
Is this an issue? – I think NO is the answer for me..
p.s. I know post can come across wrong and I think i’m just trying to say that it isn’t a big issue – very slightly annoying. I also think that as the apps add more info (Zwift gear as an example) then these issues go away. If I was Wahoo I would prioritize other features that are not going to be overcome in other ways first. product dev is always just a prioritization exercise. Maybe it would be good for Wahoo to ‘open up’ a little about their product dev schedule and prioritization of ‘coming features’ – but I know how reluctant(for some good reasons) dev teams are to do that..
This has been our experience with ours. Gearing is relative as I experience it, and if it doesn’t change gears, I’ll change the chain ring.
Thanks for the copious detail both here and elsewhere on the site. Am hoping to be able to start some indoor training in March to recover from a broken neck (cycling accident). Since its going to be a year or so before I can get outside again, I thought I’d take the plunge on the best indoor experience I can get. Am torn between getting a Kickr Core and Climb or waiting for the Kickr Bike to come out in the UK – Any news on when that might be? I’d hate to go for the Core and Climb if the Bike replaces it soon after, but I guess that there is no guarantee that the first Kickr Bikes will be problem free. And being a heavy rider, I guess I will stress the initial design somewhat! I assume that 2nd gen Kickr Bikes will come along in late 2021, so the Core and Climb would be the better bet until then?
Someone in the posts above had their Wahoo Dealer agree to let them buy a core and climb and then trade it for a bike when it became available… might be worth asking whoever you are going to buy it from in the UK if they would do something like that?
Not sure I’d find a dealer prepared to do that!
Hi and help. What does the bar graph on the left side of the screen represent? Cadence? This is the FulGaz view of my ride on Apple TV. Why doesn’t it show up when I upload my ride to Strava?
The pic is blurry, but I believe that is the Gearing graphic. It shows your front chain set and cassette gearing.
What do the numbers represent? If I pedal faster, the top one increases, usually in the 70-90 range. I have emailed FulGaz and wahoo but have not received any responses.
Oh now I see. It’s current cadence and average cadence
Current cadence on top, average cadence on bottom
Thank you Led. I suspected that was the answer. How come it doesn’t get uploaded with the rest of the statistics to Strava? Is that the two channel issue with Wahoo?
Excellent and comprehensive review
Ray, I just took delivery of my wahoo bike. I surprised by the small amount of front to back movement when shifting weight on the bike. Did you experience this? In the grand scheme of things it’s not the end of the world but it’s not very realistic. The bike is stable but there is some front to back flex for sure. Would love to know if this is a “feature” or just a byproduct of the design. Other than that the bike is amazing.
TRANSMITS POWER VIA ANT+ and Bluetooth = NO
Does this mean I am not able to see Power simultaneously on a Garmin Edge for example, while paired to Zwift?
It does :-( – waiting on a firmware update to enable this…
I mentioned it to Wahoo support and they made it seem like broadcasting regular Ant+ power was low on their priority list.
I suspect it is, as it’s only Garmin users who appreciate that; however a: there are a lot of us! b. delight us as customers rather than have us 2nd guess your motives… your motive should always be to delight your customers :-).
p.s. This is all caused by the way Garmin licences First Beat and that Garmin connect is effectively ‘brain dead’ – other platforms still process the fit fie well enough – Garmin use the device to do the calc for the training status rather than having Connect do the calc.
Too bad. So the Kickr Bike is off my list… I always pair my Neo to trainerroad and ride my workouts there, while simultaneously being connected to Zwift via Ant+ Power and Cadence. I would not give this up for any new bike…
I just connect Zwift to my Garmin and Strava accounts to synch the data there and then use a Strava addin to do ride analysis. The only thing I am giving up currently is the training status on Garmin, which I can get on other platoons anyway.
The Kickr Bike is pretty awesome. The incline feature has really helped my winter training come up with much better climbing using the same muscles I use on the road.
I searched and saw a Wahoo Employee using the Kickr Bike with Sufferfest for controlled Workouts and Zwift for broadcasting Power and Cadence to the program simultaneously! So missing broadcasting was maybe only a beta Firmware thing?
It seemed to work about a month ago with power data over ANT being sent to Zwift and to an Edge 530. Only tried it once because I put Garmin Vector pedals on the bike and have been using them for power. Maybe there was an update at some point. Might be worth trying again.
I haven’t heard any mention of it being added by Wahoo folks, nor is it listed in the firmware updates.
There’s ways you could technically achieve both concurrent Zwift and Sufferfest with the dual-channeling of Bluetooth Smart control, then deselecting the ‘controllable’ side on Zwift after pairing.
I checked this again today, and it does work, though not using the ANT+ power sensor setting.
What I have is the KICKR Bike set as a trainer on the Edge 530, and the trainer sensor uses an ANT+ connection (the trainer is set by going to Menu -> Training -> Indoor Trainer -> Trainer Sensor). I can then use the Indoor ride profile on the Edge 530 to record my Zwift ride and I do get power data on the Edge 530 and in Zwift.
I used this set-up briefly before putting a pair of Vector 3 pedals on the KICKR Bike and didn’t have any issues recording a Zwift ride on the 530 with power.
Interesting. I have used the 530 to control the Kickr bike for a trainign session, but haven’t had it just record the Zwift session. Will try this later today. Be good if this works as it will then update the training status in Garmin Connect – I’ll have to link the Tickr HRM to the 530 over ANT+ .
I think you just need to make sure that you do not have a power sensor enabled in settings. If you’ve set up the KICKR Bike as a power sensor, go into settings and disable the power sensor (you don’t need to remove it) and the 530 will use the trainer for power.
Yep works perfectly! Nice find :-).
So ray and rest of the forum – now that’s it been a couple of months and several firmware updates – should I buy ? Really trying to convince myself but don’t want to be disappointed with version 1.0 (and also don’t want to wait until version 2.0)
RE: Pairing as FE-C
Yes, that’s always been a possibility, but it’s also playing with fire a bit. It can result in tug-of-war type scenarios between the two (Zwift & Edge). In theory, the Edge shouldn’t be sending commands via FE-C as long as you don’t touch it. But, that’s also a bit of theory (and a few years of watching comments shows that theory doesn’t always hold up – whereby it might actually send a check command or such).
It also doesn’t help watch people (where FE-C isn’t implemented), nor people with Bluetooth only watches (Suunto or Polar).
Not saying it’s a totally dead shim, but just be aware that if you start seeing funky behavior – it’s almost undoubtedly that.
Cheers!
Ray, this is an answer to the broadcasting question from Wahoo:
“Ray’s information is not entirely correct and is quite deceptive and confusing. The only limitation of the current data output for BIKE is if a user is trying to use the BIKE with a very old watch or Garmin computer that doesn’t support the ANT+ FE-C profile. All bike computers and most watches released in the past 3 years have all had support for FE-C.”
I’d recommend responding back to Wahoo with the following then:
“Wahoo Support’s response is laughably incorrect. There are zero watches that support ANT+ FE-C today in the market. None. So in essence, no watches can connect to the Wahoo KICKR Bike. There’s nothing deceptive or confusing about this.”
Dear Wahoo – I know you’re watching this thread. Get your crap together and stop spreading misinformation. I have an exceeding low tolerance for companies that do that.
P.s. When I say perfectly, the file that the Garmin has its full of dropouts, so while it did record the Zwift ride or want a copy of the Zwift file….
Couldn’t agree more.
Hopefully wahoo sees this and pushes the firmware update. There are lots of garmin users on this thing I am sure. It is 3 months that the bike has been out. Just get it together and push it out.
Other than that, they put out an awesome product… even the resonance and gear change resistance things are completely tolerable. Just get broadcasting out and move forward.
Question: Can the gearing/shifting be paired with a bike computer (ANT+ or BT), like Di2 or eTAP? As the Gearing Display is in an inconvenient position at the Kickr Bike, this should be a “must have option”. Just my 2 cents!
Not at this point. Technically totally possible, but it’s not been implemented yet.
Thx Ray for some plain talking! I forwarded this to Wahoo.
I would have been very disappointed, as a new customer finding out, that they did not tell exactly whats going on. Meanwhile I found, that this was already discussed at the garmin forum about the Forerunner 945: link to forums.garmin.com
And I totally agree, that the gearing display’s position is a disaster. Most people use a sweat cover, which would make it almost impossible to have an eye on it.
Another answer from Wahoo:
“What’s deceptive and confusing is Ray is stating that the KICKR Bike do not transmit over BT, it does. Ray may be correct, there may be no watches that transmit over ANT+ FE-C, but there are numerous computers which do. I apologize I am not an expert in Garmin and other manufacturers watches, but I am an expert on our products. It will connect to a cycling computer over ANT+ FE-C and still transmit via BT. I am sorry Ray chose to focus on the one miniscule piece of incorrect information.”
My initial question was if it is possible to connect via regular ANT+ or/and BT.
With my Tacx Neo for example I am using Zwift (connected to Power and Cadence via ANT+ broadcasting) running Trainerroad or Rouvy for workouts on my iPad (via Wahoo ANT+ Dongle) and use it paired over ANT FE-C to control the trainer and replicate the workout.
I guess this is not possible with the Kickr bike and that was the question I asked Wahoo…
So I guess I have to use at least BT and ANT FE-C to ride with the same programs/configurations I am riding right now on my Tacx Neo? ANT+ is not broadcasted?
They’re now confused about their own products. From the review, here’s what the KICKR Bike transmits:
///
ANT+ FE-C Trainer Control: This is for controlling the trainer via ANT+ from apps and head units. Read tons about it here.
Bluetooth Smart Wahoo Trainer Control: This is Wahoo’s private method of controlling the trainer. At this point it does NOT yet support FTMS, but that switch-over is planned in early 2020 according to Wahoo last week. I suspect the issue is the same as Tacx not supporting it, in that the FTMS standard doesn’t support a way to configure the rider’s weight, which is important for correctly applying the ride feel.
////
As noted above, the Wahoo BIKE does *NOT* transmit a standard ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart power meter signal, like all other Wahoo trainers do. Saying something “transmits via BT” is like telling someone to go buy batteries for their product without telling you which battery to buy.
Most trainers, including Wahoo’s trainers (but not the bike), broadcast four basic things concurrently:
1) ANT+ FE-C: Trainer control protocol via ANT+/
2) Bluetooth Smart FTMS: Trainer control protocol (technically Wahoo broadcasts their own variant of it, but that’s immaterial to this discussion)
3) ANT+ Power Meter Device Profile: Inclusive of both speed and cadence channels, as well as power.
4) Bluetooth Smart Power Meter Device Profile: Inclusive of both speed and cadence channels, as well as power.
It’s these last two that are key for compatible with non-Wahoo/Garmin bike computers, as well as all watches out there, and numerous apps. The whole point of this entire discussion was pairing to non-FE-C/FTMS compatible devices with the BIKE, which the bike plainly doesn’t do. Wahoo has confirmed themselves it doesn’t do it, and that it’s on their radar to do it down the road. I frankly don’t understand why Wahoo Support is arguing with this point. If they’re confused on this, they should walk across the hall and talk to anyone within the Bike division.
To your original question – no, you can’t dual-run apps concurrently because the two apps will try and take control on both workouts since both are using the FTMS or FE-C control protocols. The one exception to that is that I think in Zwift you can deselect the ‘Trainer Control’ option after selecting it, which might be a workout for Zwift specifically.
Thx Ray, this is exactly what I thought and mentioned in my chat with Wahoo!
I can confirm deselecting the control option for ant+ fe-c works with Zwift. Not ideal but it does let you run zwift in the background and control with a different bluetooth app.
Hi Ray,
Great review as usual!
Have been waiting patiently since the bike was announced but there is still no update from wahoo on when stock is expected in the uk. Do you have any knowledge of what is causing the delay? Is it down to them wanting to get software right before widespread release? or is there a more fundamental problem with manufacturing or the actual bike itself?
Also, wondered if you know whether this bike, or equivalent from tacx and wattbike, are compatible with bkool simulator? I’m subscribed to bkool but their customer support isn’t great and they have not answered this question, likewise wahoo.
Thanks
I haven’t heard anything there. Given US orders are still backordered, I wouldn’t expect them to start on the UK.
Now available to order at Sigma and Rutland at least with delivery for 27/03. Though everything is pretty much up in the air at the moment . Very tempted…
I’m not seeing anything about cycling dynamics / pedal balance calculations measured by the Kickr Bike. My Tacx Neo 2 has this and it’s such an invaluable tool, especially since I get that data from the Neo 2 on my Fenix 6x Pro. Is it true that the Kickr Bike doesn’t measure/transmit this data?
Correct, no such data from the KICKR Bike.
Thank you for this very insightful review, Ray.
I live in Germany and my bikestore-of-choice informed me they expect a limited stock of bikes to be available in early april.
*Fingers crossed for quick delivery*
Luckily, my employer provides me with a 10% discount code (company benefits).
It‘s expensive, yes. But in my opinion it’s absolutely worth the money considering I can finally share one bike with my wife.
Riding outdoors offers a boring landscape, bad roads and a certain danger where I live, so I am riding indoors exclusively.
Quick question: Do you have to move the hole the pedals are in when you switch between two users or can it just be as simple as swapping seatpost/saddles? Wife is 5’4″ and I am 6’0″. Thanks!
It is up to you Steven. Depends on the usual crank lengths you use. If you were to go from longest to shortest it would be noticeable, but 170-172 probably wouldn’t be for most people.
but your choice for sure.
Thank you!
Hi Ray, I’ve been following the thread for quite a while and been reading about connecting the Bike concurrently to both Zwift and other software which would be controlling it. I’m a little confused now and wondered if you could clarify, can you connect the Bike to Zwift and have it broadcast power and cadence through ANT+ without any intention of Zwift controlling it, purely just reading power and cadence. Then use TrainerRoad for example and have TR control the Bike over Bluetooth and still receive power at a minimum, power and cadence if possible?
Thanks!
“And certainly, some of you will think that’s a funny thing to complain about. And then I’ll ask to see pictures of your cave setup and find you using a $35 hospital bedside tray jury-rigged next to a $3,500 indoor bike – to hold your gels and phone carefully strung to the USB port of your bike going up and down, for that long trainer session. And then it won’t seem like such a trivial thing.”
Nope, it’ll still seem trivial.
Seems like Wahoo Europe is taking orders now.
I spoke to them and they have stock in the UK. Since my wife’s company is supporting purchase of Gym gear due to Covid – I ordered one. Delivery should be next week.
But I bought it for the ease of changing riders as well.
Nearly ordered one this week until I saw the £120ish delivery charge when buying from Wahoo direct. I think that’s a bit steep considering the price tag. Anyone else think it should be free delivery given the premium price?
Yeah I thought that was a bit steep especially when the KOM bundle of kickr + climb is delivered for free..but Wahoo have paid for return postage (and offered to collect) 3 faulty kickrs so I would hope for the same level of service for the kickr bike should it be needed, also the single 3rd party UK retailer I could find charges £100 for delivery with no collect in-store option and I doubt they would offer free return postage in warranty cases.
I mean, it is freight.
Just an update… there is no update in regard to broadcasting power/etc. Still a no go at this point, which is disappointing given that it is now April. I’m sure that most of Wahoo is work from home at this point like most companies, but it’s just a software update. Surely that can get done?
I’m 5 months in and well over 2,000 miles on the bike. Pretty great all around but still no broadcasting. Grrr.
Mine just arrived and I was prompted upon setup to update the firmware. I wasn’t expecting to see broadcasting happen but when I linked it to my Polar Vantage V and started riding, my Polar started picking up the broadcast. However, there is an incredible discrepancy (read: 2-3x higher) on my watch than what is being displayed on Zwift.
Has anyone else successfully received broadcast power to their watch? Anyone else experiencing a similar discrepancy?
Hi I have a new one of the bikes here now in the US, had a kicker before. Not sure how normal it is but my wahoo bike seems to have a very large stutter at low cadence and high power, like 60 cadence 300 watt pedal drills. I have been chatting with support, not much help there so far, is this very odd uneven pedal resistance common?
I’ve had the same thing. I’ve overlooked it because I rarely do such low cadence drills (I probably should though!) but I was just doing a workout at 385/60 and it kept stuttering away. To be fair, it could be partly a Zwift problem.
Super thanks just confirming my bike did not have a special issue problem… also of note when doing the ERG rides I really need the “erg smoothing” setting on or the bike is basically unridable. Thanks again for the confirmation, sure sounds like to me Wahoo is fully capable of fixing the issue they are just not addressing it because very few people do ridiculous pedal drills at such low RPM and high power, arrrgggggg,,,
Return of the Creak….
And now my second Kickr Bike has developed the creak. As Ray described it, it sounds like your apartment neighbors are going to town on a 50-year-old mattress. It creaks worse under heavy load (high torque, higher power/cadence under 85). I’m not really sure what to do, but I’m losing some faith in the design.
It’s annoying and I personally expect excellence from a $3500 product, but I really don’t know if I’m just being a whiny man about this. Should I reach out to Wahoo again or just suck it up?
Are you a big/heavy rider? I’m relatively heavy 185-190lbs and have ~1,300 miles on my Kickr bike with no creeks. I’d say call wahoo
I would agree. 2200 miles and no creaks. I do get some feeling of an almost metallic grinding periodically that comes and goes when I am spinning on longer rides. But it doesn’t seem to affect the numbers or my pedalling. That’s the only thing I have dealt with and it seem more a nuisance than anything. But I am also only 165 pounds and can only hit 950 watts max. so maybe why no creaks.
I have had my kickrbike since late last year, have just started getting in to riding it more frequently, am just under 75 years old, 196 lbs. it is a little noisier than I expected, but some of the noise is from the wood floor creaking under the bike. Do you have it on a pad? The whirring noises and somewhat melodic tones don’t bother me. The noises that my wife of 53 years makes while chewing her food are much more annoying….
My KICKR Bike started making noises a few months ago (I’ve got about 4,000 km on it now). Some sounds are creaks, other (more annoyingly) sound like a duck quacking during each revolution. I weigh about 66 kg, so I’m not a particularly heavy rider.
I should write to Wahoo, but haven’t so far. Based on my experience with 3 returned 2018 KICKRs (the 4th one was good), they normally ask for a lot of detail and recordings of the sounds and I haven’t had time to get that data together. It would be nice if they included adjustment tips on their support pages if there is a way to fix common issues.
The other issue I have is that the power output consistently reads 3% higher than the power output reading from my Vector 3 pedals. Not sure how to tell which one is “right” (I have more trust in the Garmin power meters), but it would also be nice if there was a configuration setting in the Wahoo app that allowed the power output to be adjusted by a percentage so it is possible to match another power meter (for instance the indoor KICKR Bike and an outdoor bike).
As long as it is consistent, that is (within reason) all that matters. The fact that they are within 3% is also pretty good to be honest. As you are taking power readings at different places (pedal vs crank) there is always going to be a difference. A consistent 3% is pretty awesome to be honest.
I have mine on a heavy duty mat on top of super plush carpeting. That’s on top of a concrete basement slab.
I will say this about the set up. The resonance noise has slowly gone away. Or I am adjusting. But I do believe its getting less. 62 rpm is still the worst spot for it.
Creaking? Nope. And it rocks BAD on plush carpet. I get a bit of a tick when really hammering it out of the saddle on my right side drivetrain. But it’s hardly noticeable and could even be my cleat.
I may be different than others but noise levels have gone down seemingly so far.
Not sure about accuracy on plush carpet though…. it seems right but I have no other means of measure . But I can literally lift it off its corners when sprinting and that’s at 600 or so watts to start.
I’m seeing poor power accuracy with the Kickr bike. I’m comparing it to a pair of Assioma Duo pedals and the kickr bike is reporting up to 7% higher. I have compared the Assiomas to other power measuring devices – Power2Max power meter & Tacx Neo – and found them to be within specified tolerance, i.e. 1%.
I think I am doing everything possible to make this an accurate assessment:
PM installed with torque wrench to correct torque (40NM)
PM firmware updated
PM battery fully charged
PM zero’d/calibrated before ride
Kickr bike firmware updated
Here is a workout that I did – link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com – looking closely, I see:
Approx. the first 6 minutes (05:23:46 – 05:30:00) – Assioma avg: 104.34, kickr bike avg: 113.12, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 105.38 (104.34*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 7.74w over (113.12 – 105.38) which is >7% over, not with the 1% specified.
Period 2m30s 05:30:30 – 05:33:00 – Assioma avg: 145.52, kickr bike avg: 154.95, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 146.98 (145.52*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 7.97w over (154.95 – 146.98) which is >5% over, not with the 1% specified.
Period 5mins 05:38:30 – 05:43:30 – Assioma avg: 225.58, kickr bike avg: 233.92, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 227.84 (225.58*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 6.08w over (233.92 – 227.84) which is >2.6% over, not with the 1% specified.
Here is another file that was created just for the purpose of testing: link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
Part way through I did some sprints then re-zero’d the Assiomas. Looking closely at the data, I see:
Period 2m10s 15:17:30 – 15:19:40 – Assioma avg: 105.07, kickr bike avg: 112.47, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 106.12 (105.07*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 6.35w over (112.47 – 106.12) which is 6% over, not within the 1% specified.
Period 1m50s 15:19:50 – 15:21:40 – Assioma avg: 150.09, kickr bike avg: 158.33, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 151.59 (150.09*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 6.74w over (158.33 – 151.59) which is >4% over, not within the 1% specified.
Period 1m50s 15:21:50 – 15:23:40 – Assioma avg: 203.63, kickr bike avg: 212.25, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 205.67 (203.63*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 6.58w over (212.25 – 205.67) which is >3% over, not within the 1% specified.
Period 1m50s 15:23:50 – 15:25:40 – Assioma avg: 252.69, kickr bike avg: 261.38, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 255.22 (203.63*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 6.16w over (261.38 – 255.22) which is >2% over, not within the 1% specified.
Period 1m55s 15:25:45 – 15:27:40 – Assioma avg: 301.97, kickr bike avg: 309.27, if we say that the Assiomas are 1% under then the actual power is 304.99 (301.97*1.01) which means the kickr bike is 4.28w over (309.27 – 304.99) which is 1.4% over, not within the 1% specified.
I contacted Wahoo and they deny that there’s any problem saying that according to their records the Kickr bike was calibrated correctly at the factory. They go on to say that many factors can affect these numbers and that I should expect a variance of up to 10% (!) when doing this comparison.
@DCR – what would you say? Would you be happy to endorse the Kickr bike’s 1% accuracy claims based on this data?
Here’s wahoo’s response:
“Using your account and the serial number of your KICKR Bike, I pulled the calibration data and this indicates that your unit is correctly calibrated with no issues.
When comparing the KICKR Bike power accuracy to that of a 3rd party power meter or even another trainer, it is important to remember that a combination of factors will impact power reported at the crank versus the KICKR Bike. For example, the chain can cause an additional 5% difference in reported power at the rear hub versus power reported at the crank. This is also prevalent on the KICKR Bike without a bike chain as such but other means of transfer from the pedals to the rear hub to allow it to rotate. Other factors that could affect this include:
Set up of the 3rd party power meter
Condition of the bearings in the pedals
Installation of the 3rd party power meter
calibration of the 3rd party power meter
Firmware of the 3rd party power meter
drive-train condition
Bottom bracket condition
Gearing used when testing
Temp of drive train/KICKR Bike when testing
Ultimately, due to the large number of factors that can impact the power reported at the crank versus the rear wheel, you can see large power differences (with both the KICKR Bike and power meter properly reporting power). When we look at the accuracy ratings of power meters and smart trainers, the +/-1% does not necessarily mean that it will fall within 1% of all other power meters.
All factors that can be considered will impact power reported by the KICKR Bike versus power reported at the crank (by the 3rd party power meter). Ultimately, due to the large number of factors that can impact the power reported, you can see large power differences (with both PM and KICKR Bike reporting accuracy within specs). Please note that, as well as the factors above that can affect power readings, we also need to take into account the accuracy rating of each power meter (and the KICKR Bike). Taking into account the accuracy rating of the Assioma power meter pedals you have as well as that of the KICKR Bike, this could yield a 2% difference (without including the external factors outlined above). When the factors above are included, can yield a difference of over 10% between a pedal-based 3rd party PM and the KICKR Bike.
When looking at the intervals in teh file you provided the KICKR Biek and PM track very close, however, it is evident that there are some dropouts on your Assioma pedals. This causes there to be a recording of zero watts which in turn will lower average readings for your pedals”
I am considering on buying an unit from the nect bach wich is expected to be ready in June however I am not entirely sold on the matter. There are a few things that keeps me thinking about it. I am a tall rider (191cms) but not a heavy one, though the small play that the mobile parts have makes me think about possible cracks and parts breaking away.
Also the design itself doesn’t look very stable how about it?? And other thing is the thighs hitting the frame.
Waiting for your experience. Thank you all
No thigh rubbing here. I have skinny legs though. Part of the thigh rubbing will be based on how you set up the bike… given all the points of adjustment, you should be able to make it work unless you have huge thighs ( I am 185 cm tall).
I have no creaks. Stability is interesting. You can’t force it to tip over but it rocks pretty hard on sprints. That movement can be a welcome thing when you are in a saddle for 2 hours or more.
Pay attention to what everyone else has mentioned. It’s first gen. I have some grinding feelings at times. It’s slight and passes and doesn’t affect numbers. I live with it. Others have creaking, etc. But again , it is first gen. I love it. Other than lack of broadcasting numbers….
Phellan said, “I am considering on buying a unit from the next batch which is expected to be ready in June.” (snip)
Where did you hear that the next batch will be available in June? Is that June 1st or…? Thanks!
Can someone please tell me what the lowest possible standover height is?
Thanks.
It’s about 30.25″.
I’ve been designing this sort of a bike for years in my mind during long pain cave rides. I want something like this just so I can dial in my optimal fitting for a custom bike some day.
Not at this price though! Also I’d prefer if I could connect it to my existing KICKR and I need the ability to customize crank length and offset.
Back to my drawing board…
Hi – well, the Schwinn IC4 is not as feature-rich as the Kickr bike, but the IC4 is proving to be one of the most popular connected indoor bikes. Great price point, adjustable for the whole family, compatible with most apps*, virtually silent.
DC Rainmaker – any chance you could review the IC4, and as part of the review process work with Zwift, Schwinn & Peloton to iron out the two significant kinks?
1) Zwift reports power from the IC4, but it is inconsistent from bike to bike, and generally appears off by some “scaling factor”, making it unusable for group events & racing. Nobody wants inflated power! Could you dig into this and perhaps help put some pressure on Zwift & Schwinn to find a repeatable and reasonably accurate calibration method?
Example of one comparison between Assioma pedals and power reported on Zwift using the IC4: link to dataguy.me
Side comment: ideally, the calibration would result in all the resistance levels on the IC4 being used, 0-100. As it stands today, Schwinn’s service manual depicts the calibration process in a manner where the rubber brake starts hitting the flywheel in the low 60’s. Anything above this is, well, not usable.
2) Not so much a technical issue as just an FAQ type comment. Once the calibration is sorted, it would be great to have a definitive mapping between Peloton levels and Schwinn IC4 resistance levels
Thanks!
It’s plausible I could reach out to Schwinn to get a loaner IC4 down the road. Right now I’m working through the last bits of the Peloton bike (which I bought).
Part of the challenge on these bikes without direct force power measurement is how exactly they do power measurement, which typically is more about speed measurement in a Peloton-style bike.
Add me to the list of beta users with issues. The issues with the Kickr 2018 should have given me pause. First ride on the bike, had some pretty serious metal on metal grinding noises with associated vibrations and stuttering.Wife even commented about how she thought it was supposed to be quieter than the Kickr 2018. It’s not – it’s louder than the units with the knocking issues.
So far, support response has been a bit slow but looks like it may get headed in the right direction. Really takes the excitement out of the purchase. Have a feeling it will ultimately be returned. Buyer beware… Outside of it being unrideable, it seems really awesome!
Curious… have you tried more than one ride? How long was the ride?
I vaguely remember the first ride (6 months ago) being a little weird but things settled in. I don’t recall it being anything as bad as you are describing though.
Even 6 months in, I can sometimes feel ever so slightly some grinding. It seems very random and doesn’t seem to affect the numbers. I can never HEAR grinding though.
Vibrations and stuttering only occur for me when I first start to pedal in a ride. The bike has to essentially spin up the first time to determine it’s gearing, etc. It takes two seconds at the start of a ride only.
It’s not an absolutely quiet bike. The metallic resonance you get around 62 rpm and in random higher rpm’s never really go away. Some report it getting worse, I find that mine has either gotten better or stayed the same.
I have over 3,000 miles on it so far… it’s not perfect, but it’s light years ahead of alternatives. I just hope longevity is there… 3,500 for something that lasts for a few years or better under heavy use is acceptable.
Yes, tried a few rides including one that was ultimately a very painful 3 hours. Loud noises, grinding, and stuttering even towards the end of hour 3. Noises can be heard outside of the house (certainly not something someone in a different room could stay asleep through) so not something that I think I am overreacting to with the expectation of it being “silent”. Luckily, solid Wahoo support is shipping out a new unit under warranty.
Yikes. That is definitely not normal. Glad to hear you are getting a new one!
One follow-up on the bike that I would like to make (another owner correct me if my info is wrong)…
There is still no broadcasting of power/etc. I emailed Wahoo about it as I use a Fenix 6 and Fenix 5 plus regularly and can’t pull power/speed/cadence. It’s super frustrating for those who like to use training load/vo2 max/etc from the watch.
Wahoo gave me a horrific response, essentially blaming the watch…
“Thanks for writing in. We do not necessarily have any control whether or not our smart trainers, like the KICKR BIKE, are compatible with the Garmin Fitness watches. The fact is that most fitness watches do not do very well with ANT+ FEC controlled smart trainers. Cycling computers like Wahoo head units and the Garmin Edge series are already programmed to interact with smart trainers. Fitness watches are really just not designed for this functionality. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. ”
I’m no expert on any of this stuff, but this sounds wrong. My understanding is that even Garmin head units can’t currently get the data b/c Wahoo’s Kickr Bike is not broadcasting the data. I sent a response saying as such but I’m a novice to it all. It would just be nice after 6 months or longer to have simple broadcasting. It seems as though they were aware of it and were stating they were intending to include it in a firmware update… guess that isn’t the case.
Hi RSTL13,
I’ve got about 110 hours on my KICKR bike and I have tried a lot of combinations and permutations with different devices and signal types – here is my experience:
I use zwift 100% of the time on a PC in two basic scenarios:
1) Xert controlled workouts from my ipad using the xert player app. Ride in Zwift on PC. Connect power/trainer control/cadence via bluetooth on ipad to allow xert to control resistance. Connect power/cadence via bluetooth in zwift and LEAVE TRAINER CONTROL BLANK in zwift.
2) Zwift controlled free ride/group ride/race/workout. Connect power/trainer control/cadence via bluetooth Zwift on PC. I find the bluetooth connection far superior to the ANT/dongle in terms of stability and latency.
A third scenario is also possible using the Garmin 1030. Side note though: If you use Xert it sort of negates the need for the Garmin metrics so i don’t use 1030 for indoor rides (only for outdoor rides to record the activity and shoot back to Xert for analysis). But if you are looking for the training load/vo2Max metrics from Garmin then you can try this one – it does work:
3a) Connect KICKR Bike to 1030 via Indoor Trainer mode using Bluetooth. Ride in Zwift on PC using ANT dongle. Connect power/cadence/trainer control via ANT+ FEC on PC using ANT dongle.
3b) Side note, it is also possible (I have tried this) to connect the Xert app on ipad as described in scenario 1 to control a workout from Xert on the ipad and track it on garmin and ride in zwift – if a person really wanted to do that it IS possible.
As to your question about the Garmin watch. I have a Garmin 6 and I CAN NOT connect to my KICKR bike even just to read power. I haven’t really needed that but I can confirm mine also doesn’t work. If you really want the Garmin metrics I think you may have to get a head unit and then try scenario 3a.
All of this sounds complicated but once you get in the routine/habit its pretty easy to make sure things are connected correctly. Just don’t let Zwift and Xert control at the same time – that makes for an interesting ride haha.
I absolutely love my KICKR Bike and luckily mine doesn’t make any weird noises or shake and still looks and feels the same as hour 0 – so i’m hopeful about the units longevity.
Hopefully this helps someone out there. Good luck.
And there my preordered bike will be canceled. I also have the fenix 6 and use a kickr second generation with Zwift, work super . I don’t use that kind of money for a big step back.
Hey AG,
I have a very similar setup as you, but have a very annoying side effect – sporadic but constant 3 sec power drops read by my garmin 830. Here is my setup:
config A – Xert workouts
xert on my phone, controlling the BIKE with BT
zwift on a laptop, reading power from Ant+ FE-C, but “unpair’ed” in the power control box
garmin 830 connected to the BIKE, also with ANT + FE-C as a trainer
Config B – Zwift free riding
zwift on a laptop, reading power from Ant+ FE-C and the power control
garmin 830 connected to the BIKE, also with ANT + FE-C as a trainer
In both configs, I get these 3 second power dropouts, but speed/cadence keep on rolling, no drop. While the garmin and Zwift/Xert never fight for control, I wonder if these power drops are a result of some similar conflict.
Does your garmin data look good? Attached is an image showing a recent ride. The power plot in yellow shows all of these stupid drops and the table shows a couple as well. Also disconcerting – what is the sampling or broadcast rate of the power data? The only time I do not get the EXACT same power number 2 seconds in a row is when it happens to land on a dropout!
I sent a support request to Wahoo, also requesting ANT+ broadcast.
(BTW, a little over 100 hours and it creaks a bit. Sounds like a bottom bracket/pedal spindle issue.)
Dan,
The day that I made that post (22 May) I had tested that configuration with the Garmin 1030 and ANT+FE-C to make sure it actually worked before I posted that. I pulled the data from that activity just now and sure enough there are several 3 second drop outs in the power but speed/cadence have no dropouts just as you mention. I hadn’t looked very closely at that data since its not my normal configuration and hadn’t noticed that. Glad you brought that up!
In your config B I think I would try and use Bluetooth for power/cadence/control on the laptop. I’m looking very closely at a bunch of my recent activity data and there are few oddities with power dropouts here and there but its pretty consistent otherwise.
I haven’t done any detailed fit file analysis between the ANT data and BT data for the same activity (like the DCR analyzer tool) but from a purely anecdotal standpoint when watching both power readings side-by-side, the BT seems way more responsive in relation to the input I was applying to the pedals whereas the ANT would lag and always be behind. Again purely anecdotal.
Interesting!
In trying to explain away the 3 second drops, I was also suspecting some sort of interference issue. It wouldn’t explain why the other plots (speed/cadence) remained good.
I will try your tweak today of my config B and see how it goes.
Also, I guess I use another config:
Config C – zwift races
xert on my phone, reading from the BIKE with BT (So I can watch that pink bar disappear, letting me know I am about to get shelled off of the group I have no business being with.)
zwift on a laptop, reading power and controlling the BIKE from Ant+ FE-C
garmin 830 connected to the BIKE, also with ANT + FE-C as a trainer
This results in the same behavior – everything rides smoothly, no fights, but I get 3 second drops.
Even if your tweak to my config B works today, I’ll still need a fix for A and C. Either Wahoo enables ANT+ power/cadence broadcasting OR I’ll resume swapping my P1 pedals back and forth from the road bike to the KICKR bike and use that on the Garmin.
AG – I tried that tweak this morning:
Zwift on the computer, controlling the bike via BT
garmin connected to the bike via ANT+ FE-C (but otherwise, not sending it any commands…probably?)
It was just a zwift freeride. Everything was fine during the ride and nothing fought.
The Garmin came out the same: a bunch of 3 second power drops.
Perhaps another permutation is to run the bike from zwift with Ant+ FE-C, then connect the garmin to it as a BT power meter. That should work, but I am not left with any way to run an xert smart workout.
I also notices lots of power drop outs when every I try and pair my bike with either and Edge 530 or Edge 1030. I even get them if i control the Kickr bike in ERG mode via the Edge.
Yikes, so it drops out even when you are not connected to anything else?
Hello,
I’ve set up my new Kickr Bike today. I’ve paired my iPad with the Wahoo app + Swift app and the bike. Furthermore I’ve installed the Garmin connect app and paired my Garmin 935xt.
-> But I don’t know how to pair my Garmin 935xt with the Wahoo app and Swift app! Both apps find neither external bluetooth nor ANT+ sensors.
On my 935xt I press the ‘up’ button long and then ‘settings’ > ‘sensors’ > ‘Kickr bike #xyz’ > ‘connect’ with the result: can’t connect/error. So it is recognized, but … ?
I want to do the following:
– training using the Wahoo app (see program example below)
– racing using the Swift app
– recording everything in Garmin connect (time, Watt, cadence, heart rate…)
The Garmin 935xt shall transmit my heart rate to both apps.
I want to program trainings in the Wahoo app (e.g. 180W/90rpm warm-up 10:00min followed by 4×5:00min 340W/80rpm intervals with 4×4:00min 200W/90rpm in between and so on…) AND the Garmin 935xt shall record this ‘indoor bike’ training (in Garmin connect) receiving the Watt/cadence data via ANT+ (?) from the bike plus my heart rate.
I really can’t understand why a 3500€ bike doesn’t have a detailed user manual for such common questions. I emailed this to Wahoo support and am waiting for their reply. Please help me!
Regards,
Andy
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to.
Wahoo (still) doesn’t support transmission of clean ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart power signals from the KICKR bike. It only supports ANT+ FE-C trainer control, or Bluetooth Smart FTMS trainer control. And those aren’t supported on any watches.
Fwiw – I detail this a bit here: link to dcrainmaker.com
You can do all of that EXCEPT record on your watch. Just use BT to connect to either Zwift or Wahoo. You can easily build workouts in Zwift, so why even bother with the Wahoo app? That way, you get points in Zwift while doing your workouts. You can then sync that zwift file over to Garmin connect.
But yes, it is a huge annoyance that wahoo still hasn’t added ant+ broadcasting to the bike.
thanks a lot! Today I bought a Polar OH1 heart rate wrist band which works fine.
Wahoo did a firmware update yesterday. It fixed ….. wait for it…. MDU failures. I don’t even know what those are. But apparently they are more important than simple broadcasting of data. at this point, with so many people clamoring for it, I am starting to wonder if the bike can even do it EVER. Disappointing indeed.
Main Display Unit
Awesome looks like my fenix 6s picks up the kickr bike now with firmware 1.16
Hello again,
I assembled the bike according to the operating manual. It stands on even flat floor. The screws of the bottom stand are adjusted and tightened.
The main axle at the bottom of the pivotal point has a 2-3mm horizontal tolerance (although the screws of the axle are tightened). The result is a terrible horizontal left/right shake during a ride. Please see the attached videos which demonstrate the shake even with two fingers. This is an unacceptable lack of quality. Therefore I asked Wahoo for a replacement bike which passed a quality control.
Has anybody experienced a similar problem?
Regards
Andreas
How can I upload videos?
I don’t have a way to upload videos here. But you can upload an unlisted video to YouTube if you want and then post the link here. An unlisted video isn’t public unless you have the specific URL.
Hi Andreas, did you manage to resolve this issue? I seem to have this too, whereby if I move the bike with a couple of fingers of force it creaks like the horizontal tolerance in the bottom of the base is not tight enough. Interestingly, applying a bit of weight to the bike the creaking stops. This means that it does not do it whilst riding, other than on very hard efforts or when I’m out of the saddle on a steep ascent. I’d be interested to know if this is a standard feature on all production models. If anyone can confirm that would be appreciated. Many thanks, Jamie
Hi again
just want to finish this… finally I returned the bike (had to disassemble it into 2 packages though) and received a full refund including my initial shipping costs (and free return shipping). Thus I’m satisfied. But I have to warn everybody out there that this may happen again after some time using the bike, e.g. training hard. One simple central joint with small ball bearings is a bad mechanical stabilization. Wahoo should have opted for a huge joint with huge ball bearings or even for a front stand (some kind of stabilization which looks like a mountain bike fork with shock absorbers under the handle bar).
Now I bought the Stages bike and – after some issues with the gear shift cable direction – it is exactly what I need: 100% rock solid! OK: the gear shifting is delayed compared to Wahoo and doesn’t move up or down – but this is just ‘nice to have’
Hi Ray
I am thinking of buying a KIKR bike and wondered if there was any news of a next version coming out for winter 2020/21 ? I’d hate to buy one right now and a new version come out just a couple of months down the line. Any thoughts not that ?
Thanks
Jon
I think there’s approximately a 0% chance of that happening.
They’re still trying to get through US backorders, let alone Europe and other places. And they still haven’t shown off any of the triathlon/TT accessories or made other promise firmware updates like broadcasting power.
Which doesn’t mean anything is wrong per se, but just to point out that I don’t anticipate any KICKR Bike V2 anytime soon.
First up. Ray great site and thanks for all the brilliant reviews – really helped me decide on which smart bike to plump for.
I’m poised to pull the trigger on the Wahoo bike (its back in stock to order on the Wahoo UK site)… but are Wahoo still planning to update the software to transmit power by ANT+ and Bluetooth? Or has that plan been quietly dropped?
It is disconcerting this was promised late last year and still hasn’t been rolled out, even allowing for Covid. It is now the one thing that’s holding me back from pulling the trigger.
It does seem mad this isn’t a feature of £3k bike in 2020 when my V1 kickr snap from 2015 does do it.
I was very close to ordering a Kickr Bike, but this could be a deal breaker. Ray, do you know if ANT+ is still coming in the near future?
I haven’t heard of anything there. I can poke though.
That would be awesome, because I record all my rides with a Garmin and Connect. The alternative is the Stages Bike, so it won’t be the end of my Zwift world. But after a test ride I would really miss the shifting experience with the shifters/bump and the climb.
Thanks for looping back. Any update would be really helpful. Cheers.
I just bought a kickr bike and it will not connect with my Garmin Fenix 6 watch. I emailed Wahoo tech support and this was the response:
We have not seen reports of Garmin Fenix not connecting and should pair via ANT+ like any other power meter. For the specifics of the pairing process please reach out to Garmin.
So it seems like they are still not acknowledging this as an issue. The same watch paired without issue to the kickr 2018.
On the other hand zwift syncs with Garmin connect so it’s certainly not a deal breaker for me
The problem is that the upload from Zwift to Garmin doesn’t include the training status information (load, rest, vo2max etc). I use Connect to keep track of my general training and progress. I think it is fun and gives me some insight in my cycling. I built up information for 1,5 years and I want to keep using it when I buy a smart bike with this kind of price.
It sounds like the Wahoo person who answered you is not familiar enough with their own product or they assume too much about your watch.
1) fenix 6 does not have Ant+ FE-C trainer control
2) kickr bike can ONLY broadcast power via Ant+ through FE-C trainer control
3) if kickr bike was like “any other power meter” or even their other trainers, there would be no problem, since it would transmit power data over normal Ant+
All they need to do it fix #3 and get a lot of happy customers. However, due to covid, they have no problem selling anything they make, even with missing features.
Good to know I’m far from alone in wanting this feature, hopefully wahoo will realise they could make lots of customers and potential ones happier by applying this update.
Am I right in thinking the expensive solution until wahoo update the kickr bike to send regular power by ant+ or BT is to put some power meter pedals on the kickr bike?
I’m thinking use Zwift to connect to kickr bike by FE-C trainer control.
Use pedals to send power date to garmin device.
HR can be sent to both zwift and garmin simultaneously from dual belt
Then you would have training load information in garmin (if I’m right in thinking garmin device just needs power and HR data to calculate load?) but the no issues with two devices (zwift and garmin) fighting to control the kickr bike.
Obviously the garmin file would have no distance or speed but that doesn’t really matter if you send your zwift files through to say strava to log mileage.
Is this a possible work around?
That’s the solution I’ve been using since January: Vector 3 pedals send power data to Garmin head unit and KICKR Bike sends ANT+ FEC to Zwift. There are no contention issues.
The only issue is that the power from the KICKR Bike and the Vector 3 pedals do not match (KICKR Bike is 3 – 5% higher than Garmin Vector 3), although you could have Zwift use the power from the Vector 3 pedals and also control the KICKR Bike via the FEC connection.
I merge the data from the Garmin and Zwift after the ride using FIT File Repair Tool (which has a tool specifically to do this) so I can upload a file with the composite data to Training Peaks and Today’s Plan. You can find it at https://www.fitfilerepairtool.info
I could use that solution with the pedals from my road bikes, but that would negate one of the reasons for a smart bike: ready to jump on without any hassle. Temporarily it would be fine, so I hope Ray can bring some good short or longer term news :)
Okey doke. Got some answers back o ANT+ power transmission.
In short, it’s coming soon in a near-term firmware update. Likely August or September. There’s a few more validation things they’re finalizing.
That said, they did note that apparently the KICKR Bike broadcasts clean BLE power today already (it didn’t before), in addition to Bluetooth FTMS. I haven’t validated that – so maybe someone else can. However, if that’s the case, then basically any Garmin in the last 2-3 years supports BLE power devices. And certainly, and device that creates training load supports them.
So that would work in the meantime.
I’ll try using BLE to my Garmin later today and post what I get.
Thanks Ray, sounds good! Ordered the bike straight away. Now the waiting game starts :)
I can get my Fenix 6 to recognize and “connect” to the bike via BLE if I select it as a power sensor. But in an activity it never actually “connected” for purposes of getting any data. I am not techy so not sure how to explain it better….
Excellent and thank you for asking for us. The support was very “this isnt our problem” when I talked to them.
Any idea _how_ that would work in the meantime?
Present setup is:
apple tv 4k, kickr bike, fenix 6x and a polar oh1+. The bike power to the fenix is the problem. (had a neo2 instead of the bike earlier and that worked fine as expected)
Also 3 quick questions to you DCR:
1) Can you describe the shifting feeling you had? Because what I get(when shifting up) is that it goes from present gear to 1-2 seconds heavier than expected and then dials down to where it’s supposed to be. Doesn’t feel at all like what I’ve read about the realistic feel to it.
2) Did you ever find a cure for the resonance noise at certain watt/cadance combinations?
3) Compared to my neo2, where I _never_ saw speed & cadance drop-outs in the data, I see this from time to time with the kickr bike – did you experience any of that? (last 1,5h ride had like 3 of them, just for a second)
1) I used to get that shifting feel for the slightest moment at times, but it was either remedied in a firmware update or I got used to it. I would say it’s not that far off from reality where when you shift, you lose that second of power so the next gear can take a second to wind up again.
2) the resonance for me never got worse, and if anything, seemed to settle down some over time.
3) I’ve never had a drop out, and I’ve been using it heavily since December. The delay to zwift on ANT+ is a touch longer than I would like, but it’s manageable.
1) Feeling feels right to me, and especially the slight bit of power loss in between shifts. That’s spot on, just like real-life (at least, mine was).
2) Resonance stayed the same.
3) No drop-outs.
I’m not getting a power-loss, I get a powerspike. The resistance goes from say 100% at present gear, then jumps to like 120% and then falls back to expected 105% (numbers out of my ass). The spike last for 1-2 seconds and doesn’t feel right at all.
Guess I’ll talk with wahoo about it. Most people seem to really like the shifting and Im having a hard time figuring out if it’s working as intended.
I’ve noticed a similar feeling when upshifting to a higher gear. It seems like the power at a given cadence spikes way up by 50-100 Watts for about 2-3 secs then settles down to about 20-30
watts higher than the prior gear at the same cadence, which is what I would expect. The transient spike seems unatural but easy enough to get used to. Downshifting seems about right.
When I am doing a structured workout in zwift, the same transient spike does not seem to happen with programmed increases in the power on erg mode. That seems to happen smoothly so I suspect the transient peak in power/resistance with manual upshifting is just a firmware thing.
Another thing: I have been using a garmin 1030 head unit to connect to the kickr bike simultaneously with zwift connected via a PC/bluetooth and it seems to show accurate power data and gives the garmin training parameters. I’m not sure what protocol is talking to the garmin head unit but it seems to work fine.
If you look at the power data from a ride, is it good?
Zwift can connect to the bike and control everything at the same time as the Garmin is connected to it as a fitness bike. Usually that may cause issues since the two will fight each other. But, if the Garmin is not sending any commands it will work.
However, a lot of people have noticed that the ride will go fine, but the data collected by the Garmin will have numerous 3-second gaps. I wonder if these gaps correspond to whenever Zwift sends a signal to the bike to change resistance (like a gradient change or new phase of a workout).
Actually when I look at the power data you are correct there are multiple brief dropouts.
Just looping back on this.
Now have my kickr bike. Its a huge step up from my old v1 kickr snap. But i still can’t get my garmin to record power.
Admittedly only tried on my gamin 935. It recognises the kickr bike as a power source but it just won’t connect. Not sure if its recognising the BT power or if they have updated it to broadcast a clean ANT+ power yet? I’m guessing its the BT power. Either way my 935 just wont play ball and connect. Might try with my garmin 530 next ride.
Other issues i’m getting – bit of slip in the handlebar stem, but mine seems to have been fixed just by tightening the quick release.
I also seem to get a power spike when changing up that seems a bit unnatural. Say i’m spinning along at 90 cadence, change up 1 gear and then it feels tougher than expected for a second or two before settling back down.
Final issue is despite generally being impressed by how quiet it is, I definitely get an electric like resonance around 80rpm.
Ever got any answers from wahoo about this? I haven’t. Get dropouts on my fenix6 (as smart trainer and power sensor) and on my apple-tv (though this is harder to notice but it happens just as often there)
I wrote to wahoo regarding the 3 second power drops I’ve mentioned on here before.
They blame Garmin, since the speed data came through intact.
They did not reply to my request to enable ant+ power broadcast, to match practically every other power trainer (including their own). That is very disappointing.
Hi Ray,
Thanks for the review. Just received my new KICKR bike. After tilting and adding legs as per assemble instructions there was a piece that was lying on the ground on the right side (drive side) of the bike. Must have not been attached properly and fell out when bike was tilted to that side. I am afraid to finish assembly or use the bike until I can explain what happened here. I wish I could attach a photo for you to see – heavy black metal cylinder about 20mm high-18mm in diameter-with a 9mm hole. Have you seen anything like this? Cannot get an answer from Wahoo. Also, the torque for the leg screws of 24-28 N-m for the leg bolts is crazy; the bolt 5mm hex hole just became round at that torque!
Thank you.
Howard
I looked at my bike and could not see any pieces like that or any gaps that it would fall out of. The only round hole about that size is under the seat post, looking up…but there was nothing like that up there that I could see.
Agree, I don’t see/know of anything either that matches that.
Typically I see pieces like that used as spacers in packaging, often where a screw/bolt goes through it, and then it keeps two pieces apart for various reasons. But I don’t remember seeing it anywhere, albeit, my bike arrived like it had a drunk night at the bar, a bit disheveled after customs made a mess of it. So for all I know, they could have that piece sitting on a trophy shelf somewhere.
Dan F,
Thank you. I will go ahead and finish putting it together and go for a ride.
DC Rainmaker,
Thank you.
Got to wonder if Wahoo will introduce an updated Kickr this fall that is based on the Wahoo bike technology. They updated the original Kickr in early fall 2016, 2017 and 2018. Thus, the product cycle seems right.
Ray- could I drill & tap 155mm crank holes on this KICKR bike? Is there room under the 172.5mm or 175mm holes?
That’s what my tri bike is set up with.
Steve
Honestly, that’s way out of my wheelhouse. That said, I suspect the issue you’d have is that the material gets substantially thinner in those spots.
I took a closer look at your photos, Ray, and I see what you mean about the cranks getting thinner- there’s a triangular impression that would get in the way of custom pedal threads.
Thank you for posting such great shots! I couldn’t see that much detail in stock photos.
I bought a Kickr Bike and also have resonance issue like DC experienced in the review.
Same spots around 64 and 80 rpm
I understand that wahoo told DC it’s normal, but as some people don’t experience it at all, I’m not sure it is..
Should I open a case at Wahoo, and if so, should I keep the big box and all packaging stuffs in case I have to return it?
Is there a “trick” to setting up shifting? Maybe I missed something in the comments, but I cannot get shifting to switch from Shimano Di2 to SRAM. It is currently working OK setup as Shimano Di2 50/34 chainrings & 11-34 cassette (11 cogs). I tried to switch to SRAM eTap 43/30 chainrings & 12 cog cassette 10-36 & it would not let me set cogs 1-4 as 10, 11, 12, 13 but otherwise the SRAM setup was selected (checked & in bold). But the real problem is it never changed to SRAM 12. The only way I know is the LED never goes to 12 when trying to get to the 12th cog & shift levels are not SRAM eTap like, i.e. they still act like Di2. I have turned BLE off & on, bike off & on, & no other app is connected. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong or not doing? Thank you.
Does anyone else have issues with tightening the handlebar stack using the quick release?
My handlebar stack is loose and can move up and down regardless of how tightly the quick release is closed.
My handlebar stack adjustment is essentially useless.
I am glad someone posted about this. I have the same issue. If I am doing big climbs and out of the saddle, my handlebars will eventually start falling down. This drives me crazy because my knees eventually hit the bars. I am trying to think of a way to fix it. I think the only way to do that is with a spacer of some kind. It’s like there is not enough grip/friction to lock it down.
Just checking…you are tightening the nut opposite of the lever to pre-load the quick release, right?
If it feels tight, but still slips, try hairspray. Spray it on the post, let it dry a second and reinstall. If that doesn’t work, put on some grip paste and try again. It is basically grit in a gel. Finish line makes fiber grip. Other similar products are marketed for alloy components.
If it is very loose, make a shim out of a strip of aluminum can to take up the gap and serve as a crush washer.
Yea the nut/quick release is tight but it still continues to not maintain the height that I want it set to. I might give those suggestions a try. I am just super tired of this issue.
My handlebar quick release axle has now snapped off at the lever end…..GG. I will be following up with Wahoo on this entire issue. I really hope i can get a replacement quick release.
The nut on my handlebar quick release was tight. The handlebar post and the seat post both come with some sort of grip paste out of the box (had it for 1 week), so i didn’t think it would need it.
It should be noted that the seat post and the handle bar post both use the same quick release. While the seat post can be secured tightly, the handlebar is always loose. There may be an issue with the handlebar clamp design.
I’ve exactly the same problem which has resulted in the the quick release fitting snapping after less than 3 weeks after we took delivery of the bike.
I tried replacing the snapped fitting with a much more substantial bolt and locknut, tightening that up with a a socket and wrench, but even with this I have managed to snap two bolts clean in half. It just does not seem possible to provide enough force to the fitting to stop the handlebars moving down during a workout and smells like a design flaw to me. This also means that I’m certain that even if I get a new QL it’ll eventually snap in the same way.
Needless to say I’m also onto Wahoo about this – lets see just how good their support is.
This is a problem with the bike that I hope they fix in a later version. I called in about it and it sounds like a common problem. They sent me a new QR. They even said there is a sweet spot where if you tighten it to much that this problem appears. There’s no way to fix it unless you replace the QR.
I fixed this myself with a way more permanent fix. My fix was to use handlebar spacers/risers :) it was as easy as that. This problem does not happen with the seat post. No idea why, only with the handlebars. My hunch is that the handlebars are not fully round (Whereas the seatpost is round).
Also, if you go the spacer route be VERY careful. The diameter is larger than a traditional handlebar post. Normal road bike spacers will be too small.
Here is how mine look…yup it looks silly. I covered the spacers in electrical tape.
That looks interesting Guilty – it’s kinda unforgivable that we have to fix this properly ourselves.
How did you find spacers that would fit given the stack’s unusual shape?
Wahoo has replied to my ticket and is offering to send a new QR along with the advice to use some grip paste – will see how I get on.
Absolutely! My guess is more and more people will unfortunately have this problem. Take a look at the photo and you can see that it’s not a circle (more of a oval)
I had a normal 28.6 mm spacer and found it would not work. It doesn’t come close. What I did notice is that the outside diameter of the spacer was about the distance that I needed. About 34.6 mm I than cut a metal spacers with a dremel. Made sure there were not any sharp edges either. I than stretched the spacer out evenly until I could fit it on. It ended up working perfectly. The top nearest the handlebars is a tad larger so that it would sit properly because there is a lip.
Hope this helps someone. I can 100% say this fixes the sagging handlebars. I’m just so happy that I don’t have to deal with the issue anymore.
That’s a tidy bit of fabrication you’ve done there – chances are I’ll have to pursue something similar.
I’ve received the new QR and some grip paste and unfortunately using both of these still doesn’t fix the problem.
I can *almost* stop it slipping if I swap out the QR with a nut, washer and bolt assembly and with a socket/wrench/spanner combination tighten them to ungodly levels. I tighten them so much that is actually warps the threading in the bolt, making it impossible to undo without snapping the bolt in half – I’ve gone through 3 bolts like this so far!! And still the handlebars slip – even with the added grip paste.
Wahoo is now sending me a new handlebar assembly.
Just wanted to update this since it’s been about 2 months since I did this “fabrication”. It’s been 100% rock steady with no change in handlebar height.
I really hope that Wahoo sees this and makes a design change. They really need to make it so that you can use a standard road bike spacer. If they did that this would be a moot issue. I get why they didn’t do it (otherwise it covers the measurements).
I also have the same issue and contacted Wahoo support. Let me see what they say
Kickr SB availability?
% grade vs angle?
DC Rainmaker, great review as always.
Do you know whether the % numbers on the bike LED or the Wahoo fitness app represent true grade so when riding any third-party app indicating grade, that that is really like % grade outside (aside from the Zwift issue of cutting them in half)?
In your review you said, “The CLIMB can recreate a +20% incline and a –15% decline.” If the % is not grade what is it? Your video in the review looks subjectively like it inclines much more than it declines (see paragraph below)
The reason I ask is that if I measure the angle with a digital level either on the top tube or the flat place on the right (drive side) of the flywheel these % numbers do not correspond to grade. With my fit the bike inclines to 20% (both LED on bike and Wahoo Fitness app), but the level reads about 180 (17.9degrees on flat and 18.1degrees on top tube) this corresponds to a grade of about 32.5%! Similarly, my bike declines to -15%, but the level indicates an angle of -1degrees to -2degrees (-1.8degrees flat & -1.5degrees top tube) corresponding to a grade % of -1.75% to 3.49%. Much discussion with Wahoo support did not resolve this issue for me and indicates it is behaving appropriately and that the “tilt adjust simulates a grade %”, but then calls it tilt and gradient as opposed to grade.
Hi
great review. Does anybody experience a slight movement from the “center” of the bike? I can actually move the pole in the middle of the bike. Look at the video. Can you?
I haven’t had movement, but am experiencing creaking, and was horrified at the amount of grease on the vertical that fits inside the top tube assembly. Coupled with the incredible amount of grease in the head and seat tubs, and the grease that is coming out of the non-drive side bottom bracket, they must go through a hell of a lot of grease there at the factory in Vietnam. And it’s all the same weird smelling red goop.
WAY TOO MUCH GREASE! Yikes…
Without considering cost differences or the need for extra frames, how much better if at all is the Kickr smart bike experience compared to the Kickr smart trainer with climb? Just a straight up comparison – is it about the same, a little better or a lot better? Thanks!
A Fenix6 update rolled out to me yesterday. Got some smart-trainer options when I started the indoor-cycling and just put it in free-ride(added the bike as sensor first). Worked as wanted/expected when zwifting on the kickr bike (apple-tv 4k) and registered the relevant data on the watch. Finally got my training load registered as usual (usual being how it has worked for many months with my neo2 and fenix).
Thank you Garmin! Solved one of my issues with the bike!
I think I will have to try this as well. My handlebar post gradually slides down to the bottom bar no matter how hard I tighten the QR. I think I will add spacers like you did but it sort of defeats the purpose of easy adjustability for different riders in the house.
Can anyone tell what width the handlebars supplied with the KICKR bike are? Thanks.
Decided to get the Kickr Bike after the issues with my Neo 2T. Wahoo isn’t shipping them currently, they anticipate resuming shipping in October, possibly later.
Are they updating the bike? It would kinda make sense because the Kickr was updated. What say your sources, Ray? Any rumors?
With lockdown, I don’t know if I can stand not having a working trainer for long.
Thanks!!!
Not sure why there would be any gap – but no, definitely don’t expect any new version.
Weird then. The local bike shop I use is stumped. They deal direct with Wahoo. Wahoo’s website is quoting 1 to 2 weeks delivery. I called to order one from the bike shop so they get the deal, and then ended up diverting when they said they had Speedplay pedals. (Zeroes, one pair only) By the time I got there, within like 20 minutes, their rep called, and the LBS guy said ‘Yes, we need three bikes now’, and the conversation, from my side, took on a negative tone.
He said that they told him that, in spite of what the website says, they are not shipping any bikes currently, and expect to resume ‘in October’. I asked when (early, mid, late), he said all their rep would say was ‘in October’ giving me an exasperated shrug. He was shocked. I asked if QBP might be an option, knowing that it would be more expensive (even in they had any), and got the reaction I expected.
So, they don’t know, and you don’t know. I wonder if it’s the ‘quality issue’ I’ve heard about.
Anyway, I’m also waiting to see what happens with my current trainer, and, eventually, what Wahoo does/says.
Thanks, Ray. Cheers… Time will tell.
So dips in production aren’t at all uncommon, especially if/when companies don’t own their own factories (as Wahoo doesn’t). They are uncommon at this time of year, but perhaps Wahoo is using that capacity for KICKR5 or CORE trainers instead. I thought they were different factories, but I haven’t asked recently.
Either way, I wouldn’t actually read too much into it. As noted, it’s pretty normal for short gaps – especial when you consider there’s a 4-5 week shipping period (via boat) built into that. So anything coming in early October is already on the water and made.
Thanks. I’m just a lab rat addicted to endorphins, trying to insure a steady supply…
My wife thinks some time off riding will be good for me. But… ?????♂️
Hmmm…. rumor says that there is an updated version on the way – probably with partially hidden cables, updated engine unit and less noise.
Unfortunately, I can not reveal the source.
IF they do that, they better be offering a free or very cheap path to upgrade for those of us that have identified all of the issues and spending so much time with support/packing up the defective bikes. My replacement bike has started making noise yet again.
Fabulously useful review (like all your reviews!). One question: I run Shimano Ultegra Di2 optimized for climbing. My rear cassette runs to 34A, which is not so common. Does the gearing set up allow me to replicate my rear cassette cog by cog? Does it allow me to program the 34A cog? Thank you!
There are ready made cassettes and the ability to make your own custom ones.
Any update on the ANT+ firmware update for the Kickr bike?
Feeling the same curiosity. They told Ray August/September (initially it was end of last year or early this year), and I still don’t see any update. The Fenix 6 control (and other garmin gadgets) works but causes constant power drop-outs (see the charts) and confuses the trainer when also running things like Zwift. So it’s not ideal unless you are solely using the watch/computer. ANT+ is still greatly needed. I can’t believe a company who has rolled it out with all of their other trainers with no issues is having this much trouble.
Received the update this evening and connected as a power source without a problem. No more dropouts when looking at the ride in Garmin Connect.
What update? From Wahoo? Their firmware update page does not list any new updates since 3 June.
From Wahoo yes. Got a prompt during a warming up for a race :) I’m on firmware version 1.16.0 now so it looks like their update page isn’t up to date…
Have my Kickr Bike since yesterday. I was afraid from Garmin Training Status and the not broadcasting Power thing. First try, connected to Zwift on Windows Laptop with Ant+ Dongle, and in parallel to Edge 1030 via Ant as FE-C Trainer. Recorded session on Garmin as „free ride“ or whatever it is called there in the menu.
Result was perfect and flawless. No power or whatsoever dropouts, neither on Zwift nor on Garmin. Resistance control and Climb function all perfect.
Apart from that, no knocking or grinding or any other abnormal sound, neither from seatpost, nor from cranks or drivewheel, and no cracking from seatpost. Saddle and handlebar all sit firm and tight in their quick releases. – Very happy, seem to have a non-issue version.
What is the logic of production date from serial number? On the Kickr, you could tell year and week from the first figured of serial number. But on the bike, serial number starts with 20-0075, not sure what this means?
Sorry, forgot, wanted to ask a question, does anybody know what is the logic on Garmin FE-C connection while Zwifting, why does it cause issues for some but not for me? Is it related only to Forerunner or Fenix or only smaller Edge models? Is it a question of processor power, so Edge 1030 is able to cope with while others won’t? Any other thoughts? Or is it only Karma?
This is interesting! Could you post a link to your garmin workout so that I can have a look? I stopped connecting my 830 to the kickr bike via FE-C since it was riddled with 3 second drop outs, but there have been a couple updates since then.
I took a 20 minutes ride today to test this further. Can’t upload file at the moment, but I noticed:
– Looking at the Edge while riding, I couldn’t see any power dropout (zeros) in the Watt data field. I looked at actual readings, not 3sec smoothed values.
– Comparing average session Watts, Stravas Zwift file said 181W, vs 185W average power indicated in the Garmin session. Guess this minor difference is from the way Strava/Garmin handle the data in different mathematics. In any case, Garmin was marginally higher.
– Looking in the Power curves in Garmin, indeed there are some power dropouts. 48 in 20 minutes. All micro: as said, didn’t show up on the Watt reading data field as zero during the ride.
All in all, considering that those dropouts are not visible while riding, and don’t seem to affect average Watt thus training effort in the session, guess I can live with it until hopefully Power broadcast will finally come by firmware update.
I too never noticed any dropouts, but I was averaging power every 3 seconds, so I wasn’t too surprised. However, yours could be attributed to the 1030 displaying numbers, but perhaps not recording them…maybe?
In any case, you saw 48 drops in 20 minutes…that sounds fishy, right? Could you export the original FIT file from garmin connect and upload to dropbox, or similar…then share the file on here?
I had my first ride on my kickr bike today. After I habe finished my Zwift ride, the bike died. No power obviously. The power supply is blinking green very weak. If I unplug the power supply from the bike, the light is solid green again.
According to s Zwift forum, this means a complete exchange of the bike.
Hmm. Wahoo just pulled down the shipping estimate for the Kickr Bike. Interesting.
It used to show 5 to 6 weeks. This could be nothing. Hard not to think it’s not good news.
Hmm… I may have to buy another trainer to fill in on my 2T’s return, selling the replacement, and getting the bike. Unexpected, but I’ll manage somehow. I don’t suppose anyone rents trainers? (If they see my history with the 2T, I doubt many would want to)
They have been receiving tons of the 2020 Kickr trainers, but a trickle of the Kickr bikes. I found a site that will track sea container shipments. It’s pretty cool to see where things are coming from, and who they are going to. The Kickr’s are all made at East West Industries, north of Ho Chi Minh City.
So Kickr 2020 trainers should be readily available, and the Wahoo Headwinds as well.
Wahoo received 102 bikes Sunday. Hope springs eternal. I’m under the gun, I have to return my Neo soon. I don’t want to be trainer-less. Zwift Academy is happening. The world must stop so I can ride!
What have I turned into? Good grief…
I am considering buying the Kickr Bike, but have limited space – Wahoo gives the “Footprint Length” as 121cm – but I assume that is to the front of the front leg.
So more space is needed for the handlebars – especially when tilting forward. Can any Kickr Bike-users give me an estimate of what is needed here? (It will depend on the setup of course, but I am 174cm tall, so no extreme reach…)
So looks like about 135cm with the handlebars tilted down, from back edge to that front point (it’s a bit tricky to measure).
That said, I’d probably want no less than 140cm as a slight margin so if you sprint or something you aren’t bashing your head into a wall over the handlebars.
I have 150 cm to the shelf with my TV, so that sounds like it will be possible :)
Thanks for the reply!
Good deal! 150cm will be ‘plenty’ (just…ya know, don’t get too excited on those sprints!).
Oh, and welcome to being a DCR Supporter, thanks for joining!
No problem – with the amount of money i have spend based on your advice over the years, this seemed like a rather small contribution :D
Hi, many thanks for the deep analysis and Infos. I have recently bought the kickr Bike and established a work around to seeing the display with an endoscope camera and an old xperia…. Ray, you may kindly stress at your end directly with wahoo the need for seeing the shifts / gradient at the wahoo app or wahoo elemnt.
Many thanks and congrats for your work.
Cheers, Thomas
That’s amazing! Well done!
I was a former user of Elite Drivo II. I use zwift and ride workouts that will be prepared for me by my personal trainer in training peaks.
I ride workouts in ERG mode and here I have a big problem on wahoo kickr bike.
On the old trainer, I saw in the chart the real performance that I did. On wahoo, I only see a curve that shows the required power that I have to tread. It doesn’t even change when I stop pedaling completely.
Attached picture: left side wahoo, right side drivo
Does anyone have a similar experience? This is a rather binding mistake :-(
Tomas
This is probably the case due to ERG mode power smoothing activated. Have a look here: link to youtube.com
If the suggestion above (disable power smoothing) doesn’t work, keep trying. This bike is absolutely able to work like the picture on the right.
Just to check: the bike does indeed change resistance to match the workout, right?
Also – just a quick observation on the screenshots.
In the one on the left, you’re approx 12 mins into a 15 minute interval (a cool-down interval), so it’s showing you basically flat in that, versus the one on the right is on the 3rd 3×3 interval, so you see how your 1st of 3 intervals is already ‘off the screen’. Which would be the case for the left one.
Now, I get that sometimes it’s just the screenshot you have handy, but any chance you have another screenshot in a shorter interval?
Hi, disable power smoothing is solution.
Thanks!
Any word on when the steering buttons may be supported by Zwift? If it’s likely in the next 6 months, I may get one. Otherwise I may wait for the technology of smart bikes to evolve a little more.
IIRC, Zwift gave Elite an “exclusive” on steering that is set until April 2021. So if true (and if I remembered the right month), you likely won’t see steering from anyone else until then or a bit later.
Has anyone gone down the route of a rocker plate with the kickr bike? It looks like the realplate react will work and potentially a few others. I’ve never used a rocker before – curious if anyone with more experience thinks it would be a good addition with the kickr bike vs normal smart trainers.
Yes, we have seen several users in our Rocker Plate FB group put Kickr Bikes (and others) on rocker plates. I have not ridden any of them, but the feedback has been positive. I won’t post a link to the group (spam) unless you really want access. But a quick search of “Rocker Plate” on FB will find it. Join and you will be auto approved or I will do it shortly.
I think we have see 3 or 4 of the rocker plate makers list compatibility with the Kickr Bike. It is something I expected and see as a good option, for those that want the added comfort and feel of motion for their smart bike.
I made my own rocker. I studied several tutorials on the internet and took something from each one and used it with my rocker. The ride on it is much more interesting, a little closer to the real ride outside. I recommend trying! :-)
Hi Tomas- did you post your design details anywhere? I barely have enough time to ride than researching different builds. Yours looks great, btw!
Welp, now that I’ve got a rocker plate headed my way, I thought I’d bring up another topic for the best ongoing Kickr Bike discussion.
Infinite Gearing. Has anyone come up with a good gearing setup to offer all of the benefits we can eek out of this platform? I’ve got a few profiles to mimic bike setup but have started playing around with “ideal” setups that aren’t beholden to typical physical gearing restraints. I’ve been playing around with this website link to gear-calculator.com which seems to be great for this purpose. In the spirit of this, I’m leaning towards 2x synchro being a better compromise than 3x non-synchro. Does anyone have any great fictional gear setups to handle any scenario?
So yeah, my kickr bike died. On a cycling app (BKOOL if you really need to know) and it lost power. LED lights went off and that was it. The power supply indicated it was still working. I then took that in to verify the voltage and yeah, it was fine.
It took all of about two minutes talking to Wahoo, and they said they would send me another bike.
If it was going to have to be sent to my home they would have required a thousand dollar (U.S.) deposit. But I went through my local bike shop, and it’s supposed to be there this week.
I am waiting to find out exactly what happened to it. Even though I appreciate the prompt response (talked to Wahoo on Friday, it shipped on Monday (I believe) I still would like to know if it was a short, loose connection, etc.
Now, some might say this would sour me on the bike. I would respond to that by saying that it wasn’t what I was hoping I would have to do after only using it for a couple months. But the experience of the bike has been absolutely fantastic. The smooth gear changes, almost limitless (I use the 3-by gear option) gear options and yeah, that whole tilting thing is kind of cool.
It’s not quite as quiet as I was thinking it would be, but that’s what the volume button on the TV is for.
So, all in all I am pleased with how the bike works…when it works. lol And I’m very much looking forward to getting my new one…again.
Steve,
sorry to hear about your bike. I had exactly the same experience with my first bike. My second has now been good for about 8 months. It still makes some weird noises at various revs, but no other issues….so far. Hopefully you’ll be back up and running quickly.
Did they tell you exactly what happened? Not that it really matters, but just curious.
I’ll give them kudos on not even hesitating about replacing the bike. It was a short conversation, followed by an email from me, calling my bike shop and within the hour they sent me a follow up email saying it would be shipped out this week.
So, in the end it’s all good. The weather has been uncharacteristically warm here, so getting some outside time before the cold hits.
Same thing happened to my KICKR bike a couple of days ago! Replacement on the way from Wahoo. They didn’t say anything other than it was a “known issue”, and were very prompt on processing the replacement.
‘Known issue’? Damn… A blown fuse?
Are these ‘new’ bikes? Meaning in the past couple of months?
I had about 600 miles on mine. Was purchased from a bike shop so hard to know if it was fresh off the assembly line, or if it was from an earlier production date.
That’s interesting, because I had 660 miles on mine, according to my strava, before it died. But I do have to say, Wahoo responded well. Problem on Friday, and I picked it up today and already have a Zwift session in the books. So, yeah, not convenient but customer service was great.
The question is “for how long”, I am concerned about the life of this bike after the warranty period.
‘What happened’ was the big question that I never got answers to when I ran a computer consulting company. I think only once did I get any kind of vague idea of what caused a computer failure, and that was for an personal iMac that failed. The genius called me to tell me that it went ‘psycho’ and that as they replaced parts, the system ‘got worse’. They gave me a new in-box iMac and apologized for the system dying.
I wonder how much of these failures are due to a lack of a factory burn-in process. With IC’s, they generally either fail in the first 48/72 hours, or they fail after years. In the ‘old days’, companies ‘burned-in their computers for several days, culling the failures.
I would hope that Wahoo would take care of people that purchased these bikes after their warranty expires. If it’s a fuse, or a potential user replaceable part, they need to make that an option.
There is a major movement in the IT and healthcare industries called ‘Right To Repair’. Manufacturers are deliberately making it impossible to repair products that could be repaired by users or third party companies. This sounds like a rant, and I am very concerned that Right To Repair will die, and we will be locked out of the ability to repair our products.
My experience with the Wahoo Kickr Bike in Australia has been so poor that I won’t ever buy another Wahoo product. Three (soon to be four) other cyclists in my group have bought Wattbikes and one has bought a Tacx bike based on my advice to stay well clear of the Wahoo bike.
To make matters more frustrating, Wahoo’s customer support in Australia is non-existent. Everything takes days longer than it needs to, as responses are received in the middle of the night from someone in the US timezone who seems genuinely unconcerned about the poor experience such an expensive product has given.
I have owned my Kickr Bike for 3 months. It costs $6,000 in Australia!!! The drive unit has failed (which a quick Google search suggests is not uncommon) rendering the bike completely unusable. A week has passed since I contacted Wahoo, hoping for a swift replacement, and I’m yet to even hear from the Australian distributor after going back and forth with the nightly one response received via email.
The failed drive unit renders the bike unusable. When the bike is plugged into the power pack the green light begins to blink on it before it shuts off. As soon as the bike is unplugged the light comes back on.
The day I unpacked my Wahoo bike I found that the screws for the two legs could not be installed (easily without additional know how) because the threads built into the frame of the main unit had been threaded. I needed to rethread them.
For my first 5 or 6 rides the standover height adjustment would just drop randomly, no matter how tightly I fastened the clamp. I ended up solving this by pulling the mechanism apart and readjusting the gearing position to allow it to tighten further.
For the same period the two adjustment levers on the top tube were having the same problem. The setback for the saddle would work its way to the furthest back position each ride and the reach adjustment would work its way back into the frame. I solved both of these by again dismantling the mechanisms and adjusting the gearing so that they could be further tightened.
I have to ride with my bars/stem as low as they go against the top tube, as no amount of adjusting/tightening in the clamp has been able to stop them dropping over time when riding.
The main part of the trainer creaks worse than any other trainer/bike combination I have ever used. No amount of grease fixes this.
The unit emits a substantial creak from the cranks after about an hour of consistent riding. This goes away once the trainer has cooled and returns an hour into the next ride.
The bars and tape feel cheap compared to the Tacx bike and Wattbike.
The stem wasn’t even remotely straight on the adjustment tube when I installed the bike for the first time.
Parts of the bike (around the motor and drive train) appear as if they were marked/scratched in production and simply coloured in with a black marker/paint.
I’m posting this here in hopes that someone relevant sees it, as I would like to discuss it further. Ticket number 1042525.
Interesting review – curious as to if the fan and the computer stand are Wahoo products? Also any examples of great set-ups out there. Would use mine with Apple hardware.
Yup, here’s those reviews:
Wahoo Headwind: link to dcrainmaker.com
Wahoo KICKR Desk: link to dcrainmaker.com
However, recently I’ve been using a 3rd party desk that’s got slightly more features for half the price:
That review: link to dcrainmaker.com
And finally, also recently been using the Lasko fan (for US plugs) and Vacmaster fan (for EU/UK plugs), which is about $60USD & 70-80 Euros roughly. Similar fan power, though no connected smarts. Still, works great.
Lasko: link to amazon.com
Vacmaster: link to amzn.to
The best investment I made was the ~$30 for a remote controlled power strip. I’ve got everything plugged into the strip, and three Vornado fans plugged into the ‘switched’ side of it. It’s the only ‘smart’ feature I need. Well, and a ceiling fan.
I’ve thought of getting the Headwind, but I have dogs, and don’t think the whole sucking fur off the floor would be a good idea, plus the fans I have fit perfectly in my cave desk. And I’d likely need two to replace the ones I already have. Having a fan that reacts to your exercise level sounds interesting, but there are times when it’s hot in the cave, and if the fan was ‘you warming up?’ when I’m roasting already, that feature would prove to be pointless and annoying. *shrug*
Thanks – I have this and the tradewind, is there a way that can be configured to control the buttons on the Bike to control the fan manually?
> But, back to the ‘flat line power’ issue. Was there a ‘fix’ for it? Should there be a fix for it. Do I need to tweak something? It looks odd to see the power being a totally flat line.
You need to disable “ERG mode power smoothing” setting in the Wahoo app which is on by default. Search other comments for directions on how to do that.
Thanks. I found that setting after poking around a little. It’s actually not such a bad setting. It makes me wonder how much of a ride on a trainer is wasted in the squiggles of the power output. Holding me to the grind stone was a little intense…
‘Power Smoothing’ is an interesting feature. I’m actually using it a lot, but have had some difficulty with it: If I stop pedaling for over a minute or so, and start pedaling again, it’s almost like the firmware is fighting me trying to get back to the ERG demand. Once, is took quite a long time to re-establish ERG mode. Then, just as it was kicking in, the power on the bike swung several times high, and low, before it latched again. Weird. (On shorter stops, it just keeps going as if nothing happened)
I got a screen cap of the Zwift profile history from a ride yesterday, and it doesn’t show the wild swings as ERG was kicking back in. Basically I had two interval sets, and 2 minutes of low recovery after (stopped to stretch), and the last one was when the wife got home with provisions.
But it does show some of the fight to re-establish ERG, and I don’t know if it’s a Zwift issue, or a Wahoo issue, or likely both. It’s like the bike was fighting me as I tried to get the power up to where it would re-latch. I changed gears, and hammered the pedals, trying to get it up into the ‘box’ to trigger it, and it would fight me, skating lower again, eventually swinging way over, with *something* eventually latching, and things progressed normally from there.
I do not remember experiencing that with the Neo 2T. Sure, it would swing a bit, but it never seemed to fight getting to the power level to get Zwift to kick it back in. It just worked.
YIKES! It does it (The Smoothed Power Smack Down) on TrainerRoad too, and doesn’t show the massive amount of power it takes to get the system running again. I had to hammer, again, to restart the ERG system, and it clipped the power so I don’t even get credit for pounding those pedals hard.
I’m thinking that either they need to totally remove ‘power smoothing’, or they need to FIX IT!
I’m on the current firmware 1.16.0, so there are plenty of numbers to go to fix it.
I also think that the creaking is in the head tube, and the new popping sound is in either the seat tube, or something in the center tube, or something in the mechanism that does the ‘climb’ function.
I wonder if swabbing the head and seat tubes out, removing all of the grease, and using fiber-grip might work. The LBS said to grease the rear legs, but I figured out that the packing tape they used on the stubs were to provide shims for the joint, and so I doubled up the tape, and had to wiggle the legs on, and seriously doubt that they are causing the squeaking.
And the fasteners they use are so ‘inexpensive’ (cheap) that I’m afraid if over torquing them and striping the hex top, or having them break and need to drill them out. (Thinking that die screws would be a great update, but how good are the threads in the leg stubs. (and elsewhere))
I guess I’m not surprised to see cheap screws used, but for the cost of the bike, I guess I expected slightly better? I wonder how many they have had to replace because of the cheap screws. Ouch…
But, to be honest, I wonder how many of the other brands are that much better. Cheap screws are showing up everywhere. Even airplanes.
Why use “power smoothing” at all? It is completely faked data. I have no idea if it has anything to do with its inability to latch back on in ERG after a pause, but I just can’t think of any benefits.
I was actually liking the smoothed data. I looked at my old trainer, and I usually rode the rides ‘hot’, and put out a lot more power, so I figured that by ‘smoothing’ it, I would get a more consistent workout, and not be killing myself on some rides, and doing the demanded data on others.
So, I think the ‘problem’ isn’t the *concept* of smoothed data, it’s the execution of smoothed data.
The first time it flaked out, it seemed to be trying to avoid getting to the power level to latch ERG mode. The harder I tried, the worse it seemed to get. Why? Death Spiral? Fighting the urge to spiral? Crushing people that dare to ride it?
And speaking of ‘fake data’. Zwift is all trainer, all ‘perfect conditions’, it’s all ‘fake’. There is something to the idea that people riding outside get a better workout. Not that indoor trainer riding is a waste of time, but it’s not a complete replacement for outdoor training either. There aren’t any variables to riding indoors, where outdoors, there are lots of variables. Wind, animals, cars, road crossings, heat, cold, rain, heat, friends, non-friends, dropping water, flats, all of it. So ‘power smoothing’ seems pretty nice. If it worked better, it’s kinda why I wanted to ride a trainer in the first place. To be held to account, to be challenged, to not have the ‘spin bike experience’. But whatever…
And if Wahoo is reading any of this, can you please fix Power Smoothing? Thanks…
Perhaps we are talking about different things…
The power smoothing toggle in the wahoo app shouldn’t have any effect on operation, only the reporting of your data…namely it reports what you should be doing, not what you actually do.
Here is a short bit about it from gp llama: link to youtu.be
Of course, perhaps it is different on the kickr bike than the kickr…I cannot say.
Great review, as always. I purchased the bike two months ago and right out of the box I experienced a loud clanking noise during every pedal stroke. It seemed to only happen during climbs or 300+ watts. I worked with Wahoo tech support to try and resolve the issue through lengthy and detailed troubleshooting attempts. In the end nothing resolved it and they concluded it was defective. They sent boxes to return the item that required me to spend over an hour disassembling the bike in far more pieces than how it arrived. They offered me a heart rate monitor for the trouble. In the end they didn’t send details on how to disassemble and I wasn’t able to remove the frame from the bottom unit. I’m essentially stuck with a 3/4 disassembled bike that will require me to work with their support for another hour and meanwhile out of a bike for at least two weeks until they eventually get this one in return. I’m likely going to proceed with disputing the credit card charge and just moving on from all the hassles.
Please do not make the same mistake as me and purchase such a premium priced product with the risk of getting a defective bike like mine.
Check this document. It details how to strip the bike and put it in the box for return.
Seems easy enough. Putting it in the large box it came from would be a pain…
link to support.wahoofitness.com
Just setup and did my first ride on the bike on Zwift… A couple of thoughts/issues.
1: I used option 2 (pic of bike) of the setup wizard and it was waaaaay off. I’m 5’8″ but had it setup as if I was 6’8″. Basically maxed out to the highest setting, most extreme reach and basically the max of everything.
2: I did a workout in Zwift, half with ERG mode on and second half off. While it worked well to keep me within the target range I was disappointed to learn it didnt follow the terrain once I turned off ERG mode. Coming from the KICKR/CLIMB I quite enjoyed alternating ERG on/off depending on the workout and route.
3: Power was about 5% off from my Vector pedals. My KICKR18 (v4) was always spot on with my pedals. I may chalk this up to the first ride and things getting settled in but hoping I dont have issues going forward. My understanding is there is no need for calibration which was one of the big selling points for me.
I will say I do like the bike/ride itself. I was quite impressed with the KICK18 sound (or lack therefore) but the belt system is something else. Looking forward to this winter indoor season.
I’ve found that KICKR Bike is always 3 – 5% higher than the Vector 3 pedals.
Mine was lower than my pedals. Wont ride again until Wednesday so hopefully I have better experience then.
One thing that is for sure. The Kickr Bike holds my expended power pretty darn close to the demand.
On the Neo 2T, I could flip to the big ring, and 9, or 10 on the cassette (20 or 21) and I could do an entire ride at 15 to as much as 30+ watts over the demand set point. With the Kickr Bike, I get a spike when the ‘gear’ is changed, but the effort drops down to the demand. I guess that’s what I get for riding a machine with ‘virtual gearing’. In ERG mode, it apparently doesn’t care what I ride for ‘gearing’, it’s going to keep me on a pretty tight leash. In the beginning I was surprised by that, but it makes sense. Everything on ‘the bike’ is literally ON THE BIKE. With the Neo, it’s trying to deal with something it can’t easily control. The Kickr Bike can. I’d imagine the direct drive Kickr trainers are capable of being ridden hot.
Oh, and on the ‘hard time to latch ERG mode after a stop’, it seems that the ERG mode will eventually latch by itself. I thought that I had to be ‘in the box’ on the companion app to get ERG mode to reinitialize. *shrug* Learning new things. It does seem to take longer than I’d have thought, but I was perhaps fighting it trying to reinitialize when I was having difficulties earlier. Getting the hang of it. (It does seem to squeak a lot)
Is there any indication that new kickr bike is on the horizon? I would hate to plunk down money for this one only to have a 2.0 come out a few months later.
Mine was hardware version 4, so is it a ‘new bike’? Hard to tell I suppose. What did the previous three versions not do properly that required other versions.
The one thing that I’d be looking for in a new bike is a hard wire connection. I’m so incredibly tired of the BS of the two competing protocols for telemetry.
(rant) I just went through several rides with a total loss of Bluetooth connectivity, One incident that totally trashed me out of a ride. Wahoo’s answer was to go back to using ANT+. I started, originally, with an all ANT+ system. The dropouts and failures were numerous, and very depressing, so I switched to Bluetooth, and enjoyed years of bliss. All, until I got the Wahoo Kickr Bike. I have had full screens of ‘Bluetooth serial failure’ messages popping up 2 a second. I’ve had the ride drop totally. I’ve had ERG mode just totally shutdown while riding Zwift. (TrainerRoad seems to be more tolerant) If there is a new Kickr Bike, it had better have a direct connect. I really wish more trainers had direct connect! I get the cable fear, but I also realize that the two protocols are a hot mess. (/rant)
FURTHER: Perhaps, in this ‘time of COVID’, someone at Wahoo would tip their hand and pre-announce a new product, but I’d still be somewhat surprised, as they have other models to sell that may still be in stock. The problem with someone leaking an upcoming product is that it tends to stall sales of other products from the same, and other, vendors. Plus NDA’s. But, who knows. (I’ve signed a few NDA’s in my life. I’ve promised to give my first born if a leak was traced to me. Pretty tall penalty, on a good day.)
*shrug*
I don’t know any systems that connect ‘directly’; I assume you mean with some form of USB cable? I’ve used Bluetooth with Zwift to a PC flawlessly for a year and ANT+ to dual record to a Garmin since the firmware update in September. it may well not be the Kickr bike that is causing your issue…
p.s. I also notice that iOS14.3 (latest) has a bug that auto connects to the Bike and Headwind and my Wahoo TICKR. I have to switch bluetooth off for them to connect properly on the PC with Zwift, then I can switch it back on and it won’t auto connect..
I would not expect any new bike, from Wahoo or really anyone else, for quite some time.
None of these companies want to interrupt their supply chains and production capacities when they can ship 5-8x more than they can sell of current bikes.
Thanks for the response, much appreciated. I guess that it doesn’t really matter because it is showing as sold out on the Wahoo website and it’s out of stock at REI/Wiggle/Competitive Cyclist, etc.. I should have pulled the trigger sooner!
Yeah, someone was complaining about ‘being stuck with a trainer they didn’t want’. The best response was ‘At least you were able to get one’.
They are flying off the shelves. Back in October, the local bike shop had a Kickr, a Core, and a Snap on display, and now they have nothing. Now we have lockdowns/quarantine, and winter on top of it, so I was lucky to get my bike when I did.
On my issues with connectivity to the Kickr Bike, Zwift, in their latest release, updated the ANT+ stack for macOS, so good news. It was flawless yesterday. Happy days…
Best of luck. I’m in Vancouver, Canada. Ordered my Kickr Bike Jul 31st. Took delivery Nov 25th! Love it but the wait was agony.
I stand corrected. The Serial Error messages started after I got the Kickr Bike, and I assumed they were related. Since packing my bike up and returning it to Wahoo, I haven’t had any of the errors.
Until today.
I flipped on the MBP, and started Zwift, got distracted, and came back to probably thousands of those messages, if not tens of thousands on the screen Multiple layers of layers of messages, and more popping up, 2 a second. I was so horrified to see so many. Yikes… And they just kept coming. I force quit Zwift, and they kept coming. I finally just shutdown it all down. So embarrassed, so horrified, so disappointed.
And all I had paired were the Apple keyboard and an Apple trackpad. Nothing exotic. I even got a screen shot of the squirrel tapping his wand to get me to wake up any Bluetooth devices. Thought it looked funny. The screen was so filled, I couldn’t tell if he was still there. Wow…
Have you tried to use another device for Bluetooth? For instance, turn off bluetooth on your Mac, and then use an iphone and run z-companion for blue tooth connectivity with zwift and see what happens. Or run the Wahoo fitness app on your iphone and see if you have any trouble with connections to the bike over bluetooth.
My suspicion looking at those messages, though, is it has nothing to do with the KICKR Bike.
At the time the error messages started, I had just started using the Bike. I assumed there was a connection. The few times I used a different trainer, I did not experience the messages, and they were rather odd in that for many rides I got no messages, yadda yadda. People that have encountered these messages have probably heard it all before.
Riding on an iPad might be worth the effort. I have an HDMI adapter for the iPad, so I should be able to see the ride on my TV.
I do run the companion app, and I never thought if the companion connected to the MacBook Pro. *Something* is connected to the HRM. I assumed it was the MacBook Pro.
I guess I have a lot to learn about Bluetooth communication…
It’s just amazing how sometimes the messages storm.
You might want to just try running Zwift on your ipad to see if you connect to the KICKR bike if you get the same messages. Or if you want to try it, turn off bluetooth on your MBP and then use the zCompanion to connect through bluetooth to your Bike and again see if you have the same errors.
If not, then it may really be something unique going on with your MBP as opposed to it being a bike issue. I use a windows machine with bluetooth and ANT+ and use zCompanion for bluetooth connections normally. Have not seen that behavior/set of errors.
Basically worth trying to connect to bluetooth with other devices and see if you get a repeat of the errorst to at least isolate if a KICKR/MBP issue or something more specific to the KICKR itself regardless of the receiving platform.
On an Apple fan site, numerous people suggested that wiping and reloading the macOS (Big Sur) would ‘fix’ the issue. I backed up the system, and wiped the drive and all volumes, reinstalled Big Sur, and it seemed to work pretty well, but then I got one message, and my heart sank. *Damn*
The errors seem to only happen in the startup pairing cycle of starting Zwift. Once that part is over, the messages don’t happen, but they have continued, from what I remember.
I have had a message storm start up when trying to get Zwift running. Just cascading huge numbers of messages. And sometimes, just a couple. Most frustrating… I may open a case with Apple and see if they have a good answer. Usually they want a reinstall. Done that…
If it gets any worse, it’ll be hard to actually ride. One thing, so far, I have not received the messages using TrainerRoad.
So I figured I’d try to see what’s going on, after trying to ride twice today, and seeing the messages cascade both times.
So after a ride, I shut everything down, and then started it up and powered on everything. No messages. Okay. I turned off my Bluetooth Apple keyboard. No messages. I turned it back on, and paired it. No change. Okay… I opened the case on the Powerbeats Pros, and within a second or two, the messages started cascading. I could not get the keyboard to respond well at all. Interesting. So I closed the lid on the case, and the messages kept cascading. Hmm. I unplugged the Lightning cable, and the cascading messages stopped. The keyboard also responded normally. Plugging in the Powerbeats Pro’s did not cause them to start again. I guess as expected. Opening the lid caused it all over again, stopping as before.
So what about pairing audio devices is causing a freakout in the Bluetooth system. I thought that Bluetooth was supposed to be ‘all that and a bag of chips’. And apparently it doesn’t matter if the trainer is using Bluetooth, as I have the H3, and cadence sensor on ANT+. The Garmin HRM is not listed in the Bluetooth devices on the MBP, so I assume it’s connected through Zwift’s internal Bluetooth system too. And, obviously the PowerBeats Pro’s would connect through the MBP’s Bluetooth system. Is that what’s causing the problem? It seems to be. Is Zwift doing something ‘illegal’ in their internal implementation of Bluetooth? Interesting…
Had the Kickr Bike less than 2 weeks. Yesterday my shifters stopped working 90km into a ride. Unplugged and was able to get the right to work again but not the left. Today while messing around, by chance I figured out that there’s some sort of wiring short or grounding issue. The left shifter will only work if the wire is touching the electronics housing and not touching the right shift cable. So I’ve electrical taped it that way (obviously not a long term solution) for now and I’m waiting to hear back from Wahoo.
I’ve also had major slippage issues with the handlebar post which they’ve been dealing with. So currently 2 open tickets with customer service. If things aren’t resolved soon, the bike will be returned.
I swabbed out the head and seat tubes as I was unpacking the bike. I can see why people were reporting issues with slipping, as there was a heck of a lot of ‘grease’ in there. I can see it if it’s some kind of anti-seize, but they use it everywhere, and a LOT of it.
The head tube seemed to be the hardest to tighten. I was tempted to run a bolt and nut through it to get it slightly smaller. I was afraid of breaking the lever to be able to lock the stem down enough. I think mine slips too, but I also used my own stem and bars on it.
I was also surprised at how ‘sketchy’ the switches were inside the ‘shift levers’. Under warranty, I wouldn’t touch them. I hope they solve that for you, but you found a workaround.
Just as a random/quick FYI for folks following on comments that were trying to find inventory – I noticed just now that REI is showing they have some (slim) number of units in stock right now. I don’t think they had them a few days ago.
In any case, as usual, buying through the REI link here helps support the site. Either for dehydrated hiking food that still tastes horrible no matter the pretty photo on the package…or, for the KICKR Bike. ;) Here’s that link: link to avantlink.com
Huge thanks for the update and I used the link!
I live in the DC Metro area and it is supposed to arrive at REI for pickup on December 30th.
Awesome – thanks Subby – and enjoy the bike!
Am in Canada so shopping at REI was not an option, so I bought directly from my LBS. Where do I send your commission cheque?
Haha…I’ll take it as a gift card for Tim Horton’s next time I can visit The Girl’s family in Newfoundland. :)
For others in the US however, the KICKR Bike is back in stock at REI, at least for a few hours: link to avantlink.com
(As usual, REI link above supports the site)
Digital Timmy’s gift card on its way.
Thank you so much for this review and for the other smart bike reviews as well, what a great job. I have been pondering over acquiring one or not, but what has stopped me so far is a concern about support and especially long term support. If I put 2500€+ in a device I would hope to keep it for 10 years and that it can be repaired without necessitating being shipped far away. I am in France, and not sure any of the vendors have any presence there!
Due to this ‘blocker’ I have been looking for cheaper alternatives, and was wondering if you could recommend a stationary bike that would match the following requirements.
Must have:
– Built to last, with 5h usage a week
– Reasonably precise wattage measurement
– Ability to adjust difficulty, while showing speed as if on flat road (so kind of gear shifting, but it does not need to be cassette etc., levels will do fine)
– Ability to upload data to Strava
Nice to have:
– Ability to set user weight for more precise speed estimate
– Zwift compatible
– Ability to simulate inclination as additional parameter (independent from difficulty/gear)
Do the above make sense and could some bikes match them?
Happy end of year!
I’d look for a wheel-on smart trainer, and add in power pedals, or a direct-drive trainer, but what will drive your decision will be what’s available in a reasonable time frame to get where you want to be.
Long term support is always a question in everything we buy. The Peloton bike I own has changed so much from the version I have that I’m concerned about having to replace the many proprietary items, but there is always a used market to use to find parts. With the Kickr Bike, the number of custom parts is very high. I do hope that it will be supported for at least 5 years.
Maybe Ray has a more accurate view of what might be available in France.
Hi CowRob, thanks for your response. I should have mentioned it, but I do not own a bike (shame on me:-), I am a runner looking for indoor training while injured)! Acquiring a decent road bike makes little sense given the environment I live in, so I was looking more for an all-in-one stationary package. Unless it makes sense to acquire a cheap frame?
Cheap frame with a good smart trainer is an excellent option.
I’d think a midrange bike and a good trainer would be a great solution, and probably easier to find. A bike in the 1,00US range, and a direct-drive trainer, and you’ve got a good solution, IMO.
You don’t want to go too low priced on the bike because you still need some sophistication in the drive train, but you don’t need to spend 4,00US+ on a bike that is going to spend it’s whole time on a trainer, unless you want that type of feel. An expensive bike does ‘feel’ better. Makes you go faster! ;-)
Then you can see what’s available for trainers and potentially upgrade as things (hopefully) become more available. I would still think that a power Spinner bike would be a good idea. The sell the Spinner Chrono Power, which supports Zwift, and I’d image other virtual riding apps, and thouse apps support Strava. It has power cranks (of some sort) and is made by Precor, that was just bought by Peloton, interestingly enough.
There are a lot of options now, but again, it depends on what’s available, and how long you might want to wait. Ray might have some ideas too. Sorry to have been doing most of the talking…
Thanks very much CowRob and Fabian, your responses give me good pointers. I do not know much about cycling gear, need to delve now into frames, pedals, etc., and of course the trainer to pick appropriate ones.
The Spinner Chrono Power costs 3.5k EUR around here it seems, at this price I would rather go for a Kickr smart bike if I went for the expensive option (but the support question as mentioned earlier does not make it attractive).
Thanks again, happy training!
I’ve only got about 6 hrs on my new Kickr bike. Thus far, I’m happy with my purchase. Is is worth $3500 USD? Probably not, but I’d still spend the money on it again.
One question for others with more time on their Kickr bikes…..when riding Zwift, the tempus fugit desert route, I can feel occasional but regular slight variations in resistance like I’ve encountered a 1% climb or descent even when Zwift still says 0% in the top right corner of the screen. Does Zwift not call out all the gradients, or is my bike’s resistance imperfect, or am I hallucinating on what I’m feeling?
I just did 5 or 6 laps (something like that) on that route, and it is NOT flat. Not totally flat anyway. There are a few ‘bumps’ on it. They aren’t large, but it’s not 100% flat. For a 2-hour ride, averaging 21.5mph, I gained 338 feet.
Does yours squeak and pop when riding? How have you solved the seat and head tubes slipping?
Yeah, the wife wants me to return it. Wahoo looked like they were going to replace it, but wanted a ‘standing ride video’ which of course did not squeak or pop, and they said ‘Let us know if you keep having issues. Have a nice life’.
I do like it, mostly. The popping and squeaking drives me slightly nuts, but if I maintain a certain posture, the noises usually disappear. I do hear the ‘singing’ of the armature/flywheel more at some times than others.
Would I buy it again? Hmm… It’s my first experience with a dedicated ‘trainer bike’ like that. I thought the Tacx bike looked too comical with the fans mounted. The Stages bike looks clunky. *shrug*
It’s a decent product, but needs some work, IMO. I’ve got quite a bit of time on it (788 miles). It took me 3,370 miles to kill a Neo 2T (and 2,970 to kill the second one), so I have some time yet…
Would I buy it again?
So, from what I think you’re saying, is that the tempus fugit course does indeed have lots and lots of very minor grade changes even though those changes don’t always register visually on the Zwift screen. That’s kind of what I was thinking, i.e. lots of 1/2 or 3/4% grades or something.
My bike doesn’t squeak at all – that I’ve noticed. I’ll scrutinize it for squeaking and any other issue the next time I’m on it.
My local bike shop built up the Kickr bike because they were bored that day. They commented that there was a lot of grease on the stem and seat tube so they wiped most of it off. My seat tube isn’t moving under my 195 lbs, but I don’t know about my stem as I’m not certain at what height it started and now it’s nearly slammed.
The “singing” of the flywheel is awfully soft and a non-issue for me. I’m used to the old time “turbo trainers” from the 80’s and 90’s and I logged 9500 virtual miles on a loud fan/flywheel Concept 2 bike erg over the previous 2 winters.
Hah! Yeah, I have to be careful describing loud. I had a Cyclops H2, and the wife said she could hear it across the house from the garage, before she even opened the door! It was ‘VERY LOUD’!!! The Neo 2T was amazingly quieter. She would come into my office, and see me on it, couldn’t hear it much at all.
The ‘singing’ is on certain workout rides, and I can hear it over 4 fans and Powerbeats Pro’s at low/medium volume. It varies pitch with speed. The Neo did it too, but it was far more of a humming noise. I generally ride workouts in Zwift. I’ve got over 50 I’ve stolen, from various sources.??♂️
I wiped the grease out. It was flat out a LOT OF GREASE!? Thinking of running a nut/bolt combo to coerce it to be tighter, and use some fiber grip. My bars were slammed from 2 in one ride, and seatpost lost about 6 positions. And I have to really put a lot into closing the levers too. Hope they don’t break!
Ride on!!!
cowrob, some thoughts for you on your issues…
I have over 3,000 miles on my kickr bike. I’ve had all sorts of little sounds and issues but all have been fixable so far.
For slipping posts: my handlebar height wouldn’t stay under any standing effort so I found that carbon assembly paste solved that. Remove all grease and apply the paste. Hasn’t moved in the 800 miles. My bars still slip backwards at times so I may try some paste there too. The seat post is the same as the bars… a little assembly paste goes a long way.
For squeaking: make sure you refer to the maintenance manual. I had squeaking and it turned out to be the leg bolts not be torqued to 26-27 nm. Just be careful, they will round off quickly. I may order stronger ones on Amazon for my next maintenance.
Don’t neglect to take off your headset cap and check for moisture and salt regularly. Same with your bar to stem area. those bolts get tons of sweat and might need a cleaning and greasing on the bar stem area.
Thanks for the post!
The first thing my LBS said was ‘legs’. They suggested greasing the leg parts that insert into the frame. After getting them apart, I found out that the factory was using tape to help fill the spaces around the legs, so I put another layer of tape on, and it was a much tighter fit. And, yeah, the supplied bolts are cheap, but you need to realize that if you upgrade the bolts, they are still just screwing into threads put in the aluminum legs, and better bolts could end up stripping the threads out of the legs. I’ve had that happen before with gym equipment. Fixing that is a pain.
I did remove most of the grease, and wiped down the posts. I am amazed at how large the clamps are that the QR’s are supposed to close onto the posts. I am thinking of putting in a nut/bolt and tightening them down to make the clamps smaller to make it a better fit. I did read where someone has broken a lever trying to get the clamp tight enough to keep things from slipping. Obviously people with no prior experience with bike engineering set up those clamps. It’s good to hear that fiber grip works. I was thinking of maybe a shim, but I don’t know if anyone still makes those, and if there is one that would be thin enough to still fit. I did measure the stem post, and it’s not a standard size, as if I’m surprised.
They told me to spray silicone at the mechanism at the bottom of the riser, and it did work, for a while. I had a failure of the can too, and ended up hosing down the area with a lot of the spray. I also checked the bolts, and the only ones that were loose were the ones on the climb actuator.
I have always put a towel over the stem and bars of any bike that I have used on a trainer. I sweat a lot, so keeping towels handy is very important. Sweat is a powerful corrosive, and grease hates it.
It’s good to hear the Wahoo Bike can go the distance. (I was grateful to find the frame is aluminum) I bought it primarily because of the damage I was able to do to the Tacx Neo 2T. I was aware of some of the issues people were having, but the squeaking and popping wasn’t one of the issues I had heard of.
Off to find my fiber grip. The bars slipped from 2 to less than 1 twice during a ride yesterday. The lower bars are causing shoulder and arm pain, I believe. If I can’t get the posts to stay up through the clamps, I will have to find some tubing I can put in to force the distance to be set. Hard to believe for that money, the ‘bike’ wasn’t better engineered, but it’s still pretty awesome. Beats everything so far, IMO, but the problems need active addressing by Wahoo for those that purchased these bikes. (Have to laugh, the girl suggested using ‘one of those things you use on pipes’ to hold the posts up. A hose clamp. I hope it doesn’t get to that point)
Happy New Year!!!
Has anyone ordered replacement 5mm hex bolts for the legs? I am not sure what exactly to order (maybe titanium?) but I want make sure I order the right ones. I have already stripped out two of them trying to tighten them down and now they won’t tighten anymore and aren’t flush.
Thank you!
Ick. That sucks. Sounds like the threads could be bonked too. They say ‘5mm’, which could be the size of the wrench needed. (They could be M6 size bolts. Any bog box should have them)
Threads can be replaced, but it requires a ‘special service tool’, and I know how much bicyclists love those.
I had to get one of these kits to fix some stripped threads on gym equipment. I’ve used it quite a bit over the years too. It came with the right inserts that I needed in a mix of aluminum, and steel. The threads are a lot stronger than what failed, they are a lot longer. You could also get a self-tapping bolt slightly larger than the factory bolt, and get that to work. I don’t have a bolt size gauge. (Maybe M-8’s?)
link to amazon.com
Did you try adding to the packing tape the factory put on the inserted parts of the legs? I took one leg’s tape off because it looked ragged and I assumed that it was just from an attempt to hold the legs together in shipping, but then saw the same tape on the other leg as I installed it, so I put a single layer on it. Had squeaking, put another layer on both legs, and still had squeaking. I figured that greasing the tape wouldn’t work to stop squeaking, if it was coming from there.
One thing that seemed to work to stop squeaking was actually riding the bike in ‘unlocked’ mode, and going through the range, on Zwift, between 15 and around -8. I guessed that it might have helped ‘set’ the bushings.
Good luck…
I bought some high-tensile steel bolts but at the recommended torque even these start to strip. If I was to do this again I would try titanium bolts.
Ask Wahoo for their “binder bolt” to fix the headtube issue. Instead of the QR lever on the end, it has a hex bolt that you can tighten much tighter. They sent it to me after I complained about the slipping. That combined with carbon paste has solved the issue for me. No more slipping, even in long out of the saddle climbs like Ventoux and Alpe du Zwift.
I think he’s talking the legs.
Two choices: call Wahoo, or get self tapping screws larger than what’s there already. I don’t think titanium would have saved your butt.
Sorry. I think I replied to the wrong comment. But seeing as there’s hundreds of them, I’m not going back to find the right one.
Hi there,
I’ve got a kickr bike since November and having some issues.
The first is that it is quite “loud”. There is some kind of echo. And if the cadence goes up its way louder than my kickr (2018).
During christmas I had to use my old kickr at my parents house….
If i use my kickr or broadcasting Watts with my faveros (installed on my kickr bike) I am able to hold for example 330 Watts for 4 mins (classic 4*4min) – if i try it with my kickr bike it is way harder and I have to Stephan down with watts after 3 intervalls or so…
Anyone having the same problems?
If I am using kickr bike and assiomas the watts going up and down during intervals even if I use erg Mode.
no Stephan…. it should mean “step down”
Do the assiomas and kickr bike say about the same wattage? They should be within a few percent, with the pedals perhaps a bit higher.
How are you controlling the bike? What software? If the software is reading the pedal power and then feeding that number back to the kickr bike to maintain a wattage, there may be weird behavior. It is possibly swinging up and down over setpoint…making it harder than if it was held at a steady 330W. Can you just connect to only the bike and see if that works better?
Make sure to disable the powersmoothing option in the wahoo app, else you might not see the power swings. With power smoothing enabled, it will instead show setpoint and not your actual data.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I’m using zwift as a Software and didnt change anything on the wahoo App.
Tomorrow I will record wattage from the kickr bike and the assiomas and see If there is any difference.
Up to now it is easier using the assiomas and the watts going up and down then using only the kickr bike and having steady watts.
When zwifting I’m using the assiomas as an Powersource and the bike as controllable.
Up to now I somehow accepted the difference. But using my kickr and being able to finish the Workout in erg made me think of it….kickr/assiomas it is doable….just the bike: no way.
But youre right, I have to look exactly at the difference between bike and pedals.
” it is easier using the assiomas and the watts going up and down then using only the kickr bike and having steady watts.”
Oh interesting! It is the opposite for me. If hold a steady wattage, that is the easiest way for me to complete an interval. If my power is swinging up/down, but ends up with the same average, it feels a lot tougher. When I do workouts through zwift, I only connect to the kickr bike (and record my powertap pedal power in parallel on a garmin). It holds me pretty close to the setpoint throughout the interval, so long as I keep my cadence consistent. For whatever reason, my bike reads a few watts higher than the pedals…still within their stated accuracy range. So, I’d expect a slightly harder workout if using the same setpoints with my pedals supplying the power measurement. As already said…it feels even harder than that due to swinging power.
I would definitely check that the kickr bike’s reported power is in line with the pedals. Of course, that could an easy answer, but then you’d have to figure out how to test which PM (or perhaps both) are giving bad data.
…and no reason to leave power smoothing on. It will not change anything in operation, but will change any data for later analysis.
DCR has a fit file comparison tool on here which would be a great way to load in both power files for comparison.
Had the bike about 2.5months, put 2500km on it between my wife and I and this morning we’ve had the dreaded power supply dimly flahsing green light death.
Has anyone had this issue (or heard of someone that has) where it didn’t require a complete bike swap? I.e. is it definitely the bike or could it be just the power supply block?
Typically, I sold my Tacx Neo to a mate just last week having hung on to it for a couple months just in case this sort of issue cropped up….
It’s the second issue we had with the bike. When we first got it, the bike would report power (~15w) even when not pedalling. Wahoo were pretty good in responding to that… I scincerely hope they are as quick this time. There’s no excuse for this to be a common issue on a £3k bike.
Do you have access to a voltmeter? Test the output of the power brick. It should be close to the output shown on the certification label on it. Then after that, it’s possible that it might be weak, due to a failure of the circuitry. I’ve had power bricks die a few times.
I find it hard to believe that Wahoo would want to swap the entire bike, unless they know there is a flaw in the bike, and I sure hope they will, or have, fixed it in the replacement bikes, otherwise they too will die need to be replaced. Well, either that, or denying warranty coverage for owners that have their bikes dying.
But how widespread are the issues? Will anyone at Wahoo ever speak to the size of the problem? And with the bikes ‘sold out’, how long will people have to wait for a replacement?
I have hung on to my crumbling Neo 2T, just in case my Bike dies. How pathetic is that for someone to have to do. Spend $3,600 for a ‘Bike’ and have to wait for it to die? Has anyone started a class action lawsuit over this? Are affected owners joining together to keep each other informed on their issue?
If the problem is that common, I can’t see how Wahoo survives this. If it’s just that the complainers have the ear of the community of owners, and bikers, then back to how big is that population, how many have been effected. Wahoo should at the least have to extend the warranty of this first addition of the bike, if the failures are that common.
I can’t afford to ‘write off’ this bike…
I dont but I will see what Wahoo (and my LBS) say tomorrow.
I doubt the issue is very widespread but of the major issues that seem to affect the bike when straw polling the internet, this one has popped up from various users more than most. For each instance ive read about, it has required a bike swap as the issue has been downstream of the power supply.
Im sure Wahoo will be as quick as they can, but given everything is sold out, and im in the uk where Brexit probably wont exactly help, im not holding my breath for a quick resolution.
Im just just majorly regretting selling my Neo which, like yourself, is a crazy situation to be in!
Anyone got any thoughts as to whether the power issued str something similar to the Kickr core ESD issue mentioned as below?
link to dcrainmaker.com
Update from Wahoo. As is normal, customer support seems to be very helpful, easily the best out there. I sincerely hope that continues as its about the only redeeming feature in my books!
As expected, replacement bike with a £1000 deposit to speed the process (i.e. they will send a replacement before the current bike is returned). For europe (i think..) shipping is Tuesday and Friday only but paperwork has to be processed 4 days before, hence why it takes so long to replace.
As for the issue, i asked a few questions:
– Wahoo support states that they understand the issue and have a fix in place for it.
– The replacement bike will have this fix
– They state the bike is to be used indoors in a dry, room temperature environment (Would be helpful for customers to know this up front! Fortunately, I did have mine indoors…)
They did not say what the issue actually was…
Finally, on their website is a pre-prepared document about how to pack the bike for return. I had seen that previously but hd forgotten about it until Wahoo’s reply. The fact that is publically in existence says a lot about the likely return rate!
Hi, I was really disappointed with the kickr bike (and ultimately returned it) as I mostly do structured workouts on zwift and the climb feature is disabled when you are doing a structured workout. I think it is just worth mentioning this so other people aren’t disappointed too.
And features like Neo ‘Road Feel’ are disabled during workouts too. On one hand I can understand why, but on another is makes little sense. We buy the bike for those features. Why disable them during a workout? Riders should have the choice whether they want those features to work during a workout, not have that feature just summarily disabled. It doesn’t make much since to me, or to many owners of advanced smart trainers. *shrug*
I haven’t looked at the network traffic during a workout compared to a free ride, but I can’t believe that the added traffic of allowing advanced features would swamp the boat. We should have the choice…
I’ve done Road to Sky as a workout, and would LOVE to feel the climb as the Bike adjusts, pointing to the heavens, and feel the flat areas to provide some recovery.
CowRob –
I was not aware that they ever added in the Neo-like road feel. On the Kickr bike page, they talk about “ride feel”, which is just showing a movie of the bike pitching up and down. Do you mean there is an option that simulates cobbles in the kickr bike? If so, where is that in the app? I do not see it.
Dear CowRob,
I spoke to Wahoo several times about this because for ages I thought I had something set up wrongly. The issue is that zwift only gives one data feed and to simulate the gradient they need two data feeds. I got the impression it was a really simple thing that zwift needed to change but they wouldn’t and there was nothing Wahoo could do about it. Apparently, if you use sufferfest, there are 2 data feeds and the climb feature works in a workout.
I too thought they had the Neo type ‘ride feel’, but have never found any indication that is so.
They seem to be using the syntax ‘ride feel’ instead of ‘road feel’ to make a symantic distinction with a cloudy meaning. Both can be used interchangeably describe the foot massage that Neo ‘road feel’ provides. It seems silly, but *shrug* what isn’t…
No, the Kickr does NOT simulate ‘ROAD feel’, and apparently can’t (yet?).
Jo Canning: Interesting. So ‘maybe’, someday? Stay tuned? Hmm…
Just a super quick heads up – KICKR BIKE’s back in stock this today at REI for immediate shipment: link to avantlink.com
(As usual, link helps support the site, cheers!)
And today’s in-stock FYI is on CompetitiveCyclist, with the KICKR Bike back in stock for immediate shipment there: link to avantlink.com
Having started to track this more closely in recent weeks – it seems to support the idea that the bikes (and also trainers) are indeed getting quite regular shipments. However, timing is of the essence. This will likely be gone in an hour or two (just like yesterday). Or just hitting refresh a crap-ton. CompetitiveCyclist has though as of Monday started to allow backorders, which is a good step forward in not having to hit refresh a million times.
Love your website, Ray — thanks for all your thorough, in-depth reviews and commentary.
Question for readers who may have experience with both the Wahoo Kickr bike and Stages SB20: Due to an ordering/shipping mix up, I have both bikes on the way but one will have to go back — the question is which one?
I ride/race in Zwift, and do some training in Sufferfest as well, currently using a Kickr Core (which has performed flawlessly). Getting a smart bike so that it will be easier for my wife to ride as well, and we can avoid the hassle of swapping bikes on/off the Core.
Any thoughts on which might provide the best riding experience, and be the best option for two people sharing the bike?
With my experience with the Bike, I’d be curious how the Stages bike compares. Since you have both coming, why not try them both out, and decide for yourself. Most companies hate people refusing receipt of shipments anyway. I’d be curious how they compare.
Hi,
Is the seat post interchangeable with standard 27.2 posts? In the photos it looks like it’s D shaped.
Yes it is – My wife uses a 27.2mm post with her saddle, so we can simply swop back and forth.
I stem/head tube is the only piece that’s custom. It’s got a flat side. Why? *shrug* They could have done the same thing as they did for the seat post.
That said, a standard road stem and bars work great on their stem/head tube.
Liberal use of fiber grip should keep the seat post from slipping…
Hi all, does anyone have the same problem with the Kickr bike? With every kick (especially at higher cadence) the bike bounces 2-3 degrees back and forth.(without tilt adjustment to operate / automatic off) and transferred to the wrist – this is not the normal flex, but “hits” front / rear (clack / clack). There should be play in the actuating piston (for tilt adjustment) itself or at the connection actuating piston to frame. (The other connections are all tight).
It feels a bit like a bigger stone is stuck on the (virtual) tire.
(The base frame stands firmly on the ground and does not wobble.) Best regards
If I push down on the bars, the bike does a fore/aft rock. I actually ‘discovered’ it on accident one of the first times I stood up to crank hard. I found it surprising, and a little disconcerting, but I’ve gotten used to it, mostly. I was surprised there would be that much ‘slop’ in the climb mechanism, and that apparently there is a spring mechanism that is literally holding the bike up, and pushing down on the bars compresses the spring, and causes the jolt. It’s always there, so I’m now prepared for it.
It’s like riding my fat bike and compressing the Bluto fork, so it’s not totally foreign to me, but was surprising none the less. Another ‘quirk’.
Like the day that I found out Ultegra Di2 levers actually can move forward, opposite the braking action. The first time that happened I was on a group ride, and almost stopped fearing I broke something.?They should warn people about such things!??
So I am noticing that fore/aft rock as well. Very small but when I initially get on the kickr a bit more noticeable. Not end of the world but curious if others have this same effect?
If not maybe there is something that needs a tad tightening??
I did check for loose bolts, and found none. There seems to be some slop in the mechanism. Not having any experience with the Kickr Climb, I don’t know if there is similar ‘slop’, but I’d assume that the mechanism is different because of the way the two functions were implemented. But it could be bushings, or some other part of the system. I should have tried to take a closer look at the mechanism as I boxed it up to send it back. I was more interested in seeing if there was any damage, or reason for the squeaking and creaking noises, which I was unable to see. I assume that they were coming from some part of the mechanism inside the upper frame area.
Those with the Kickr Climb: Is there slop in it?
I just got off the line with Wahoo and they noted due to the nature of the implementation of the climb function that small bit of give is normal. If they had it too tight that would kill the ability to even have the climb function operate.
Also asked about vibrations at low cadence when on high resistance and the louder noise of the Bike versus my stand alone trainers and they noted all of that is to be expected and was not a sign of issues with the Bike.
Oh and since I also have the climb I can attest to no slop. But it is just completely different there is no pivot point moving the whole bike. Just lifts or drops front fork.
Put aside that very small give this implementation is far superior to that combo of KIcKr and Climb.
I got vibrations at certain rpm levels of the ‘flywheel’ on my Neo 2T. I interpreted it as being harmonics created by the attraction of the magnets as they interacted with the armature. The faster the rpm, the lesser the harmonics, which makes total sense. There was some ‘singing’ too, on the Kickr Bike, which is also likely due to that interaction. I don’t think there is a way to avoid that as it’s a physical property of magnetism.
Hey folks – super quick heads up/stock alert! CompetitiveCyclist just got in stock of all the major KICKR models, including the KICKR Bike. All are currently showing in stock for immediate shipment. Here’s the direct links, all of which help support the site:
KICKR V5/2020: link to avantlink.com
KICKR CORE: link to avantlink.com
KICKR BIKE: link to avantlink.com
Enjoy!
Hi,
I’m considering a Wahoo Kickr Bike, but I see the height range is from 5 feel to 6 feet 4 inches. I am 6’5″. Is anyone else my height riding this bike comfortably? Otherwise I would go with the Stages SB20.
Craig
I would think it depends on where your height is. It has a really long seat post. (The Wahoo setup app had my seat post so high I would have needed a step ladder to get on top the saddle)
I have a friend that has really long legs, so in their regular size based on their height, any bike is usually going to be small. Everyone is different…
But I’m 5’11”, and that post height was easily 4 inches over my leg length. But the good thing is that the seat post hole is a standard size, so if you need a longer one, and have one, it could work well for you.
Thank you. That’s really helpful to know.
Craig
I am 196 cm tall, with a long back! I had to mount a 140 mm stem. Other wise it fit me quite well.
Hi. Not sure how to ask a question in this blog but I want to get an extra seat post for my kickrbike so that I can get a different seat for my wife who can’t use the seat that comes with the bike for anatomical reasons that I won’t go into. I want an extra one so that I can change the seats easily without removing the seat that I use and replacing it with her seat. Does anyone know if I can purchase another post with mounting hardware from Wahoo?
Just get any 27.2mm seat post – They fit perfectly, and you can mount your wife’s seat on that. You can swop it in 30s. That is what I do.
I wouldn’t buy one from them. You can go to a bike shop, or Amazon, and get a better seat post that will be easier to adjust, and install the saddle onto. Mark the height with electrical tape, or even nail polish, and good to go.
Just like handle bars, and stems: the attachment to their non-standard head tube adapter is actually standard too so you can swap the bars, and or stem, out for ones that work for you…
Replied to wrong post I think. DOH!
So disappointed. Both levers are now dead. First the right one on Friday (stuck in 3rd, or 14th), and the left one today (3rd only). I was able to potentially save the bar tape I used on the bars I swapped on this bike that goes nowhere.
Coupled with the squeaking and creaking, I’ve paid the $1,500 deposit to get an advance replacement bike. Hopefully soon.
I did ask about the fading power supply issue, and the support rep denied its a problem. *shrug*
Hoping for better…
I wouldn’t buy one from them. You can go to a bike shop, or Amazon, and get a better seat post that will be easier to adjust, and install the saddle onto. Mark the height with electrical tape, or even nail polish, and good to go.
Just like handle bars, and stems: the attachment to their non-standard head tube adapter is actually standard too so you can swap the bars, and or stem, out for ones that work for you…
Call their bluff… as mentioned above the rep dealing with my power issue has stated the Wahoo engineers do know about and understand the issue…
Also, suggest to the rep they go and look at the Facebook Kickr Bike group. There really is no shortage of the power failures (among others) on there. Some of the (alledged!) responses from customer support are also quite concerning.
My second bike arrived yesterday and the stack height clamp more or less doesn’t work and the bike was dripping in condensation when it arrived so haven’t dared use it yet without Wahoo’s approval. I haven’t had a meaningful response from them in 11 days and counting…
3 issues in 3 months now. Customer support was super helpful initially in November, but now it’s like I’m not dealing with the same company anymore.
Yeah, I haven’t heard from anyone at Wahoo since sometime last week. I was expecting to hear something after paying their ridiculous deposit.
Weird… Are they dropping the bike for a while? I was surprised to see the Tacx bike is now 6 to 8 months before it shows up on the market again. For Tacx, couldn’t they have done the engineering right the first time? Well, same for Wahoo. After the original Kickr quality issues, one would think they would want to avoid issues with their most expensive product ever, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.
I’m not on FB any longer (there is life after FB) but would be curious to read those comments you refer to.
Zwift Forums has a rider that is on their 4th bike. Four? Really? Damn…
Sad. I’m fighting the urge to sell a replacement bike, if I actually get a ‘new in box’ Kickr Bike some day soon. But then, what to get. The Tacx Bike sounded like a contender, but it’s off the market. The Atom X isn’t available in the US, supposedly.
I’m acquiring quite a trainer collection as I still have the refurbished, ridden once, Tacx 2T, the Kickr Bike, and the ‘official backup trainer’ the H3. Soon, I’ll be like DCRainmaker, although my wife would be sitting on my head making me choose which ONE trainer I need to keep. My pain cave is running out of room.
Funny that, paid my deposit and literally heard nothing more about the replacement bike either. However, it just turned up out of the blue yesterday instead!
It feels to me like in order to keep up with demand their having to accept less quality parts that they’d normally reject.
There’s almost 3k members of that group, and you know how it is with those groups, a good portion (like myself!) are only there because of issues. The number of people on their 2nd/3rd bikes and still facing issues is staggering.
But I’m mainly worried about the apparent drop off in customer service recently.
Me too.
I usually hear from ‘James’ in a day, and now it’s been 4. I have gotten an email from him over a weekend, but rarely. Are they generally giving up like Tacx? It makes me wonder, but maybe I’m just feeling anxious with the cost of this ‘bike’, and getting one that’s more than pop-art in my living room.
My bike is irritating me again. Non-stop creak again, and pops if I put much power down. Also, ERG mode when engaged by the ELEMNT Roam “Target Power” mode has stopped working essentially (50-100 watts off).
I can try to grease the legs, but all of this is annoying. I wish I had just gotten a trainer.
‘James’ came through, a little. I just got the labels for return. Now waiting for boxes for the old bike, and a shipping date for the replacement.
Good news, but more waiting. I’m trying to be patient. Honest…
And what about post-warranty. I can’t imagine being stuck with pop-art like that, or having to spend nearly the cost of a new one to get warranty support.
Led – Don’t grease the legs. First try pulling the rear legs off, and using another layer of plain transparent shipping tape over the tape already there. It can’t hurt. It’ll be a little harder to reassemble, but, sadly, likely won’t address the squeaking/creaking. (Just in case, check the bottom bracket, and crank preload, although that wasn’t my problem either) I think that is somewhere in the inside area inside the top part of the frame where the vertical meets the seat/head tube assembly. The knocking I experienced is likely play in the bottom part of the ‘climb’ mechanism. A shot of silicone spray did stop it for a ride or two.
The LBS suggested lubing inside the legs, but when I saw the tape, figured that some lube would just dissolve the tape and make it an even bigger mess in the future.
I expect to get a close look at the squeaking/creaking bits when I gut the bike to put it in the return boxes. The whole thing has to be nearly completely disassembled to send it back.
link to support.wahoofitness.com
Page 4 here, for crank adjustment.
link to wahoofitness.com
And I just caught that they are referring to the Bike that squeaks and creaks like a box of mice of caffeine and now won’t shift as being ‘damaged’, not defective.
So riding it ‘damages’ it? Using it like it’s meant to be used is ‘damaging’ it? Are they going to then say that the bike was damaged, and can’t/won’t be covered by any warranty in the future? ‘Damaged’ is a lot different than ‘defective’.
Here’s something I came across that made me laugh and feel sorry for the people that bought the cars involved. Just wow…
Imagine the balls to claim that in court.
link to youtube.com
For your amusement and edification. Didn’t want to spend the money on a trainer desk so cobbled together this combination of iPad and iPhone mounts and a cheap TT clip-on bar (with the arm rest removed) so I can:
(a) use my iPhone to run TrainerDay or Sufferfest (or whatever) to control my trainer;
(b) use my iPad to watch a movie or read a book (or Zwift if you’re a Zwifter); and
(c) be illuminated by my light therapy box (which mitigates my seasonal affective disorder).
Total cost ~€40.
Looks like Kickr Bike maybe getting steering enabled on Zwift!
Description for an event tomorrow includes ‘Phase 3 of FutureWorks Steering is here! We’ve now also enabled the Wahoo Kickr Bike in addition to the Elite Sterzo Smart Steering Plate, extending the latest in racing to more devices. ‘
link to zwift.com
Just a quick heads up to folks that as of this evening, the Wahoo KICKR Bike with the latest version of Zwift can now do steering! Here’s a quick post and video on how it all works: link to dcrainmaker.com
So while my 2018 KICKR bricked because of a sticking issue in the flywheel that arose while i was doing Tour du Zwift stage 3 after finishing a climb, though Wahoo has agreed to a replacement, my desparation for an interim solution got me to go pick up a KICKR bike at the local REI.
Set it up this afternoon finally and dialed in specifications to match my Canyon Endurace (based on the app using a picture of the bike), and then used a Retul readout to match up to my 2016 Giant Defy Advanced SL 1. Both work great feel great, and in general think conceptually the bike is just awesome.
That noted, some particular pros and cons:
PROS
(1) USB port. I know some have complained about the port and no place to dock various items to, but I didn’t think that was a big deal. I took out an adaptor for a quad lock case which I have my iphone in, and happily with the USB port nicely have the iphone on my handlebars and juicing as I work out and use z companion.
(2) Wahoo app. I really think the app has been great, especially all the flexibility setting up the bike, including the fit application piece. Just great.
(3) Climb. Love the built in climb, so much better than my 2018 KICKR with climb combo I had before. Far smoother and I am still getting used to the fact I often don’t even realize the change in grade is happening where the climb created sudden jerks in angle.
CONS (and there are a few):
(1) At low cadence when I am up off my bike I feel all these vibrations when high power low cadence. Just weird feeling, not all that “road feel” like at all.
(2) At any cadence if I put a lot of my weight over the handlebars there is this little forward play that is a bit weird. Not terrible, but not natural.
(3) The noise really isn’t great. I find that I much preferred the quieter sounds of my KICKR. There are all sorts of whirring, metalic scraping sounds and high pitched whines at various points. Nothing that i think is really broken, just surprised in a $3.5k beast of a machine they didn’t try to make the KICKR bike as if not more quiet than the stand alone trainer series. If I have music playing, I don’t really get super bothered, but I do hear it, even over the three fans I have going.
(4) I constantly find while gripping the brake tops that i am accidentally on the side hitting the buttons they have there that don’t seem to do anything yet, but clearly will do something in the future. Just too easy to accidentally hit and activate something (notthing yet but presume something eventually) that I don’t want to.
(5) Finally, what is with the threading on the legs that you have to attach. What a royal pain in the ass. The threading is really screwed up, I was so concerned I would strip the bolts getting the two legs on. I didn’t, but could have happened very easily.
That’s it. So excited – took the bike for its maiden whirl in Zwift on Tour du Zwift stage 4 (short), and had a lot of fun with it. Not perfect, not bad. I would have waited for version 2 but for the death of my KICKR 2018 and the lack of any decent stand alone direct drive trainers to be found anywhere!
AND the best part! You can accessorize!!! Do different bars, different saddles, definitely different peddles. That, to me, was a solid plus! We’ve got a Peloton, and I got to the point where I hated the bars on that thing, plus there just isn’t enough customization for the fit. I developed a standard drop bar adjustable stem replacement for it, but no one was interested in it, so it’s on a shelf here gathering dust.
The Kickr Bike isn’t perfect, but it makes me wonder what V2.0 will be like. I’m sure it will rock the trainer world like the first version did.
I would have preferred to wait for v2 frankly, especially given the cost. I don’t love how loud it is versus my 2018 KICKR and the inability to add a second cage is not great though I do have a table I just put things on.
I also had fun with steering but I don’t really see it as all that useful and frankly be nice in v2 if steering would be accomplished by actually being able to turn the stem and not rely on hood side buttons that I keep accidentally pressing when I grip the hoods…
Yesterday I paired the bike with a smart plug and Alexa so now as I enter the room I just tell Alexa to turn on the kicker! Kind of perfect rather than unplugging and plugging the KICKR like I did before.
Called Wahoo first to ensure the 15A max draw wasn’t a problem. (And clearly is not).
Well, since my first bike was ‘hardware version 4’, it was kinda new… *shrug* At least it’s not beta still.
From someone who thought the climb function was a gimmick, I have to say it was kind of interesting. One part, in Watopia, has the bike going from 0 or 1 to 13, and back down again pretty quickly. It surprised me as on the topology doesn’t look that pronounced. (I thought of those electronic bulls that people rode as a fad)
I just left the bike plugged in. It seemed to ‘sleep’ when it hadn’t been used for a while, and woke up when I turned on my MacBook Pro. Once it didn’t wake up, the bike that is, and I did have to power cycle it. That was odd. I usually leave my computers running as well, always have. Something about ‘heat stress’ from the early days in computing. Things seemed to die quicker if they were turned off and on a lot, plus waiting for the bootup cycle to end is tedious. Now with SSD’s it’s not so bad, just habit. So many devices now have ‘soft power’ where they sleep rather than totally power off.
I use a remote controlled strip for the fans and a light. Best invention too, and it’s not listening to everything I say… Although it would be fun to say ‘Alexa, I’ve been a bad boy and need to be punished’, and have the bike, fans, and loud grunge all pop on at once. And some mood lighting too… HAH!!! And lock the door, mute the phone. Have Alexa say ‘Yes, you have been a bad boy! You are sentenced to a one hour HIIT ride, starting RIGHT NOW!!! WAH-AH-AH-AH-AH!’ =8-0
I use a power strip with a toggle switch to power my KICKR on and off so I can avoid the plug. I like the LED on the power strip so I know when the trainer is getting juice. A smart switch is a good idea that I never considered!
I know, right. I had been using an exterior grade one for Christmas lights for years, and then someone on a FB post said ‘Hey, this is great’, and I was dumbstruck. I never even thought of it before. Belkin actually sells an indoor power strip with 2 outlets that aren’t switched (6 that are), and it came with a big paddle switch like a Decora switch so it’s hard to lose it. So simple…
And they still apparently sell it! Works great for trainer, lights, music, and has 2 for charging things, etc. (It has a cable organizer clip-on that explains what that anonymous piece of plastic was that I couldn’t figure out. Oops)
link to amazon.com
I don’t remember the original bike having this growling noise when it was coasting.
Well, that didn’t work. It has a very noticeable growling and grinding sound when coasting. Dang…
Like this? link to youtube.com
Not the clinking, but a loud growling/grinding when I stop pedaling. Louder than I remember from the first one.
But there is no squeaking, creaking, or popping. And both shifters work. So close…
Like this: link to youtu.be
It seems louder than the first bike both when pedaling, and when coasting.??♂️
I just don’t want this to potentially be something that might fail in a couple of months and cost me big money to fix/replace. Not surprised, but still stunned they had it on the damn truck upside down. They apparently deliver a lot of exercise equipment, and had at least four boxes of it still in the truck. One would think they knew better? Grrr…
They are replacing it. The noise ‘is a concern’. The packing material took a beating. The whole bike was slammed to the back of the box. I guess if the next one comes with an abused box, I just refuse it.
And this one didn’t squeak/creak/pop. So close…
The continual creaking and cracking is working on my nerves again. Tonight, I seemed to be getting a weird hitch in my pedal stroke almost like I was losing some resistance in the downstroke on the non-drive side. Having had a set of carbon wheels lost by UPS this week, I’m just not in the mood.
I just don’t think this is a good product and I deeply regret purchasing it. Perhaps the next generation will be better. My father purchased the Stages Bike and has been super rock solid so far.
I’m hoping that Wahoo can do something about this. A creaking, cracking, possibly malfunctioning $3500 bike is wrong.
I had lots of creaking in the area of the stem but no longer. I took off the stem quick-release collar and put a very light coat of chain oil on the inside of the collar and that took care of it.
I agree with your other point, though. This Wahoo bike is not a commercial gym quality product – it wouldn’t last a day. The Stages bike is probably like my Concept 2 bike erg – you could throw it off a cliff and it would still work fine.
I had the creaking squeaking, and an occasional loud popping sound. Drove my wife more insane than I have during lock down. She said she could hear the noises as soon as she opened the door.
Wahoo did end up replacing the bike, after the shifters failed. They recommended spraying silicone spray at the bottom of the vertical riser where the ‘climb’ mechanism is located. It stopped the popping, and lessened the creaking/squeaking, but it came back quickly.
As I disassembled the bike t ship it back, I was not able to determine where the noises were coming from. I was getting it on most down strokes on the non drive side, as I remember. The replacement was abused in shipping, and I’m awaiting another replacement.
Send a 20 to 30 second video to Wahoo support, taken active pedaling with resistance, and pedaling with little/no resistance, and they will contact you with, likely, more questions…
I looked at the website for the Stages bike, and got the impression it’s a tricked out spinning bike. They are built for HEAVY use. I had a Greg Lemond spin bike, and it was a hulk too. I sold it rather than retrofit it for power and cadence. It would have made a fantastic bike for turning into a Zwift machine.
Also, the stem does creak, but it’s a different type of creak. Fiber grip works as well. I also tightened the collar without the stem being installed a few times, and was able to get it to fit tighter. Fiber grip is the new duck tape apparently. Oddly, the seat post didn’t sink on me, but it has been a problem for others. I think they over designed the stem collar and not the seat tube. *shrug*
I hope others see this since nobody talks about it. There is a maintenance PDF for the Bike. I had horrible creaking sounds. However, after following all the steps in that PDF I have literally 0 noise issues. I highly recommend doing everything. Link to the PDF for those that are interested:
link to wahoofitness.com
That’s pretty darn cool! Never seen that before.
The first thing I went to was the stem and the bottom bracket. Didn’t change the noises. Support then had me do some other things, none of which worked. I even did some things on my own, which didn’t attenuate the noises. Hosing down the center section with silicon spray helped, but didn’t last. I even tried tightening up the screws under the bike, and put an extra layer of shipping tape on the legs and reassembled them. Support also laughingly suggested that the center insert of the vertical section was under lubricated. That was not at all an issue as the column looked to be over greased. And then the shifters died…
While taking the unit apart to send it back, I looked at all the parts as much as I could to see if I could find the squeaking/creaking parts, and was unable to locate anything with undue wear.
The second bike I received had no creaks or squeaks, but the power unit made an awful amount of noise (damaged in shipping), and I’m waiting the next replacement. I’m sure this one will be fine. I was pleasantly surprised to not hear any creaks/squeaks/pops, and disheartened to hear the loud noises from the rear. So close…
Couple of things. The center column should use a Polylube and not the silicone spray. This may be why it didn’t last for you. The PDF actually has a links to products that you can click on (one is a polylube and the other a silicone spray). I literally purchased both of those products. I figured those were the ones that they did the testing with so they must be legit. Lastly, I coated the center post with probably 3 tablespoons of the park polylube and spread it around by moving the post up and down. You know it’s good when it squeezes out when you tighten the clamp down. This made the biggest difference for me in regards to noise. Hope that helps.
Wahoo’s own support person told me to use the silicon spray. And using grease would likely only be effective if it were applied at the point of the rubbing, but for metal sliding on metal, using a bushing or other method would be a lot longer lasting.
The real quiz was why the second bike didn’t creak/squeak. Did they make a change? Would it have eventually started creaking/squeaking with more use?
I’d bet that there is just a lot of variation between units, some are noisy, others aren’t. Hopefully they are refining their process so that more and more (eventually all?) are noise free.
My serial number is in the first 100 and has none of the problems you are talking about, after 220+ hours of riding. (I guess I should look at that maintenance schedule again.) Mine does have the fore/aft rock, but I’m guessing that is merely a matter of lashing tolerances of these moving parts.
I am more on the heavy side. It says weight limit is 250, I am at 260. Has anyone ran into issues that weigh more than the recommended max weight?
Hi dc when your review these products from wahoo how long are you testing them for? How many times to you actually ride it, from my use of wahoo products they have been really poor, 4 elements units in 3 years so not really good in the elements!! And kickr core after 5 months that’s starting to play up not connecting properly and dropong Bluetooth signal while riding, so do use the products like I do everyday or do you use it once twice a week? from my point of view they are not that good and this a proper review!
It depends on the product. Some products are for weeks, some for months, and some for even years.
I’d say though that going through four bike computers in 3 years isn’t normal. It’s not normal for Wahoo, not for Garmin, or really any other bike computer. Thus, I’d honestly question if something else environmental is causing that.
As for the KICKR CORE dropouts, you’d have to dig in and see whether that’s the CORE or perhaps the device you’re connected to causing the dropouts (or something else entirely). Chasing down drop-outs is very rarely the trainer itself, but usually other factors.
Hi dc I have spoken to wahoo but they are as much help as a chocolate fireguard, they haven’t got a clue just tell me how to restart everything and set it all up again with the kickr core which I new what to do but it starts doing it again after a couple weeks, with the head units they should be remaned as they don’t do any good in the elements! Maybe wahoo should let people who actually use them all the time like every day to give a real review on their products, so I hope they read this and sort their crap products out.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I use most products more than most people. On my rides I have 3-4 GPS bike computers on every ride, many of them a few years old.
Hopefully they sort out your issues.
Here’s my two cents’ worth, having recently purchased one of these (Feb ’21). I’ll defer to DCR’s excellent review on the technical bits as I’m no expert, but I’ve been using it for both Zwift and TrainerRoad and it works great. I won’t repeat parts of his review so mine doesn’t cover every aspect – just things I think may be helpful to someone who is seriously considering buying one of these.
1. It sets up really easily. A snip to put together. Not unduly heavy to move around. The box is a two-man lift. If you’re collecting it from the shop yourself be aware that it is enormous. It only just fitted in the back of a Merc GLS with the back seats down, and that’s a big car (in the UK anyway). It’s really thoroughly packed. Once unboxed though, I carried the main unit upstairs on my own. Not unduly heavy. Everything then attaches easily. Within 20 minutes I was riding it. Once assembled, it wheels around easily. You may just need to take the legs off again though if you want to take it out the door to another room.
2. It looks a lot more rugged in the flesh than it does in the pictures. It’s well made.
3. It feels great. There’s a bit of flex and give in it, but it feels good – like a real bike rather than a heavy, rooted gym bike. This was a huge relief. When you look at videos online it looks a bit rickety. It isn’t. It just feels good. It’s never going to feel exactly like a road bike – no static trainer would. But it feels a bit like (or better than) a real road bike on a turbo trainer. My only other experience is a Wattbike, which feels really rooted – overly so. This might sound like an advantage, but it isn’t in practice. I’m 5’11” and 78kg, so not enormous, but not slight either. I don’t throw myself around on the bike. I guess it rewards smooth riding. Bigger, heavier riders, or those who like to move around a lot, possibly may not like the ride. It’s just right for me.
4. There is no thigh rub for me at all except VERY occasionally if I’m pedaling lazily or very fatigued. In normal circumstances, no issue whatsoever. None. This was such a relief. I have what I would consider to be big thighs. Not track cyclist big, but big enough that that’s the first point of any pair of jeans that fails. No issue at all with the Kickr Bike. A good cm gap either side. The way I’m sitting on it at the bottom of the pedal stroke the top of the top tube is level with the point where my bib shorts end – so it’s more like just above the knee than the thigh. So bear that in mind if you’re strapping a piece of card to the top tube of your bike to check the issue – your top tube may be a different height to the Kickr’s. And try it out yourself in a shop if you can – everyone will be different. I sat on one in the shop and was very pleasantly surprised as this was my major concern.
5. The elevation thing is great. Really subtle. You aren’t riding a bucking bronco, and it’s very solid. It’s actually really subtle – to the point I was wondering if it was working. Just a gentle undulation following the road in Zwift. I wasn’t really that interested in this as a feature, but I’m glad to say it isn’t detrimental to the feel or the ride. I quite like it. And it also helps your position change on the bike for a bit of relief – better than just sitting static for hours on end.
6. I really don’t mind the positioning of the gear display. It could be better, but it’s not right in my crotch – just needs a glance down from the bars. The main problems I have with it are one, that if you have a towel over your bars then it can drape over the display, and two, it doesn’t have a separate display for your incline, so you can’t just glance and see what incline you’re at (although Zwift shows this on-screen, so only a problem if you’re doing it manually/outside of Zwift). So not perfect, but serviceable. And better to have it than not.
7. Anything I don’t like? The quick releases are terrible – you really have to wrench them tight to keep the stem and seatpost secure. First ride I did by the end of it it was like I was riding a BMX. Just not great design. The bar tape is terrible – easily changed of course, but for £3k I expect something a bit thicker than electrical tape. The saddle is fine – works OK for me but I’ll switch it out. Bars ditto. The ‘steering’ buttons (which now work in Zwift) are right where your thumbs are if you’re on the hoods, so you can easily press them accidentally. And whilst I like the gear shifters, and think Wahoo have the best solution here, they do need a firm press to register. They’re not completely perfect.
Finally, can I also give a shout-out to the Wahoo Fan. This thing is amazing. The jet of air is just perfectly focused on you; and the way it links to your HRM is simply genius. At the end of previous work-outs I was a sweaty mess. This thing significantly reduces sweating, but when it’s linked to the HRM (and once you’ve set the limits correctly) you have just the right amount of air when you need it, and not too much when you’re between intervals. So you’re never too hot or too cold. Perfect.
Totally agree with your comment on the display. I don’t know where they could put it to make it easier to use. If they made it in the stem, it wouldn’t be viewable, and the stem wouldn’t be swap-able. In the top tube wouldn’t be viewable, and would complicate the reach adjustment.
It would seem that the only ‘fix’ is to come up with an app that will show the status on the TV/tablet/monitor/phone. I didn’t think about the incline showing on the screen in Zwift. You are right. I have thought of trying to write an app to read the gearing and show it on the screen. (Don’t hold your breath)
Good review.
I was going to write a ‘Here’s how to do a better setup’ for the bike, but after having to remove my custom bars and tape, aren’t in favor of replacing the bars, but over taping the tops, and drops is a great idea.
Fiber grip really helps the slipping, but the collars are way to big.
My first tip would be to remove all of the grease in the head and seat tubes. It’s not necessary, and once the collars are tighter, fiber grip will hold the stem and post in place. I, without the head and seat posts installed, tightened and closed the clamps over and over again. I got both the head and seat posts to fit way more snugly. Just be careful, it would be possible to make the clamps too small if one was to do that too much, but it surely helped. My stem, even with the fiber grip, would slam over a ride, but after ‘fixing’ its range, the fiber grip did a fantastic job holding it solid. The grease is so not needed, and the first bike I had had a heck of a lot of grease in it. (Stuff a cloth shop rag in the tubes from the bottom and it should be big enough to work to wipe out that grease. I wouldn’t recommend using a cleaner or wipe unless there is a lot of grease)
Over wrapping the bars would be a good solution to the bars being so thin and painful. At least it will be easier to remove the over-wrap if the bike needs to be returned. I would have liked to use my own bars like with the first bike, but swapping them back for return wasted good bar tape, and was a pain. It would be good bar wrap practice though…
I will look into the Wahoo fan. Having something that doesn’t over cool would be great. I can turn the fans off, but controlling the speed of the fan is not possible yet. Sounds like a ‘must have’ product. Go all in with the Wahoo…
Sorry but fell asleep reading this!
Thanks for the review. It was excellent. I bought my kickr bike last March when you could still get them fairly easily. I totally agree with your complaint about the handlebars and the tape. I am 6’4” tall and come with big hands so am not comfortable with the diameter or the cheap wrap on the bars. Going to rewrap as soon as I get a chance. Think I even have decent tape. The placement of the display is not the best but not a deal breaker. Pretty happy with the shifters since I use the campy choice. I occasionally hit the small up shift button on the right side by accident but I detect that immediately.
Recommend Lizardskin DSP 3.2 tape over Fizik bar gel. Very comfortable for big hands without changing the bar. An FSA K-Wing bar with flat top surface would give big hands a broader surface to rest on……
Here is what I did. I had put Specialized Hover bars on my first Bike, and their Roubaix bar tape, and had to remove it all when I sent it back. So, I was about to throw the tape out, and figured ‘Why not’.
I started at the outside, just after the bars curve into the stem out if the drops (above the hoods) and wrapped as close to the stem as I could, and then doubled it back on itself, and ended up with just enough to do to under the hoods with about 8 inches to spare. *SNIP* I taped the ends, and didn’t do past the hoods. (Didn’t have enough tape)
So what I have is thick, similar to the feel of the Hover bar (which is a wider ‘flat top’ style bar) and now very squishy, and also more padding to the top of the hoods. It might be overkill, but I can just toss the whole thing in the box if this one has to go back some day.
And it saved the old stretched out tape going in the bin. Win win…
And they call this color ‘green’. *shrug*
The Specialized Hover bar is a lot like that only it doesn’t have the flats going into the area above the hoods. They are both excellent bars though. I like the rise, and the flat top does two things, bigger to hold on, and spreads the weight and grip across more of the hand. I’ll get similar bars for any new bike I get. I was looking for the carbon Hover bars, but they are hard to find.
Oddly, they have a Hover Flare bar but it doesn’t have the flat top, which makes no sense. It’s not a Hover bar then, is it? Weird… *shrug* Makes as much sense as calling blue bar tape green. :-D
+1 for the lizardskin 3.2 – just put some on my bike and it’s great. Will get some more for the Kickr once I’ve got some new bars for it.
BTW, an article today on Zwift insider said the steering now works on Repack Ridge (mountain bike course). When it first debuted, steering only worked on the road.
link to zwiftinsider.com
Steering worked on my 2nd bike, but this 3rd bike, steering doesn’t. I swear it worked using ANT+. Wahoo support told me to use ANT+ when I was having multiple dropouts per ride on the 2nd bike.
So I setup the 3rd bike and expected steering, and — nothing…
So did the last update to Zwift limit steering to Bluetooth? The Bike came with the current firmware, which I thought odd. It was also born on October 16, 2020.
Not that I found steering all that useful, but it it did save some time around the many corners. I couldn’t steer into the oncoming lanes like so many others seem to be doing, but that’s okay. It’s annoying to see people coming straight at me.
Plus, anyone know why so many ‘runners’ are standing in the middle of the road? That seems to be a recent ‘feature’ too.
Ride on…
I’ve never seen steering work via Ant+, only BT. Try it again with BT.
On the main ‘wahoo kickr bike steering article”, dcr said:
“Next, crack open Zwift. On the pairing screen you’ll pair up your KICKR Bike as normal, however, steering here will *ONLY* work right now when paired via Bluetooth Smart (not ANT+). Down on the lower left you’ll see the steering pairing icon automatically illuminates:”
link to dcrainmaker.com
I must have been mistaken. So much going on here lately. Could have sworn I’ve had it on ANT+ for the last month or so, but apparently it’s been on BT? Strange that the bike woke up connecting to ANT+. I guess that was what it saw first. Weird… Wahoo even sent me a ‘new’ ANT+ dongle to fix the connection issues I was having on BT. I give up…
I assumed that the Bike, and any device for that matter, would default to the last protocol it used. I need to watch that more closely. So much for the new dongle. :-D
Thanks…
I just tried repack ridge today and it wasn’t great.
When you ride it without steering, you just bounce between the ‘walls’. With the kickr bikes buttons for steering input, you stay in your ‘lane’ unless you veer otherwise. It is exactly like riding around Zwift roads with steering. I guess I didn’t know to expect otherwise, but I hoped this would be more dynamic than that…that you have to steer the turns…naw. There are parts of that course where you need to switch ‘lanes’ to avoid obstacles and get more stars, so that is something, but you can ride the whole thing without pressing the buttons just fine, which you canNOT do if you do the course without a steering mechanism.
Also, maybe just my setup, but a couple of the steep downhills to flat/uphills, my camera view (default, #1) ducked below the road, making it impossible to see the path, haha, dumb UI glitch.
Hi Alan (and other tall riders :-)
May I ask if you’re “maxed out” on the bike settings in terms of height? I’m very interested in a Kickr and sat on a friends yesterday for a short time. It felt small. I know that the max published rider height is 6’4″, but I can’t fine any published geometry anywhere. We’re all different shares and sizes. My inside leg (in trousers) is 35″ for example. Is your gut feel that it would fit okay?
Thanks!
Hi Lee, I am 6’3” used to be 6’4” with a 34” inseam. I think that my present Kickr bike is one notch below the maximum height and the seat is not quite fully extended on the post. I don’t think you would have any problem fitting on your bike. That said, I am more than a little disappointed that Wahoo is swapping out my new bike which I bought in April 2020 for a factory reconditioned one “completely updated”. Not sure what that means. Even more upsetting is reading in this forum all the problems that Wahoo Kickr bike users have had both mechanical and electronic. My bike did have an electronic issue one time but seems to have gotten over it. This problem seems to be purely mechanical. It looks like the fly wheel is not running true and is therefore intermittently contacting the plastic cover on the left side. You should consider whether you want to spend $3500.00 on a machine that still might not be up to aircraft industry standards. When it works it is great but it sounds like they are swapping out a lot of trainers.
Here is what is going on and why they are swapping out my bike. link to share.icloud.com
Another video link to share.icloud.com
Disappointed in the build quality. It’s looks solid but apparently it isn’t. Wahoo is an Atlanta company but these are built in Vietnam I think. I have nothing against Vietnam in fact I am on the board of a nonprofit dealing with Vietnam issues but I wish that Wahoo paid more attention to Quality Control issues. If the components are manufactured in Vietnam, this could be the issue – just making s lot of assumptions here. My son in law works for Boeing and is a quality control engineer. His job is to make sure that parts manufactured for Boeing by outside contractors in foreign nations as well as in the US are up to snuff. He has found that many of tte contractors cut corners. Sort of important when you are traveling at 35,000 ft above tte earth. Fortunately
We are basically on the earth when on the trainer.
Thanks Alan. I much appreciate your help.
Hi,
I’m on my 4th bike and this is the second one in a row with odd jumps in watts when shifting up/down. I found a video on YouTube with the exact same behavior link to youtu.be
According to Wahoo this is correct behavior, but to me this feels unnatural and makes the riding experience much worse. I’d imagine this is a software issue and should be fixable with a firmware update.
Does anyone have a similar experience with their bike?
That is weird. I have never seen mine do that at all. I am not a watt monster at all, but I would not be surprised if things get weird on the low (or high) of their sweet spot of wattage ranges. 150W seems on the low side to expect perfection, right?
Do you see this same behavior at various wattage levels, like: 75W, 150W 250W, 350W?
In other words, I would totally dismiss this behavior if it happened while changing gears at say 25W. It absolutely should be WAY better at 150W than in the video, but I wonder if that has something to do with it. In the video, he says it is particularly egregious with this one gear jump. Do you see the same?
Hi,
The behavior is similar regardless of the level of watts, so not just on a particular gear change.
Yes, but the first change I did from 3rd to 4th on the new replacement bike, the change felt like it jumped to the ‘big ring’ at the same time. The ‘jump’ was aggresive, and very pronounced. Some of the changes literally look like a massive sharp spike, with a drop down to the higher level. I was definitely shocked. It felt like something was broken. IRL, the change in perceived effort is nowhere that pronounced, unless I’m climbing a steep hill. My 2nd bike was nowhere near like that, and they had the same firmware. I wonder if they tweaked something in manufacturing somehow.
I still wonder if I should have gone with the Tacx Bike. I don’t think I could get one now. I’ll be wondering if this issue is fixed in any new firmware.
The Kickr Bike is pretty awesome, but there are issues… (Like with everything, but…)
Does it happen in all software? I think the wahoo app has a slope simulation mode. Otherwise, I know xert does. From your movie, it certainly looks like a nice flat spot of the Innsbruck course, so it should be a great place to demonstrate that! However, it would be good to know if it is purely a kicker bike problem, zwift problem, or a bike+zwift problem.
While I was trying to debug this issue with Wahoo they asked me to a ramp test in the Wahoo app with the ERG mode enabled to see if the power meter was functioning properly, which it was
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
I also send them a short clip demonstrating the spikes:
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
So the problem persists on both the Wahoo app and Zwift. I’ve also tried ANT+ instead of BLE but the problem is still there. It’s really strange, because clearly this doesn’t effect all bikes.
When I was debugging this issue with Wahoo they asked me to a ramp test in the Wahoo app with the ERG mode enabled to see if the power meter was functioning properly, which it was
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
I also send them a short spurt of the spikes in SIM mode
link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
This is really odd, because clearly it’s not affecting all of the bikes, but Wahoo app Zwift share the same problem. While the firmware remains unchanged it’s hard to say what has been changed.
For sure. That second link definitely looks like the same thing! I assume those power spikes immediately follow an upshift, then it settles back down…
00:47-00:57 – smooth spinning
00:57 – upshift
58-59 – power spike
1:00-1:02 settles back
1:03-1:11 – smooth spinning
(repeat)
cadence looks smooth throughout…definitely a bike bug!
I have the same issue (and have mentioned it before but never felt anyone else had the issue and maybe I was picky) – so there are bikes out there, that when you upshift doesnt spike? Should I talk with wahoo about this?
I get 1-2 second spike every upshift and it feels _really_ unnatural. People said I was really a really realistic feel to it and well, no it isn’t.
I did the Zwift Insider Full PRL ride yesterday, and this ‘feature’ made that ride a weird experience. I knew immediately what ‘gear’ I changed to because of the dramatic increase of resistance. What made it so incredibly stupid is that the changes between higher ‘gears’ often seemed to be almost dramatically understated than that one change from 3rd to 4th. I ran through the gears above that 3-4,14-15 hiccup, and it was ridiculous. Sometimes jumping to 11 (Nigel Tufnel reference) after suffering the ‘change’ earlier on.
It makes no sense, and the more it happened the more miffed I got. Over and over again, that ‘gear’ change roared over all of the others. (And my bike also developed a loud clicking noise too. Wahoo support identified it in a video I sent to them, and claim it’s the pedals. It’s not) Grrr…
One other thing is the damned noticeable sag in power going down the ‘gears’. I had to delay downshifting through 4 to 3 because of that drop, due to the spike in cadence needed to keep the ‘wheels’ turning. It sometimes felt like the resistance system just quit, checked out for a few seconds. It was most annoying over 6 hours of riding…
It sounds like only a single gear combo does this. Is that right? Could you try different ‘cassettes’ that may avoid that specific problematic jump? You can do this easily during a ride with the app. You may need to be connected to zwift with Ant+, since the app needs the BT connection.
It is possible mine would do the same behavior, but I have simply avoided it with a different set of virtual gears. I have mine usually with a rather bizarre 53/33 and a 11/32…no rhyme or reason to those. It is a big jump when shifting the rings. Maybe set those up and run through the gears…see if it still happens.
To me, it’s the change to/from 3 to 4. I haven’t tried other cassettes. I would assume that it would, but it would be an interesting experiment. I wish I had an external power meter that I could connect to see the wild spike that I perceive/feel.
It seems consistent between Bluetooth and ANT+, as it woke up in ANT+ mode yesterday as steering was not working for my epic ride yesterday. I didn’t notice it, and didn’t want to take the time to change protocols, and potentially waste the ride. It feels the same in Bluetooth.
Just to make it clear, this is a change in the simulated cassette, not the simulated ‘big ring’. If my IRL bike had this pronounced change in shifting, I’d really doubt my sanity, or be concerned I was climbing a hill, and in that case, the spike would be consistent with ever change in gears.
Please open a ticket with Wahoo, and let us know their response. It’s evident that the shifting isn’t working as advertised. There’s at least three people in the comments that have the exact same issue. I tried to work this out with Wahoo, but they insisted that the bike is working correctly, which it clearly isn’t. The shifting issue is prominent while shifting up and down. With negative gradient on Zwift it’s common the have watts in the double digits, something that I haven’t experienced before at all. It’s like the resistance and calibration are way off.
I am riding right now and tried a few different ways to replicate this.
So, yes, when you shift and aim to maintain same cadence, it makes perfect sense that you will need a surge of power to make up for the extra resistance in the harder gear. The amount of this surge will be proportional to the change in gear ratio. So, if that specific shift from 3 to 4 is a bigger hop, makes sense that it is more noticable.
Try this test:
Go into that 3rd gear, establish a cadence -C, figure out the power.
Shift into 4th, go to the same cadence, establish power – P4.
Go back to 3rd, spin up to match P4.
Shift up and slow the cadence to C at the same time
Did your power surge?
If everything is working perfectly and you hit those numbers and timing perfectly, you should see no power change through there.
Btw, you said you’re using 11/28 and 50/34. 11/12/13sp? What mode? Shimano, sram, campy, synchro? I want to perfectly replicate that to see if I can replicate it.
What you say is all good, but then the same type of spike should happen going from 4th to 5th, and the ‘spike’ just isn’t as pronounced then. It’s not in my head, it’s noticeably a higher spike seemingly out of nowhere. 4th to 5th, fine. 5th to 6th, fine again. It’s like something is making that ‘shift’ spicier, and on the way down, making the cliff the bike jumps off of higher too. I can feel it, I can see it. In my huge ride yesterday, I took many shots of ‘the spike’, but Zwift only gives you a certain number of shots to chose from at the end to post. I’ll check my Documents directory…
At the far right of the tape at the bottom of this image, showing power, there is a spike from a 3 to 4 up-shift. It’s dramatic, and high. It is on the way down after it happens, but that’s the way they look. A sudden spike, a big *pop* in resistance, and then a slightly slower sag to normal. Most shifting does provide a small spike, like you would expect when you are increasing the ‘speed’, because ‘inertia’, but the sudden shock in that transition is more dramatic and harder than the other ‘gears’. Sometime, yesterday, the changes in other gears almost seemed ‘tame’, compared to this change. It’s odd, but it seems to happen every time. I had a thought that perhaps it was part of having the trainer difficulty cranked up, but I had turned that down a few minutes after I started the first climb. (No, I wasn’t ready to do all 11 loops at full)
Wahoo saying it’s ‘supposed to do that’ is like Apple saying people where ‘holding the iPhone wrong’. If someone has power meter pedals they want to send me, I’ll crank out some data. I haven’t experienced it with TrainerRoad, because I only use ERG mode there.
Is there anything in the massive Zwift log file that would help? (It’s too bad the Kickr Bike doesn’t broadcast the ‘gear’ selection)
So here’s what did. I started at ‘1’, and rode for a minute, and then every 30 seconds, went to the next ‘gear’, and then at the end, went down every 30 seconds. I tried to keep my cadence i the same range, and the power was set at 150 in an ERG mode ride. I’m not a robot, and could have maybe been more diligent, but as soon as I can get into the DC Data Analyzer, I’ll post a screen grab of that.
I can’t help but feel that the spike is real. It’s there, at least it sure *feels* like it’s there.
I think I’m doing it right… *shrug*
Here’s the power graph.
Here’s the cadence graph.
Is there a way to overlay the two?
I think the point is that some spike is absolutely expected.
When you shift, the bike increases the resistance. If your goal is to maintain cadence, you will absolutely need to increase power in order to ride at that same cadence…no surprise there. If you simply shift up and only ride at the new gear’s required power to maintain that cadence, your cadence will slowly increase until you get to that setpoint. You should be able to get there without any noticeable spike. The quicker you want to get back to that cadence, the larger the power spike will be. (…just like how it takes ~500W to get to 30mph, but only ~300W to maintain it. You could eventually get there at ~300W, but that’s not really how anyone rides. It is more natural to surge and settle in.)
That is exactly what happens in the real world, right? There is so much more happening on the road, that maybe this is not so noticeable, perhaps?
In ERG mode, a similar thing happens. You shift up, and the bike increases resistance. If you slow your cadence by the correct amount, the power plot should stay flat. If you want to maintain cadence, then you’ll need more power, until the bike responds by reducing the same amount that it just increased when you shifted up.
As you’ve described it…I gotta agree with wahoo tech. It sounds like it is acting just like how a real bike works, which was the goal for this fake bike.
(breaks, creaks, squeaks, slips…that stuff is inexcusable, for sure.)
This is my recording from doing an ok consistent 85-ish rpm test going from 1-1 to 2-11.
I cycle outdoors everyday and I have _never_ experienced my bike feeling anything like this.
Session done in Zwift with 0% trainer difficulty.
The bike works just fine all in all but people say that its shifting is so realistic and I can’t get a straight answer if this is what they mean or if my bike is faulty.
Wow, that’s definitely out of whack. Wow. I feel a massive jump in resistance between 3 and 4, and then 5 through 11 sometimes feel like tiny jumps. Really. I’m not making this up..
I ordered the Asioma Duo’s over the weekend, and Italy is on a lock down I heard Monday apparently. I haven’t heard any news from them regarding my order. Bad time to order those I guess. DC: Neither of the two sources you listed as having them on your review apparently carry them now. Maybe pandemic related? I couldn’t find anyone that would come close to the cost ordering direct. Thought I’d be ‘safe’. Well, possibly, but it might take a while now. *shrug*
And my state is looking at more restrictions soon, from what the news looks like. If only we had smart people in government. *shrug*
It comes in and out of stock quite a bit. Here’s the recent stock status of the KICKR Bike, as per the trainer-stock status tool.
In fact, a few hours after your post, it came back in stock at REI (and is still in stock): link to avantlink.com
The trainer stock tool notified 35 people of it. :) – link to dcrainmaker.com
Prior to that, it was in-stock on the 13th of March and the 6th of March, both at REI, and for about 6-8 hours each time before going back out of stock. Data is fun!
…and, I just did all that digging to realize you were talking Favero Assioma. Sigh. No, they’ve always had pretty limited distribution.
No worries. 45 minutes after your message came in, I got the confirmation from Favero. At least they confirmed the order. Should be shipping ‘any day now’. I can’t believe what Italy has gone through in this pandemic. Truth be known, I guess, is that in America, we just ignored the mass carnage, lost in a sea of ‘post truth reportage’. Tragic isn’t the word. And people were aghast at Sweden’s deliberate lack of compassion over their citizens.
But anyway…
I’m thinking of selling my Kickr bike, and was looking at the Neo bike. Good swap?
Thanks for the response. I imagine more people are going to be looking for new(er) trainers as the spring progresses and more pandemic waves hit. I’m not planning on any organized rides this year as I think most will be canceled, or needlessly risky. *shrug*
I have seen comments on other forums (and have felt it myself) that some gear changes on the Kickr Bike feel larger than they should be. At least as the gear change is happening. Then it settles down to normal after that. They have reported this to Wahoo but so far it hasn’t been addressed.
Yeah, they pretty much blew off my concerns, and were more curious about the clicking they themselves detected in my audio clip of the latest replacement bike.
I noticed it with the latest replacement bike, but it could have been there from the last one too, can’t remember. The whole saga has been such a mess. Even my wife is taking their side now, saying that I am being to nit-picky and just need to ‘man up and accept it’. You can only marry such loyalty I guess…
I hope to get some power pedals to throw on and independently verify the whole situation soon.
And the damn clicking has stopped. Apparently I need to ride it for another 7 and a half hours to get a recording of it, however they did pick it up on the clip I sent them earlier (the new one does seem rather louder than the second replacement).
It’s back to the mysticism of bringing your car into the shop for a weird noise that you can’t replicate for anything, but pops up when you don’t have a way to record video of it. ARG… It’s actually somewhat funny. I had second thoughts on purchasing it in the first place. Oh well. It IS a good product, innovative, and all. It just has ‘growing pains’?
WOW!
that 6-7 shift hopped up 350W!
The only way wahoo service could defend that is if you made some ridiculous virtual cassette with huge jumps. (you didn’t, did you?)
I should’ve played around yesterday when I was outside on the road bike. I’d like to find a flat bit of road and simply replicate your test and measure the spikes. I’m certain (like you are) that the spikes will not be 350W.
…but do you at least agree that some spike is to be expected? …that when you shift up a gear, you need to push more wattage for a few seconds to re-establish cadence before settling into the new gear?
(I’d imagine something like 10-20% wattage spike as a pure guess)
cowrob –
the assiomas are pretty great! I did the xpedo hack and use them on the gravel bike. I had a hard time finding some for sale as well early this year and registered on favero. A few weeks later they opened up the velvet ropes and allowed me to buy a pair. Like the rest of the industry, I’m sure they are slammed.
As a power meter, they are great, but for this issue…i don’t think they’ll tell you anything new. If you can feel the spike and the spike shows up on the kickr PM, I’m sure it’ll be on the favero plot as well.
One thing to keep in mind, if you do ERG mode workouts and use the favero as the power source to control the resistance of the bike, weird things can happen as the feedback loop takes longer for the additional component to say its input. Definitely use the faveros to validate the kickr bike pm numbers. Assuming they are a reasonable match, save the headache and use the kickr bike’s pm to control itself in ERG. (I went through this, not great memories.)
Dan Froe —
I can see where that would be a one way trip to crazy town. It would seem to be like driving a car through the rear view mirror. Although I found that on the H3, I used the Duotrap sensor on my Trek, and the cadence really smoothed out nicely, but that’s cadence. With anything, you have to know what it’s sensing, and when. I did try the H2 I had with the C1 I had just installed, and it did seem to get a little weird. I have that now aged C1 pre-buyout Powertap power meter I got new, cheap, and it needs replacement chain rings, and they apparently aren’t available, so I was thinking of replacing it at some point. Figured now was as good a time as any. I liked the C1 too. Sad…
Fabian Åhrberg —
My experience was kinda the opposite, this afternoon. I took the usual beating between 3 and 4, and yet the ‘gears’ above that were almost too easy. It’s like I just blow through the upper ‘gears’ on the ‘little ring’, and they are almost meaningless, and yet that literal feeling ‘jump’ from 3 to 4 is sometimes a killer. I have gotten to the point where I dread pushing that lever. I’ve done some really brutal rides where I am knackered at the end, and try to put up a last minute ‘brave finish’, and I’ve hit that wall between 3 and 4, or 14 and 15, and it just seems so cruel…
So, for Dan and Fabian, I guess I’m hoping the Asiomas are a ‘sanity check’ for how bad it seems so I know if I’m really having issues, or just wimping out. It’s seems pretty noticeable to me, so, is it real, or is it Memorex?
Hi
Did you ever get to the bottom of this?
I’ve just got a bike and finding the same issues from 5 to 6.
Cadence in 5th is about 105 and power starts to drop. Change to 6th and then there’s a huge power spike where my cadence then drops to 80. I have to then change back to 5th and start the process again.
Ive had my bike for a year and always thought it felt strange but given that my past year has been run focused I never gave it much thought. As I start to pick up cycling its become more and more apparent that something is ‘off’…
From the comments I’m not alone and have quite a bit of reading to do to determine the fix or next move.
Jason: Talking to me?
I had huge spikes in every ‘gear’ from 4 to 5, all the way up. I took it up with tech support who kept saying it was ‘simulating a normal bike’, so I did the same thing with a real bike on a Neo 2T, and sent both sets of data to them. I didn’t hear from them for a month, and when I did, they wanted more data. They sat on that for nearly a month, all the time I was not riding it, and then got no responses from the agent I was working with. I finally asked for them to either fix it, or buy it back. They chose the later. The bike was not ride-able because of the freaky power jumps. I couldn’t ride the top two or three ‘gears’ because they were just too high, which was crazy. Nothing at all compared to my ‘real bike’, and I hadn’t changed a thing. Same firmware. I can’t remember how long I had it, but it seemed off in the beginning. No idea what happened.
You could try using the app and reprogramming the cassette. I wasn’t able to find a ‘reset button’ to try to get back to some sense of reality, and the support agent seemed to be in-communicative for some reason, and I got nothing but ‘engineering is looking into it’ as a response. I gave up on it. I really liked the concept of that bike, but it was just too fragile, too unreliable.
No, I never did find out what caused it. Maybe you will have a better experience with their support.
Magnus: The big issue I felt I faced is I was getting close to the warranty expiration, and did not want to get stuck having to pay for repairs in the future (knowing I’d need them). It’s up to you, but I had thought if they replaced my last bike, I was going to leave it boxed, and sell it, getting what I could out of it.
If you are close to the warranty expiration, I’d get in touch with their support right away and get it replaced as soon as you/they can. Plus, maybe they have a fix for that issue.
I bought one of the first KICKR Bikes when they were released, and after about a year and a half of riding it 3 to 5 times per week I had an issue with an error code. Wahoo was excellent at replacing the bike at no charge even though it was technically out of warrantee. A couple of months ago I was having a problem with the handlebars, and again Wahoo was very good at shipping another handlebar unit at no charge. Guess the point is that I’ve found Wahoo customer service to be better than just about any other company I’ve dealt with.
As far as the power jumps between gears, I haven’t noticed it on the KICKR Bikes I’ve had. I often use the entire cassette on a ride, and there hasn’t been a shift where I’ve thought “that felt weird”. Maybe I’m just a macro absorber type of rider rather than a micro absorber, or maybe the problem is specific to only some bikes.
Sadly I’m just beyond my warranty period. Though I believe I may have some additional time with my cc.
I’ll reach out to wahoo next week beforw trying my cc company. I’ve had a good experience with them in the past with other products so hopefully that continues.
Hi
I got mine working. After a lot of time playing around, I found that the app (iPhone) was not updating any of the profiles. I tried setting up and etap 12 speed and it was only showing 11 speeds. Uninstalled the app from the phone, re-downloaded and just done a ride. No power spikes between any of the gears. Hoping it works for anyone else.
So my first contact with support did not go well… Typical canned response ‘this is normal and expected… enjoy your ride’… And even went on to say this was typical for all other kickr trainers.
To which I replied this is neither normal or expected for a 3500 piece of kit. I will try deleting and reinstalling the app in hopes that addresses the issues otherwise I will continue to press on support.
I’ve had three of the previous kickrs along with various other wahoo products and have always had a good experience with support. I have no reason to believe this wouldn’t continue especially with a product of this price.
It’s disturbing if they are trying to say that is ‘normal’. The bike didn’t start out like that, as I remember. Something changed. What? I will never know. Giving them the telemetry graphs seemed to get their interest, but nothing changed. I don’t know what they were doing, but kept telling me my data was ‘in engineering’ and ‘they would get back to me’, but still kept saying, or mumbling, that ‘nothing was wrong’, but my Neo Smart doesn’t do that. I can redo the test with that one, but using a real bike, and the 2T, it was markedly different. Less abusive, more ‘normal’.
Given their history with the early Kickr trainers, why they would seem to ignore, and welcome scorn and bad press for ignoring this. Unless there just aren’t enough bikes out there having this issue and they don’t know what the problem is, or just choose to ignore it. After a couple of months (as I remember) I was feeling blown off, dismissed. If I needed that after spending $3,500, I could have given the money to a random person on the street. *sigh*
Good luck, keep at them. Send in data comparing your trainer and a real bike. Maybe you can get them to respond differently. I just felt like the tone of the whole support process changed. As if I was experiencing something they didn’t want to deal with. Weird…
Good luck…
Does anyone knows a possible price drop??? IMO 3500€ Is way too much. I think that stages bike in some ways is much better but too bulky though even if it is sturdier something that I like it but the slickest design and the built in climb it is a must.
I much appreciate if someone has some insights about a possible price drop or even rumors for a v2 bike.
No, I wouldn’t expect either a V2 bike or a price drop. Wahoo can’t keep up with demand as it is, and they’ve only launched in what is effectively a small number of countries compared to where they offer their normal trainers.
And as for a new version, with Zwift slowly churning away on a Zwift Bike, nobody would be looking to announce a new version until they make their first move (plausibly later this year). But even ignoring Zwift, I think it’s too early for a Wahoo KICKR V2 bike anytime soon.
I would think, if anything, the price would go up, not down.
I think they would have a lot of people that have had problems with the Gen 1 bikes demanding the Gen 2 as a replacement. Wahoo will likely not even whisper another one might be coming out partially for that reason. Plus it would stall sales of the Gen 1, which wouldn’t be bad, but the cry for Gen 2 replacements for ‘bad’ Gen 1 bikes, I’d imagine, could be deafening. What they might do is go to a 5th rev of the internals, and tweak some other parts of the bike to address quality/consistency issues.
But, so far, Wahoo has enough problems with the one version so birthing another version would be problematic. Not saying they are all bad, as the shop mine came from sold two that same day. The first one arrived in a destroyed box, and has been perfect. and I’m on my third bike. Consistency seems to be missing somewhere. Maybe you could find a used one to save money? Not saying I’d ever consider one used, but it’s an option.
The Stages bike is what Mad Dog Athletics should have done a few years ago.
Thanks Rai. In your opinion is it worth the price and will you recommend it taking into account all the updates since launch? And it is so, where is the best place to buy it in europe.
Soon I will be joining a Zwift team so I would like something better than my good old trustworthy neo Tacx smart v1.
On the other hand has stages solved the problems with erg mode on its bike???
Regards
After having multiple issues with my bike and eventually returning it, I wanted to make sure that other people get an idea of the issues some people are having with reliability of the kickr bike. DCR made a comment on his interview with wahoo ceo that forums are apt to get complaints, but when people were getting multiple replacements with the same common issues, that made him aware of a systemic issue. I am hoping that DCR could use his influence, to perhaps have another directed conversation with wahoo. Has the pandemic caused issues with quality control? I have collated some (not all, as I did not want to go through everything). Note how many people have multiple replacements and there are common themes. Also, note the dates, these are relatively recent complaints continuing to occur, despite being 1.5 yrs into production.
I have put the facebook comment and corresponding replies.
Feel free to join the facebook kickr bike facebook group to confirm if you have any doubts about my post.
Flemming Hook 3/13/21
Here we go again 😤😡🤬 right Crank Arm split AGAIN! between 175 & 172.5 🙄. Those of you in this group who knows me and my endeavour with Wahoo Kickr Bikes knows that I’m on my third bike so since this is the right Crank arm (same problem I had in October/November) I presume Wahoo is gonna send me bike #4 it’s really a shame this bike was really holding up good 8879 km Bike #1 & #2 managed a total of 8860 km.
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Rus Kesley 2/25/21
Fecking hell, just when you are getting more confident and comfortable with the 2nd bike, 3rd set of handlebars and shifters, the damn thing fails again. Why do we pay £3000 for this lemon?
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Harry Petheram 3/9/21
Hi has anyone had this problem with the power block before it’s been working fine up till now (shows video of blinking green LED on the powerbrick)
REPLIES –
Eric MorrisonHappened to me! Raise a ticket with Wahoo and they will replace the bike
Erik LarsenSame here – raised a ticket , and new bike arrived
Neil Flippance Yep just going through this at the moment. My bike is kept indoors in the warm so it doesn’t get cold. They sent me another brick and as soon as I plugged it in it did it too. Just trying to arrange new bike delivery now
Phil Stephens Same here. Tried a new PSU, didn’t work. Ended up with new bike
Christian WarrebäckRaised a ticket —> new bike
Karen Wilson RichardsonYes! Today my bike just died mid workout. No power and now the block just flashes green light and bike still has no power. It’s not out in the cold either, warm room. Opened ticket….
Allan OlsenI have same problem every second time i start.. 2 weeks old bike !!! I will try to warm… before raising a ticket
Matt Footesame happened to me, got new bike
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Johnni Thomsen 3/8/21
Then it was my time….my left shifter is DEAD💀💀💀. The bike is 3.5 month old😦
I have change the plug to another socket, but without luck….it’s dead
REPLIES –
Carl Gleaves
both my shifters have died. Cleaned and maintained as well as could ever be done with isopropyl alcohol and electrical connection spray and I occasionally I will get them working for an hour turning on off and changing the ports and then they stop mid ride. My replacement bike is coming on Monday as wahoo says it’s a hardware fault, there customer service is excellent but I have real fears over the build quality of a £3000 bike so much so I think I will sell the replacement bike after it arrives and just use a kickr
Scott Poisson
My left shifter died. Two of my ports don’t work. Purchased bike in October. Great customer service but I am very concerned about quality control issues. Seems this is far too often a problem.
I thought I was immune since I had no issues until recently.
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Jaakko Knuutila 2/16/21
Does anyone know the usual waiting times for Wahoo customer support? My ticket has now been marked as open for over a week. No point of creating another ticket since it goes to the back of the queue, I guess.
REPLIES-
Dániel Orbán
I’m on my 3rd bike (2nd replacement). First time it was fast, used the deposit method just like this time). But now: The “old” bike is in its boxes since about 3 weeks ago and the support “unable” to send me the shipping labels…. Ohh forgot to mention the 3rd bike needs to be replaced too, but i can’t start that process until the previous one is still here… And i’m asking for update on the same ticket every second day.. you quessed it right: not even a single answer….
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Kab BakWahoo 2/13/21
Had a problem with incline not reaching what it showed in profile settings, always seemed to be at least 5 % short – initially it did reach minus 15 %, but then would only go to max of minus 10, whatever profile settings I entered. Also noted whatever minus % it displayed on the LED the physical position was always the same, measured various LED display angles against handle bar position as in photo – anyway, few e mails to CS, them asking me to try various settings, no change in reaching LED stated angle, they are sending me a new bike
REPLIES —
David O’Leary
Just got my 3rd bike, also has this change. No tilt play on the first two but the third has plenty of movement
Dave Shepherd
Bought in November also same as mine
Jacques-Olivier Veilleux
Ibought the bike in october and have these too
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Brent Wilson 12/13/21
I’m keep seeing all the these problems and now wish I would have kept my smart trainer and bought a used bikes for my wife and I instead of the Wahoo Bike. I am on my second bike after had the clunking noise and I have my finger crossed there is no issues with this one.
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Jared Strauss 12/29/20
Replacement bike arrived. Looks like Wahoo updated the spot where you connect the shift cables, added a rubber grommet/cap to the stem cap screw and the water bottle holder is now plastic. I don’t see any other changes.
replies—
David O’Leary
Just got my 3rd bike, also has this change. No tilt play on the first two but the third has plenty of movement
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Dean Neale 2/25/21
Well my replacement bike lasted less than a month before today developing the same non functioning shifter problem……..lost for words £3k of scrap metal!
replies—-
Fabry Fabry Motta
after 3 shifters and 2 bikes I’m waiting for the 3rd one to send it back for a refund. Sorry, they have great customer care but they should just re engineering the all thing as it does not work in so many ways and some are just mechanical stupid fixes, like the tube metal being too thick and not allowing the clamps to work should not be rocket science to fix.
And don’t tell me is some new product defects this is some idiots in charge of a dumb project which should have their ass kicked
Søren Ellegaard
It’s incredible in a modern world – that this can go on and on 😢 and wahoo apparently doesn’t address this publicly
Rus Kesley
I have the exact same problem, shifters dropping out during or before rides. I thought I’d addressed the issue by regulating temperature (bought a heater) and humidity (dehumidifier). This solution seemed to work at first, but alas, it would appear I’m headed for my 4th set of shifters and 3rd bike. It is not what one expects for £3000.
I realise many do not have issues, but so many do. It is no comfort that when the bike works, it is great, when it doesn’t, I’d quite easily lob it off a skyscraper.
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Annette Clough 2/20/21
Really fed up. Bike died this morning 3 pedal stokes into a zwift workout.
Of course it’s Saturday so nothing can be done about it.
For the price of the bike I don’t feel it should be this fragile. I’m not exactly putting masses of watts through it, I unplug it when I’m not using it, keep liquids away from it just in case & it’s in my house so not exposed to changes in temperature.
Not sure I want a replacement at this moment, thinking of binning the whole thing and getting a tacx
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Thomas Willan 12/2/20
Replacement bike arrived today… knackered straight out the box. Bars don’t stay in place at all (diameter of the “steerer” tube is less than the old bike and even those slipped a bit) and there’s a horrendous noise and reverberations. It’s worse than the one it was supposed to replace
replies—
Darren Shiels
Just received my replacement bike today as well. Same issue with the handlebars slipping. Thankfully my old bike hasn’t been collected yet as they haven’t sent the boxes so I can use the bars from it which are fine and don’t slip
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Warren Symonds 2/20/21
So my bike is being returned to Wahoo for several reasons. Has anyone experienced a total power stoppage mid ride. In essence no power is getting through to the bike. When I unplug the bike then plug back on I get the green light on the power pack but no lights or power on the bike. Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated.
I have to say I’m staggered by the number of bike returns I’m reading within this group.
replies–
Jared Strauss
I might have the record. I’m on my 5th bike! 2 rides in and it seems perfect.
Annette Clough
I had exactly this issue yesterday and my bike is now dead and I am waiting for Wahoo to open tomorrow to get it fixed. Had the bike since october
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Jared Strauss 12/17/20
Has anyone had post warranty problems yet? My warranty is up soon. My 4th bike is also on it’s way here…I asked Wahoo and about post warranty issues a d they said they’d continue to work with me.
Replies—
Flemming Hook
I love my Kickr Bike … well I love/loved all 3 of my Kickr bikes and thank goodness is the Wahoo costumers service the best… that said…I do find it pretty problematic, that the quality of the bike is sooooo bad. I know there are lots of people whom apparently bought a bike and had zero problems … good for them, really I mean it, but there are also a lot of people who purchased a Kickr bike and have a ton of problems.
I mean we are talking about a product costing around $3,500.- for the most of us that’s not petty cash, I presume, and as us with one or more problems with our bike(s) starts to come close to the warranty expiring it’s good to know that Wahoo “will still keep working for us” whatever that means. I’m happy to be in Europe so I have 2 years of warranty.
Hmmmm doing a bit of calculation, if the replacement bikes keeps breaking down at the same tempo, I’ll be on my 12-15th! bike in June 2022. Wow imagine that. Merry Xmas everyone
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Joern Petersen 2/27/21
Hi all
Have been prepared for a nice ride this evening and all of suddenly the shifting on the right site is not working anymore and after 4km I have to stop 😡 do you have any cool to ideas to fix this and did you have any experience on this issue. I hate the idea to change the whole bike with wahoo but I contacted supporis this a known issue?
replies —
Rus Kesley
Yep
I’m on 2nd bike and 4th set of shifters. Only had bike for 8 months. Pretty peeved over it to be honest. I’ve now a heater and dehumidifier to combat humidity, damp and cold temperatures. It seemed to help to begin with but still the same problem occurs.
It’s a design fault and @wahoo need to address it.
Aitor Sanchoyerto Martinez
This is a very frequent problem on our Wahoo KICKR BIKE. This generally occurs on the right shifter. I do not really know why the same does not happen in the left. If you have the same problem again during training, try selecting Shimano Di2 in the Wahoo application. You can finish your training, using only the left shifter
Hi Ray,
Bought mine last week, based on your review. Hardware revision 4. No weird sounds, no thigh rub, no creaking, and I am super happy with the purchase. The only issue I’ve faced so far is, when I downshift to a low gear, for eg., 6th-11th gears on the cassette, pedaling becomes hard for 3/5 seconds, before it dials back to normal. This is super irritating during a long ride when my legs are tired. I searched all over Wahoo’s FAQ’s and forums, and no one has mentioned this anywhere. Can you help out with this one?
UPDATE: Wahoo support claims that this is a representation of real world riding. I almost spilled my drink when I read that! I am in the process of arguing with them that this is most definitely not real world driving. Downshifting a gear should not momentarily feel like downshifting 3 gears at once!
😂😂😂
I have the same issue
The Kickr bike group on Facebook has had several of these reported. Wahoo claims it’s normal, while it isn’t. Since the power meter functions correctly under ERG, it’s hard to believe they can’t seem to fix this with a firmware update.
The agent that is handling my issues said: “Switching between gears requires the Bike to calculate the updated gear ratio, which may take a few pedal strokes to fully engage. This is similar to ERG mode changes with varying cadence. The spike/jumps will vary depending on the cassette range selected as the changes from cog-to-cog change depending on the selected cassette.”
Maybe it’s ‘trainer brain’, but I don’t remember it being as bad before. Plus, if anything it seems to OVER engage, on the way up, and under engage on the way down.
The Asioma’s will be here tomorrow.
I thought ‘so why is it so reactive in ERG mode’? It doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense. If it’s in ‘free mode’, I can see where some of the spikes could be due to ‘anticipatory pedaling’, which I did IRL occasionally, but it’s almost like now, the firmware is pouncing on that drop in power, treating it like a mini ‘death spiral’: spiking the resistance because you ‘dropped the power load’, and when downshifting, it’s just dropping out for a few seconds. I need to try it free riding again, but the ‘PRL Full’ was a free ride, and the beating from those four gear changes was getting old fast.
The bike rides like a dream, except for the downshift power spike. It would be a shame if this issue can’t be fixed via a firmware update! Hoping Wahoo delivers.
You have a spike on the downshift? My experience is the floor just drops out! *BOOM* The floor is in the sub-sub basement. If I’m cranking 200 watts, and drop a gear, I may end up pushing 90 watts, and Zwift will drop ERG mode, and I’m sucking air. It actually happened today! I went from 3 to 10. Had a HUGE spike, and then went back to 3, and neither Zwift, or the bike could keep up as the ‘bottom’ just disappeared. Zwift dropped ERG, and I had to shift up three gears to get ERG to reestablish before I could then drop a gear at a time to get back where I was.
ERG mode suffers a lot with the ‘gearing problem’.
I only ride in the free mode and I do have spikes on the downshift as well. It’s like you described, dropping a gear send me to double digits in watts and as I’ve said earlier it feels more like riding a rollercoaster than a bike. This is really unfortunate because I know that the bike shouldn’t work this way, since the earlier ones didn’t. A short video of watts dropping a and spiking in action link to youtube.com
From Wahoo:
“The KICKR Bike is a tool for simulation, so it’s not necessarily going to be an exact 1 to 1 as outdoor riding, but it should be similar based on terrain.
Due to you being indoors/that generally requiring more laborious muscle recruitment, I think the feel of the shift is more abrupt than its outdoor counterpart.
Additionally when trying to maintain cadence while shifting to harder gear this means the (simulated) rider mass will need to accelerate. This acceleration requires additional power, and the faster the acceleration to maintain cadence, the higher the power. The inverse can be true as well as the Bike is accounting for the gear ratio change.
Hence the spikes/duration you are seeing. In looking at the .fit file this looks to be normal function of the bike/nothing we would consider abnormal/out of place.
We actually had one of our developers ride his road bike outside and measure the shift change in power and compare it to his kickr bike. It took him 500 watts over the course of 3 seconds to settle down, when he shifted from Big ring and the gear 6 in his cassette to gear 7 at a constant cadence of 80. (you can see the various shift spikes/duration of the spikes from his below power file)
While this isn’t a lab perfect test, it does show that shift changes on the kickr bike are similar to road shift changes in terms of the power needed to be generated.”
I got that same reply. It’s a friggin corporate template!
This is the reply I got. They basically copy paste the same email (as if a developer goes out to ride after each ticket they get). It’s lame and so stupid of them to resort to this sort of corporate trickery!
So the bike is a tool for simulation, its not going to be an exact 1 to 1 as outdoor riding, but it should be similar based on terrain.
Due to you being indoors/that generally requiring more laborious muscle recruitment, I think the feel of the shift is more abrupt than its outdoor counterpart.
Additionally when trying to maintain cadence while shifting to harder gear this means the (simulated) rider mass will need to accelerate. This acceleration requires additional power, and the faster the acceleration to maintain cadence, the higher the power.
Hence the spikes/duration you are seeing. In looking at the .fit file this looks to be normal function of the bike/nothing we would consider abnormal/out of place.
We actually had one of our developers ride his road bike outside and measure the shift change in power and compare it to his kickr bike. It took him 500 watts over the course of 3 seconds to settle down, when he shifted from Big ring and the gear 6 in his cassette to gear 7 at a constant cadence of 80. (you can see the various shift spikes/duration of the spikes from his below power file)
While this isn’t a lab perfect test, it does show that shift changes on the kickr bike are similar to road shift changes in terms of the power needed to be generated.
Certainly I will communicate the feedback on the matter, but as it stands we do not see the shifting being compromised on your bike/replacing it will generate the same experience.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Halfway through the second week with no response, and I get this message. One thing they ask for, I don’t quite understand.
>>This case was escalated to our developers for feedback and we are currently investigating some isolated reports on this issue.
>>To gather more information would you include:
>>The .fit file(s) from Zwift from the screenshots
>>Your exact gearing profile in Wahoo Fitness app
>>Your rider weight in Zwift
>>Lastly, in the Wahoo Fitness App on Level mode at 0% would you please shift from the problematic gears at similar cadences to see if the BIKE has the same behavior?
I should have no problem finding the .fit files. Providing the ‘gearing profile’ shouldn’t be a problem either. The ‘rider weight’ too, but:
What is ‘level mode at 0%’?
Does that mean the lowest ‘bike’ Zwift has? Does that mean the ‘difficulty’? Is this possibly the ‘elevation’? I goggled it and got a those few possibilities, but no clear ‘Here it is!’.
But, YES, they are acknowledging there *might* be a problem. Somewhere. Potentially. Maybe…
(I have it for sale, so it’s good that it hasn’t sold yet. Oops)
Thanks all!
Could ‘level mode at 0%’ refer to this: link to reddit.com
Hi,
Interesting, since Wahoo has described this as normal behavior earlier. I think that the level 0% refers to the tilt of the bike.
Apparently the number of people with the problem has become a problem?
I think, the more I read, the 0% is setting the trainer difficulty to 0. I’ll give it a go and see what happens. It sounds like it could be an interesting ride. I did have the difficulty set to 100%, and WOW! the steep hills were killing me on a free ride/race. I stopped really quickly and dialed it down to around 50%, and was able to survive the rest of it all. There was a lot of climbing.
I wonder if the firmware has a bug that accentuates the climbs on some bikes. It sort of doesn’t explain the 3 to 4 wall, but does relate to over ladling the pain on upward trending resistance. Just a thought…
“ in the Wahoo Fitness App on Level mode at 0%”
=> it has nothing to do with zwift. it’s a setting in the wahoo fitness apo.
(and it refers to tilt, as mentioned before)
Here is Trainer Difficulty set to 0%, working from 1 to 11 and back to 1.
*shrug*
Dangit! It’s dropping Bluetooth now. And it won’t reconnect unless I power it down and back up. I’m not amused. The first time it did this was on a TrainerRoad ride, and I was just plugging along, and nothing was changing like it normally does. Oh, it did this on a Zwift ride too. All of a sudden, flat line, no change from where it dropped off.
I’ve heard this is a symptom of potential impending badness. Yippee. With the spikes and sags, and now this, I might be better off going back full time to the H3, and get a Sterzo plate.
Really CowRob reading you all puts me off buying the bike. I still want to dip but being the expensier of the bunch with such a high ratio of problems I don’t know what the heck is wahoo doing.
They aren’t all bad. It’s the weird part, the shop I bought from had two bikes come in. The second bike is supposedly still running, error free. There are Wahoo Kickr bikes out there that are fine. I wonder what the difference is.
Still having unpleasant clicking under moderate load at 7-9% grade. Not just a noise thing, but also a feel thing. The cranks are appropriately tightened. I also get a big pop from the center of the bike every 3-5 minutes. This has become less frequent since I doused that center area with the silicon lubricant they recommended, but still there and still annoying. I probably have 2500-3000 miles on the bike and only a few have been worry free.
I had clicking/creaking, and suggest you check the bars and stem, and then the seat post, and seat.
If you have a torque wrench, tighten down the stem to head tube post attachment, and the bars in the stem. Seat post is just make sure it’s not moving. Try some fiber grip, some people call it ‘assembly paste’. It’s gritty paste that works to keep fiber bikes and seat posts from creaking. If none of that helps, take a video and sent it to Wahoo support. My first bike had constant creaking and popping. The silicone spray only worked for a couple of days. I’m thinking of just selling the damn thing. Too much drama…
Did you receive the Assioma duo pedals yet? It’d be nice to get a comparison of bike vs the pedals.
Got them. Charged and updated them (they were current actually), and installed them. I put the cleats on my backup shoes, and rode for about 40 minutes while being interrupted several times by phone calls and other drama.
The cleats aren’t quite right and I ended up having some post ride knee pain. I did generate some data, but due to the many breaks the data is likely pretty useless. So until I get the cleats right, I’ll likely not be doing much with them. But I am impressed with the pedals. They are pretty amazing, so far, and were easy to setup, and, after remembering to do the zero offset late, they seem to be churning out numbers. Just glancing at the data live, it appeared that the bike was more generous than the pedals on the wattage numbers, but that’s just preliminary glancing at the numbers cascading on the screens.
I did see a spike of over 300 watts during the 3 to 4 transition, and a drop of wattage to the 30’s on the 4 to 3 transition. I rode from 1 to 11, up and down, and then 12 to 22, up and down. The higher the ‘gear’, the lower the spike was. Is that the firmware projecting the inertia of an IRL rider? Would the spikes be higher at lower ‘gears’? Hmm… So why the huge spike from 3 to 4? Still doesn’t make sense.
Here’s a Q&D graph of the ride. This is in ERG mode with a 180 watt set point. I started out doing just a warmup, and then did quite a few transitions back and forth between 3rd and 4th ‘gear’. The power spikes were huge. I tried to keep the cadence the same, but the sudden watt demand was tough. Then I started over at 1st ‘gear’, and worked up to 11, spent a minuter or so there, and then worked my way down. Then I just rode the ride to get it done.
So that early area of spikes and sags is the 3-4 transition. I did a lot of them. Aside from a few where I stumbled, the demand was pretty massive. Peaked at 433W. Yikes. No other ‘gear’ seemed to be quite so harsh. The compliment to that was the 80, or less, watt drops when downshifting. Some of the higher ‘gears’ had drops too, but none so drastic as those from 4 to 3. Whatever it is, it’s not natural…
What does the power graph look like when shifting on a real bike with the same gearing and the same 180 watt set point?
I’m expecting the replacement Neo today. Stay tuned, I guess…
The bike I have matches the setup of the Kickr Bike, so it *should* be somewhat similar.
I saw the same sort of thing on my Kickr Bike and I have gotten some clarity about what is going on. What I was seeing was that if I upshifted the power would spike upward over about 5 seconds and then gradually come back down and that my cadence over all of this time period was essentially constant. What Wahoo pointed out is that on a real bike on the road if you are at constant power and upshift what happens is that your rpm instantly drops and the power stays the same. Which we all see every day. If, when you shift, you want to keep cadence constant then you have to accelerate the bike and put out more power because if you want to keep constant cadence in a higher gear it means that the bike needs to speed up. So, when you upshift on the road you need to spike the power to accelerate and increase the speed of the bike and then the power will drop back down to whatever steady state power is need to keep the new speed. The reverse happens in downshifting. So, in reality the Kickr Bike is trying to do what you see on the road. The main problem is that the resistance change when you accelerate is too slow. So, when you shift you cadence doesn’t drop quickly like it does in real life. It just kind of stays the same and then the power goes up. What you can do on the Bike is slow your cadence after the shift and the power spike goes away. Wahoo is aware that the current behavior is not that lifelike and are working on it.
I assume that I’m a fairly knowledgeable person, and have thought of the issue that I am seeing. The spikes are higher, for me, in the transition from 3rd to 4th gear. The rest of the gear changes are usually not as hard of a slog. It’s like, to extend into the real world, the 4th gear cog is huge. Like big enough that the power on the way down drops to lows of 80 and worse. I don’t remember down shifting on my real bike causing the perceived bottom of demand happening to that degree.
The replies from the agent I’ve been working with seem to have the underlying idea that the Kickr Bike is fine, it’s my perception of reality that seems off. ‘It’s the same as our engineer’s experience’ the last one assured me. They don’t seem to be sitting on the fence of there being a problem. There isn’t one… Others have commented that they get hammered at higher simulated gear changes, so there appears to be some inconsistency between individual bikes. My experience, in the higher gears, is that it seems to under perform on the higher gears, and over pummel that 3 to 4 transition.
Is it always 3-4 that has the bigger spikes when you use different virtual cassettes?
(The display calls the easiest gear 1/1, but the app lists the cogs from smallest to biggest as 1st through 11/12/13, so I am flipping these numbers…)
In that video above, your notes say it is 50/34 and a 11/28. So, those 3 and 4 cogs should be 23T and 21T. If you make that “Ninth Cog” (aka gear 3) to be 22 instead of 23, does the spike appear to be half as extreme?
I’m wondering if there is just some weird simulated gear ratio that is not calculating correctly. Maybe you can tweak your virtual cassette by a single tooth or two to avoid it?
I did a test like yours above that I intend to replicate on the road.
I matched my road bike’s gearing to the kickr bike (52/34 and a 11/32) and set the slope to a constant so that I was at ~100W in 1/1 – to avoid that resistance floor shown in Fabian Åhrberg’s plot. I tried to keep a steady cadence while upshifting every 15 seconds. At lower gears, the spike was within the noise, but by the time I was at 220 before shifting up, they are very noticeable – peaking at ~280 before settling in. The last gear I had legs for that day was settled at 350W and upshift peaked at 450W. There was a gradual increase in the size of these peaks. It felt like a bike should feel. I’m going to replicate this outside as best as I can and see how it compares. I’ll then post up some power plots here.
If I set the ‘demand’ at 180, and pedal with as near the same cadence as I can, I get what I call huge spikes between 3 and 4. I simulate my Roubaix which is a compact crank, and 11/34 cassette. 3 is a 17 tooth, and 4 is a 19 tooth cog. (Verified from Shimano: 11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-27-30-34)
So to get pounded on 3 to 4 seems excessive. Whatever they are simulating isn’t reality. But the weird part is people saying they don’t have issues with the lower, and only have large spikes with the higher cogs. I can put the bike that I’m emulating on the Kickr on the Neo, and see what happens.
Did you try this on your Roubaix/Neo?
Note – the kickr bike counts from easy gear to hard gear (1/1 is the easiest and 2/11 is the hardest), so gear 3 on that cassette is 27 and gear 4 is 25.
What if you go in and change the cassette to a custom set? Best to not use ERG mode…it will just add another feedback loop. Try running the bike without anything controlling it. It should work. if that is weird, use either some app that has slope mode, or a flat spot on zwift – tempus fugit.
Try these custom cassette tweaks:
11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-27-30-34 (normal config/control) a hard spike from 3-4?
11-13-15-17-19-21-23-26-27-30-34 (Test A – changed 3 to 25) Is the 3-4 spike less? is the 4-5 spike brutal?
11-13-15-17-19-23-25-27-30-32-34 (Test B – moved the 25 and 27 up the cassette) is the heavy spike now from 4-5?
If you run those tests, it’ll tell you whether this issue is isolated to that particular gear ratio change or if it tied to a gear number change. If the former, try: 11-13-15-17-19-21-24-26-28-31-34, or similar (avoid 25/27 as neighbors). If the latter, woof. That’s a bummer.
Well, this wasn’t as productive as I thought it might be. I was having issues with the shifting, and adjusting the settings on Zwift, and the Stages power meter.
I had issues with the Di2 skipping down a gear in the early effort, and the power shown in the Zwift screen was ‘too smooth’. I set it to instant power, because, yeah, it was smooth. There must be a setting in the Stages, or the Tacx app. BTW, the new Neo 2T is pretty awesome. It seems to be ‘stiffer’, and not so easy to sway back and forth. (Maybe I have to ‘break’ it in?
I’ll have to try again I guess…
And here is the Zwift picture during the ride. Looks WAY TOO SMOOTH…
Yikes…
And Garmin Connect. More of the same. All over the place. Ray really has it down. It’s a lot harder to do this than it looks.
So, yes, Roubaix, Neo 2T, Stages l/r.
What does it look like without ERG mode? That is making it too hard to see the shifts.
I will do a free ride today and see what happens. I have to get over this shifting issue first.
Okay, the first ‘free ride’ is my Roubaix, on a Tacx Neo 2T, current firmware, and Stages L/R, zero reset yesterday.
I used Zwift’s Tempus Fugit, and did everything in the big ring due to the flat simulated conditions. I started out in the 1st cog, and progressed through them until I just couldn’t, and then backed down to 3, then 4, etc… It looks pretty plain. Up, down, up, down…
I got to the 9th cog, 20th gear.
And here is the second ‘free ride’, the Kickr Bike, with firmware 1.16.0, with less than week old Favero Assioma pedals, zero reset yesterday.
Again, I used the same course, Zwift’s Tempus Fugit, and didd the big ring, and started out in the first simulated cog. I rode a bit longer in the first cog, and then progressed dto 2, and 3, before I hit the wall going to 4, did a minute at 4, and went to 5, and did 30 seconds of it, and went back to 4, and then 3, 2, and one, and worked back up to 4, and then 3, and quit.
I got to the 5th simulated cog, and it was either this ride, or the earlier ride that got me a new PR for VO2 Max on the Garmin Edge. I tried to keep the cadence in check on both rides, as much as possible.
The 3 to 4 jump is noticeable, and reproducible.
DC Data Analyzer file for power during my Roubaix ride. The cadence is pretty surprisingly even.
So, THIS is (my version of) real life.
DC Data Analyzer file for power during my Kickr Bike ride.
No comment. (Is this reality?)
It really looks like the ratio calculation is wrong. There are larger than expected hops between gears, but otherwise, looks fine. If so, you can fix it yourself with a custom virtual cassette.
Your standard stack is:
11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-27-30-34
Change it to (12 speed/custom):
11-13-15-17-19-21-23-25-26-27-30-34
Does that 3-4 shift seem better? If so, simply play with those numbers till you have your desired total range and hops between that each shift feel like what you’d expect.
(The reason your Neo tracks so well – no calculation of virtual cranksets/cassettes! It is straight up mechanical teeth defining the ratios.)
My take is that Wahoo claims their Kickr Bike ‘simulates a real bike and riding experience’. They also say it’s ‘not perfect’, but ‘really close’. Well, that jump from 3 to 4 is not normal, or ‘really close’, IMO.
I, according to what they say, should not have to futz with the virtual cassette size and individual cog sizes to get that ‘really close’ riding experience.
They offer the 11/34 simulated cassette, and also simulate the compact crank configuration, both of which I use on my real bike. If it was something I programmed/hacked, I wouldn’t have a claim. So something is wrong. It’s not a ‘simulation of a real bike’.
My wife says they are going to get tired of dealing with me. They probably are. I’m sure they are very tired of dealing with a lot of other people too. Hearing about people being on their 6th bike should be embarrassing to them, I’d think. (Maybe they DO need to come up with a more reliable bike (Kickr Bike v2), if nothing else to save face? Although it’s hard to get a grip on how many people have problems when all I hear is people with problems)
I’d easily, at this point, accept an offer to refund my purchase price so I can walk away. It’s been an experience owning this bike.
I really do like the concept of it, but I’ve had a lot of issues that make it hard to love. It’s starting to effect my desire to want to ride. I’ve had too many issues, aside from this power issue. The power issue just adds more to the equation. I was urged to sell this bike after it arrived, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I really like the idea of the Kickr Bike. It’s just been hard to deal with the issues. That was a lot of money for something that feels like a beta product. At some point, I just want to enjoy riding and training again. It’s why my wife originally got it as a birthday present for me.
Sorry. It’s broken. It’s in the garage now. I hope Wahoo can fix it.
All right dude. I tried to help. In the time it took you to type that, you could’ve given it a shot. From the looks of your last data, seems like that is the solution.
When you’re an early adopter, don’t be surprised when things aren’t perfect. Maybe next time, wait a few years before dropping cash on new products for all the wrinkles to get ironed out. Perhaps cutting edge tech isn’t for you?
They never said it was a public beta. They have been marketing the bike as a bike trainer that simulates real bike riding. It’s not a Kick Starter program with ‘some assembly required’. I assumed that the third bike I have gotten would be like the two previous, and work. I do not remember having this issue with those bikes. I definitely rode the first one enough, and not all ERG to experience the issue. It was fine, until it wasn’t.
Haven’t heard anything from Wahoo yet.
Maybe I should experiment with cog sizes, but from the looks of the massive overreaction, I doubt that adjusting the cogs would help much, and if they solve this issue, I’ll have an uncomfortable time until I fix it back. There are only 2 teeth between the 3rd and 4th cogs. Maybe I should see if I can set the 3rd and 4th cogs to the same size and see what happens. (I can’t make the 4th cog bigger than the 3rd cog, that’s just not right, but would the firmware allow for basically an inverted cassette to deal with the aggressive mess I currently have?)
So, for the moment, the Kickr is sitting, striped of pedals and saddle, with that amazing blue/green bar tape on the tops.
One other thing I’ve realized is that I seem to be using a lower cadence on the Neo than the Kickr. Just thought that was interesting. Does the Neo feel unstable at higher cadences? Hmm. Or is it depression having to shelve the most expensive trainer on the market (It still is, isn’t it)?
Trainer difficulty at 0%, riding 1 to 11 to 1, shifting every minute (although I was late on one).
For zero difficulty, it got difficult…
So I asked the Wahoo person I’ve been emailing with how it was going, and I got this response from a different person.
“Our developers are still currently working on this issue – we apologize for any inconvenience this causes. While we regret to inform you that our developers do not provide public timelines for bug fixes, we remain committed to addressing these bugs in time. Please sit tight as we continue to build a better experience for everyone.”
Well, so it’s officially a ‘bug’, which is an improvement? I stopped riding it, and was trying to sell it. I even offered to help test any proposed new firmware. I *want* the bike to work. *shrug*
Sitting tight…
Good to hear that they’re working on it. I installed Garmin Rally pedals just to double check that the power meter is working correctly, and indeed it is. The upside of this is that the erratic shifting behavior is definitely a software bug. What baffles me is that not everyone is affected by it.
That is the most troubling part of this to me. To know there are bikes ‘just like mine’ that are NOT having this issue is incredibly disturbing. If they ARE the same, why are some not?
I offered to return it to them so they can have one to test with, haven’t herd back yet. Not expecting anything…
If they bought me a Tacx Neo Bike, and took this ‘thing’ back, I’d be happy. I now have three trainers, because if issues I’ve had with all of them.
I had an H2, sold it. Got the Neo 2T, went through three of them. Got the Kickr bike, on my third of them. While the Kickr and Neo were out for replacement, bought an H3. I like the H3, the new new Neo is nice (but think the fan is failing) and the Kickr is collecting dust. What a statement for a company that not long ago pledged that they ‘learned their lesson’ from their original Kickr trainer disaster. Their memory sure seems short.
Hello,
Do you know of a Hardware update (modification) of the Kickr Bike is planned?
I don’t like the shifters :-(
We’ll likely never know until late beta units are distributed to trade shows and special reviewers.
That said, I wouldn’t think we’ll see a ‘Kickr Bike 2.0’ for at least a year, or probably more. These current version bikes are selling like hotcakes, and those places that get them in stock often sellout in a matter if a day or two.
I’m sure Wahoo, and their manufacturer in Vietnam, have learned a lot on how to pull this off, and where the issues are with the current bike. It is actually in version 4 hardware, so they have made some changes, possibly, since they were originally released. Why would Wahoo come up with a new bike, too, with so many people having problems with the current ones? Imagine the phones calls of people demanding the ‘new bike’ because their current one has so many issues.
But who knows, they could release a new bike tomorrow…
Never say never. Seeing as how Zwift is evolving every day (now you can turn) and their entrance in the realm of indoor training hardware I wouldn’t left out a possible alliance between Zwift and wahoo (since it looks they’re the “most” official partner) to bring a new bike.
We will see sooner than later.
As I said before IMO kickr bike is really overpriced
I wouldn’t expect any new KICKR Bike anytime soon, for all the reasons Rob outlined.
I also wouldn’t expect a Wahoo hardware partnership from Zwift. There’s no business reason for doing so from either company. I don’t think Zwift has the cash to pull of a Wahoo acquisition. Their recent $500M round is big, but that’d push the bounds of Wahoo’s price tag. Reports were I think $170-$200m Euros for Tacx when Garmin bought them two years ago, pre-COVID (so, worth way more now), and Tacx was then the #2 player, Wahoo #1.
Tacx was owned by the family, Wahoo’s significantly backed by private equity now. I can’t imagine Wahoo would go for less than $500M – likely quite a bit more these days.
I’m with Ray: Zwift buying Wahoo for their product line would be hysterically more expensive, in many ways, then building their own trainer. And since Wahoo bought Sufferfest, Wahoo really has nothing to gain by the deal, unless they wanted to buy Zwift, or be bought by Zwift, and then kill Zwift in a back room somewhere. I know many people that are almost religiously addicted to The Sufferfest. Unless that radically changes, it’s all good the way it is.
Here’s an idea: Garmin buys Zwift, and kills their weird Tacx Training App.😯
I never said a buy out, just a partnership, we will see in the next eurobike or even sooner.
A lot of strange things have happened recently and the pandemic has seen a lot of turn overs but time will tell.
Sorry, I jumped too far.
They already have a partnership(s). Zwift sells Wahoo trainers on their site, along with others. Zwift has hosted Wahoo rides on the platform too as I remmeber. Anything closer would likely require more lawyers. I guess I didn’t understand your post. Zwift should be agnostic, they should treat all their supported platforms the same way. ‘Love all, serve all’… Oddly, Wahoo is in nearly the same boat in that they, through The Sufferfest, have to support all (most?) of the trainer hardware out there too. At least I hope that’s the way it stays.
Sorry for the misunderstanding…
Hi DCRainmaker,
I love the experience of the KICKR Bike but within 1 year time I’m now going onto the fifth bike! Every time within a short time (max 3,000km) the HCU fails and I wonder if you received this feedback more often. It seems to be a big issue as I’m hearing it from other owners as well. The good thing is that the customer service is outstanding and within days I received a new bike every.time but as long as there is no new version it’s just a matter of time to see it fail again.
Cheers,
Maickel
Outstanding? Well, I’ve been waiting for some news about how the bike I have is so psycho with the power for several months. I even offered to send it to them so they had an official ‘bad bike’ to test with.
I have the ‘bike’ listed for sale, and have had ZERO inquiries. I wish I could get a ‘new’ one in a box, and sell it for something of what we paid for it. Some birthday present this turned in to.
And I thought Wahoo said they ‘learned from the Kickr trainer experience’. What exactly did they learn? Hopefully not to require buyers go through legally binding arbitration. (Yeah, the ‘neutral’ arbitrator’s decision is usually final. I recently almost bought something that required me to agree to BINDING arbitration, and deny my right, or ability to sue, no matter what the outcome of the arbitration process ended up. I chose to exercise my right to not buy it!)
I haven’t heard about forced binding arbitration from Wahoo, but wouldn’t doubt it if they all of the sudden spring that on ALL bike owners.
So I have ‘The Most Expensive Trainer Bike’ sitting in my formal living room, unable to ride it, and can’t get ride of it. Wahoo Failed. They fed me replacement bikes, but haven’t fixed the problem. Sad…
I just wish I could get my money back…
I am thinking about getting an kickr bike (or another Smart bike) and use and Store it on my patio. Has anybody experience with that in terms of not destroying electronics?
I live in Germany, temperatures could drop under freezing but it wouldnt be touched by any rain and be stored in a small shed or under a bike-cover.
Any thoughts or experiences? Thanks guys
I’d strongly advise against it. The bike is fragile enough, and exposing it to extremes of temperature and humidity will likely lead to pain.
I’d recommend something less expensive, so when it fails it’s not a huge expense to replace it. Maybe look at getting a frame, front wheel, and a Saris H3 instead, or even a Kickr Core? At least when it dies, it’s not over 2,800 Euros lost as I doubt that Wahoo will be happy replacing it.
Thanks! I do have an Elite Direto which is a few years of age and could well live on the patio but I have several (tremendous) reasons for upgrading:
1) Bike storage is in the basement, trainer on the roof
2) switching bikes on the trainer from mine (195cm/6’4“) to my wifes‘ (161cm/5‘3“) is annoying since one is 10speed and the other 11speed
Maybe i could buy and modify a medium sized cheap frame to fit is both somehow and leave That combo on the patio? Any suggestions here?
I’m just trying to help you not do something that could end up a major headache in the not to distant future.
I have heard of people doing that, getting an inexpensive bike from someplace like Facebook market, or local classifieds, and using that to have as a ‘permanent’ trainer bike. If you can find something that will fit you both, then you might just need 2 seat posts and saddles, mark the dimensions, and you’re good. If there is a difference in drive train, I wouldn’t worry about it, as swapping cassettes is a real pain in the butt. But if you and she are that far apart in size, it’s not going to be perfect, and you might be left swapping bikes anyway.
Buying a ‘trainer bike’ can get expensive, I realize, but you can cheapen up the trainer bike. Use 105, or even Tiagra, plus you don’t need brakes (just shifters, front/rear mech), and just standard cheap bars can work, and clip-on tri-bars would work. And whatever you use for parts don’t even have to be aero! You can go overboard also, your choice.
Either way, if a static bike won’t work, swapping bikes is still cheaper than having a Kickr bike die and have Wahoo refuse to warranty it because of humidity, etc damage.
As an example, I have a 9-year old Trek Madone that I often have on the trainer. It’s stable, but 10 speed rear instead of 11, rim brakes instead of disc, but with all those differences, it’s the same size, and works the same. It’s perfect for the trainer and saves the wear on my main road bike.
(Funny, I know a couple where he’s 6 foot plus, and she’s 5’8″ maybe, but most of her height is in her legs, and they ride the same size frame. Odd, but it happens)
Good luck…
Hi, I used to have a kickr bike but got rid of it as the tilt mechanism doesn’t work at low temperature. By ‘low’ I mean around 7 degrees Celsius and below. I went through 3-bikes that all had this problem. The garage where I keep my stuff is an out-building fabricated from concrete panels with no insulation. I used to have to use a fan heater directed into the tilt motor to get it to work.
I no longer own a Kickr Bike. How’s that Tacx Bike?
The issue with Tacx is it is owned by Garmin and their craptastic management and support just had me dump anything affiliated with Garmin. Which is a shame.
Odd, because every time I’ve had an issue with a Garmin product, they have responded quickly, and the issue has been resolved. It was Wahoo that couldn’t fix the issue I had with the last bike, and bought it back. I would often wait a week for a response, and regarding the last issue, they kept telling me that ‘the Kickr bike reproduces the feel of a real bike’, even after I showed them the graphs from a couple of test rides I did to get the data. I even compared it to my very real bike on a trainer, and they dragged their feet for over a month, time when I stopped riding it. Then, after getting, what I thought was being ‘blown off again’, I got my money back. I applaud their decision to buy it back, and wonder if they ever found out what the problem was with quite a few of their customers.
I was impressed with their honesty and speed replacing one of the replacements that was damaged in shipping, but was put off by their apparent inability to figure out the issue I had, and inability to communicate their process at a resolution. I was just assured ‘it was in engineering’, with no other communication. I think I got the best, and worst, of their support. After hearing about their earlier issues for people that bought the Kickr wheel off trainers, I wondered if they had regressed to old habits. I was left feeling that the bike was underengineered, and they were saddled with the many issues, not to say that’s a Wahoo only trait. Nothing tests like releasing a product. From that point, it’s all on the support people. No kidding…
Maybe I should move to an area where I can ride outside more consistently, and avoid the issues with a simulated bike simulating rides in a simulated environment. Was it too great of a reach for current technology?
Thinking more of Garmin, it’s a huge corporation, and bike computers aren’t likely a large part of their business, but they have been good to me over the years. I’m sorry you haven’t had a similar experience.
Does the Kickr Bike automatically follow the terrain (incline/decline) in Zwift Workout/ERG mode?
The Kickr+Climb does not which is very irritating as you have to manually adjust the grade for hill affect.
No, the KICKR bike does not change its tilt for elevation when riding in Zwift’s workout mode.
I believe this is because Zwift does not send gradient information to a trainer when riding using a structured workout.
Bummer but at least Zwift is consistent.
Thanks for confirming!
Yeas, none of the advanced gimmicks work on ‘ERG mode’. That includes ‘road feel’ from Tacx, and the climb function. People have been politely demanding that be enabled for years now. It would be awesome if they could get it to work. Some wonder if it’s the overhead of having to push shat data out during large group rides and events. *shrug*
So, I have recently discovered that my Kickr Bike (this is my third one, first one was replaced due to excess noise, second one due it shifting without input) is reading 7-15% high on power. At first, I was convinced that my new power pedals (the infamous Vector 3s) were wrong, but a different set of Favero Assiomas agree.
Anyone else had high power numbers on the Kickr Bike? This is well beyond spec (the power pedals all have a +/- 1% accuracy rating as does the Kickr Bike, thus they shouldn’t disagree more than 2%) and is definitely problematic for my training.
I had one of the very first KICKR bikes and it tended to have high power values compared to a set of Vector 3 pedals (typically around 5% though sometimes higher). I ended up keeping a pair of Vector 3 pedals on the KICKR and using the power numbers from the Garmin pedals.
Around March of this year the KICKR bike started reporting error codes on its display. I contacted Wahoo and to their credit they replaced the bike.
My current KICKR bike (my second) reads about 1 – 3% higher than the Vector 3 pedals, which is acceptable.
I’d suggest contacting Wahoo and see what they say. There are a lot of variables in measuring power with two different power measuring systems, but the differences you are seeing seem way too high.
I had one, if the four I think I had, that was high, but it was odd that if I progressed through the ‘gears’, it would make a huge jump about half way through, to the point I couldn’t pedal it. I posted the problem on one of DC’s threads, with graphs comparing my ‘real bike’ on a wheel-off trainer, and the ‘possessed’ Kickr.
I had to run some set routines for their ‘engineering’ people, and then I did the progression comparison, and sent all of that to them, and waited weeks, a month+, and finally they ‘bought’ it back. I had no interaction with them, and wasn’t able to ride the bike for that time. I was surprised they gave up.
I can only assume that you might be having the same issue. To test this out, go to a flat route, and start in ‘first’, and every minute increase, and if you have the problem I had, it will all of the sudden have much higher jumps in resistance than what would be ‘normal’. It started doing that, killing me on rides.. They apparently couldn’t fix it. I hope this isn’t the problem I had…
The support ‘engineer’ kept telling me that ‘the bike simulates a standard outdoor bike’. But no bike I’ve ever had did that.
I guess I should have done more research on app compatibility before buying my kickr. After finally getting it set up I wanted to connect to Sufferfest. I have had a lot of experience with that and like it to train with. But…BIG problem.
Kickr is only compatible with Apple or Android. Sufferfest is only compatible with Apple or Windows. I have Android and Widows tech, NO Apple. So I am screwed. Had I know this I would never have bought tis bike. VERY sorry I did.
So just a warning for anyone who want to buy the kickr bike and use Sufferfest, you operating choices are Apple or pound sand.
I use the KICKR bike with Sufferfest on a Windows machine almost every day. The bike should connect with Bluetooth if your system is fairly recent. If not a USB ANT+ dongle will get you going.
Per Wahoo at least, the bike will not work with any windows device. Silly me for believing them. I will give it a try.
Thanks,
I use my bike with a windows PC nearly every day.
I guess the bike just doesn’t like me then. I have a laptop that is less than 2 months old. When I try to connect, my laptop finds the bike. I hit connect and the bluetooth light on the bike blinks for 4 or five times and then stays lit. It stays like that for about 20 seconds and then shuts off. That prompts my laptop to say, please try again. I tried at least 10 times, no luck.
On one hand, I’m surprised your bike is still working, but on the other, I think you may need to look at what you have, and what you need to run it on.
Wahoo and THE Sufferfest are one. I would be really surprised if they limited their apps to ‘Apple and Android’.
I’d advise you to look at what dongles and drivers for said dongles you are using to connect with, and see if there is an issue there.
I was bummed, in the beginning of my exploration, that THE Sufferfest didn’t support the ATV, so I’m surprised they do now. To each there own.
I DID ride a couple of rides on WINDOWS 10 with THE Sufferfest, so it *did* work at one point.
Why are you surprised my bike is still working? It’s brand new. My laptop is brand new. To be fair though, I have not been able to use it at all so it may have never worked. So far, a $3500 paperweight.
It’s not ‘windows’, it’s your system.
Is it a ‘Chromebook’ by chance?
It sounds like you need to do some research on your system and what is causing the problem. I really enjoyed clients that would rage about ‘THE SYSTEM YOU SOLD ME IS CRAP’, and find out that the problem wasn’t THE SYSTEM, but something that they could have fixed.
Contact the vendor, call Wahoo, don’t flounce that ‘Wahoo and THE Sufferfest hates you’.
But, as an aside, ‘the bike’ has had an issue with not connecting, in the past. It has also had an issue with dropping connections, ‘just because’.
Your job, oh joy, oh rapture, is to see *what* is causing it. Windows works. Heck, who wouldn’t support Windows as a minimum! Get a grip, and do some troubleshooting, or some phone calls.
I’m sure it will work, eventually. Driver issues are a bitch to solve at times. It’s one of the ‘joys’ of Windows, at times. Good luck…
(Driver collisions are just horrific, and thank Ford, fewer and farther between)
Well, mine (can’t remember which one) just decided to drop all Bluetooth once ride. *POOF*, no connection. I powered it down, and back up, and *NOPE*.
I had to power it off, and let it sit a few more seconds, and plug it back in, and *TA DAH* I was back in business, and kept riding it. No idea why it flaked out, and that bike never did it again. I lost the interval on a Zwift workout, but all was good. I assume that it was an artifact from a macOS update that just had had enough. No idea. Bluetooth just seems so ‘magic’ at times. I had scads of errors before I was able to start a ride on Zwift, but those have disappeared. You have to know that Bluetooth also uses the same frequency as a barge load of other consumer products. I mean, the list is LONG, and if you are n a saturated environment, you are going to be road kill. The Bluetooth SIG really needs to come up with a Bluetooth 2.0 that uses a different frequency spread to survive,
Some of your problems could be software, hardware, and frequency congestion.
One idea, try and ANT+ dongle, and shutdown Bluetooth. ANT+ is better than nothing, but it comes with a list of ‘issues’ in congested areas too.
One way to lessen the impact of interference is to toss any old cordless phones, and other equipment that uses the same busy frequency band. There was a utility that could scan for signal issues ont hat band, but I think they went ‘cash only’ for minimum functionality. If you are in a huge apartment complex, and/or near a large residential building, you *could* be swamped by other extraneous signals. It’s possible…
As far as driver issues, sometimes Windows drivers are not your friend, and yet some vendor drivers do badness too. The joys of Windows. Get a Wahoo dongle, and an extension cable. Put that dongle directly underneath ‘The Bike’. It might help…
Good luck… It’s hard to troubleshoot these issues at times…
CowRob let’s level set here. The one that told me the bike is not compatible with WIndows was Wahoo Support. I took them at their word. Obviously that is not correct.
I updated all my drivers and played around with it and I got the Sufferfest app, on windows to connect. It dropped out right after connecting but came back up. I haven’t had enough time to see if it is working properly but…baby steps.
I would love to be able to tell you what caused it to connect, maybe just the driver updates, but I may never know.
Wait, Wahoo Support told you it doesn’t work with Windows? Lol. That’s hard to believe.
To be honest, despite my many troubles with the bike, their support is really good. The bike, when it works properly, is awesome. I finally got a really good one myself, but then discovered it was reading consistently 18-20 watts high.
OMG, I works supporting Windows for almost 40 years! It’s a mess, and I’m being kind.
I was once on a call with ‘third level’ Microsoft support, was told ‘Oh, you don’t need to reboot’, and 10 minutes of ‘fiffing’ around led me to do a reboot, and… It WORKED’.
I don’t doubt that you got it to work, eventually, and even intermittently. It’s sometimes a delicate dance between so many levels of stuff normal people should never know. OMG, I know.
(I had an 80 year old client find a bug in Windows Media Player. He missed the ‘bug bounty’ by a few hours.)
That is one reason why I have used the Apple TV. It’s basically a sealed fishbowl. Apple has locked that box down so hard. One idea, get an Apple TV! Don’t laugh! It’s magic in a can (box) and just works. Freaky, but it’s like your microwave: turn it on, and watch the food cook. *BAM* It’s done! Eat, or suffer. Or suffer. Choice is yours, and so many people. (Does THE Sufferfest run on ATV?)
Does it? No. However an iPad would work fine, see:
link to forum.thesufferfest.com
YMMV.
Good luck. Windows can be a bugger… macOS can be too… (Although I did get a refurb Mac Mini to Zwift from, and it also works great. ‘Plug and sweat’)
I suspect what Wahoo was probably trying to say, was that their configuration app for the KICKR Bike is available only on iOS and Android.
However, in terms of compatibility, there’s zero issues with any platform. It’s all at the app level – as long as the app supports either ANT+ FE-C or Bluetooth Smart connections to trainers, it’ll be good (and every app does).
Hey DC,
Do you know if the multi-user issue has been fixed? Looking at getting this bike for my partner and I but do want to make sure the multi-user experience is there. Thank you!
Sorta but not really. It’s still Wahoo app-driven, meaning you need to have the 2nd/3rd/etc user connect to the KICKR Bike from the Wahoo app to have it update the settings to that user.
None of the bikes yet support Zwift/TrainerRoad/etc app-driven updates of settings. Ultimately, I think it just comes down to lack of maturity/focus in the segment on smart bikes, and lack of cooperation from some of the app partners (namely Zwift, though I hear that’s getting better slowly).
I can only imagine this is a regular question, but am hoping someone can either put my mind at ease or confirm my concern. I am contemplating buying the Kickr Bike but have some trepidation about dishing out $3,500 now, only to learn that a new version is going to be released within the next 6 months or so. I know there are regular software updates and am not sure what truly could improve on the hardware side that might matter to me other than a place to put your iPhone/iPad and a more visible spot to check gear selection. Any help/thoughts would be appreciated!
Thanks
Never heard that before…
They NEED an update, badly IMO. Will there be one? Soon?
Unlikely, but they could surprise us all. There are usually ‘leaks’, and setups at big bike shows to whet the appetite and get people drooling. I haven’t heard of any so far.
They have the Kickr Rollr that they have had ‘seen’ around a very little bit and DC covered on the website and on YouTube. But for the Kickr Bike, personally I’d have liked to see a second version about 6 months ago, but that’s just me.
I’d say, if you want one, and can get one, get it. If you can’t, then get what you can get and plan on upgrading latter. But if I was you, and dead set on getting the next new Kickr Bike, I’d buy a Neo 2T, or some other high end wheel off trainer, and ride that until the new Kickr is released. It might be a long wait (and keep it for backup once you get one). Heck, even the ‘leaked’ Rollr isn’t supposed to ship until late 2022? But they could surprise us all and release one next week.
Just trying to help…
Thank you, CowRob. I appreciate the information and your insight. I wish they were more forthcoming about a new release date, but understand why they wouldn’t be when there’s more supply to move on the current version of the bike.
Yes, pre-announcing product can carry a lot of baggage. It stalls current purchases, causing anything in stock to be less desirable, cuts the value of current stock as people then want a ‘deal’ on the old stuff, and makes resellers unhappy because they get lots of returns, but can also upset current customers with problems with their units as they start asking for the new version, and inquiring about possible upgrades.
The Rollr seems interesting. At least if I had one, I wouldn’t have sore shoulders, and it might ship before a new Bike, but who knows.
It seems like there are Kickr Bikes out there to buy. Go for it…
I’m about to purchase a second AppleTV 4K. The current model comes with either 32 or 64 GB RAM. The recommendation for the larger RAN configuration is for gaming. Would that apply to running Zwift with output to my 4K Sony Bravia 49” LCD while riding my brand new Wahoo Kickr Bike?
I used the smaller one with no ill effects. It’s just for ‘local storage’, as far as I know. You can save things locally on the device with more memory.
So,
I have problems again. Loud creaking and cracking, seemingly coming from the two latches on the top of the bike. Adjusting them, lubricating the tubes, tightening them does nothing. It’s really annoying. Anyone else had this specific problem?
I’m so frustrated with this product. It’s so good when it works but is so unreliable. Given the cost, and the difficulty of selling it, I’m saddled with it. This is my fourth Kickr Bike. I expect something I pay $3500 to work. None of them so far have, not for long anyway. The third bike was solid, no noise, worked well. It’s power was reading 7-10% high. I should’ve just stuck with that one I guess.
Wahoo has been very good to work with, but I think they know they released a beta product.
I had so many issues. Creaking, popping, and the final one was the ridiculous power inconsistencies.
I had the creaking/cracking, and then the shifters died. I took the thing apart to ship it back, and could not find a single thing that was loose or causing that annoying noise. It was loud enough to be heard over my noise reducing headphones, and even my wife complained about it. Wahoo was dragging their feet on replacing, kept telling me to grease and spray silicone around (I have a dog, and was really keen to do that where he could be exposed to it, although I did do it once, and it lasted for about 2 weeks), and they replaced it, when the shifters died.
I don’t know if ‘beta’ is what I’d call it. I think it’s under designed for the amount of time I rode it, and potentially over complicated for what it does, but I’m no engineer. (I’d bet the climb parts are causing the noise, but quieting that is the hard part) One support agent hinted that I ‘rode it too much’, but it was lockdown, so what else was I supposed to do.
I wonder how much of their problems are they are sending out refurbished bikes for replacements, and that is adding to the issues with accuracy some people are seeing. My last one had a marked problem as I went from first to 11th ‘gear’. They took their last bike back. I now have a Tacx Smart Bike, and it’s not perfect, but I haven’t had the issues like with the Kickr. Maybe a V2 will be better, for the Kickr Bike. I do miss it a little. The climb feature was pretty cool. I traded that for road feel. Shrug…
I know it’s possible for them to work (at least structurally) from the third one I had (that had power readings that were 7-10% high when compared with two pedal based power meters that had been static weight calibrated and which agreed with each other). I can easily hear the creaking and popping over my headphones when they are cranked.
When you say they took their last bike back, you mean they bought it back from you? Did you buy it from them directly?
I can’t keep riding this roller coaster and I know Wahoo doesn’t like it either. I need to be able to train without worrying about my gear failing.
Yes, they ‘bought it back’.
I had serious issues with power consistency, and wasn’t able to ride it for almost a month, it was that bad. I sent them data and .fit files, and never heard back from them. Knowing the warranty was going to be up, I gave them an ultimatum, fix it or take it back. They chose the later. I think they just threw in the towel. (On me, or the bike?) The bike was shipped to a different destination than the others, so it might have been dissected, but I have no knowledge of what happened to it after it left here, and have had no other communication from Wahoo.
I respect Wahoo for doing that for me/us. I was surprised they did it. If they come up with a redesigned model, I would consider trying it. (I did offer to be a beta tester on any new model. (Not expecting to hear from them))
Thanks, that’s very helpful. I want to support Wahoo and I do like their products and customer service. I just can’t get a fully working product.
Same. I was hoping for the best. I think the tech has gotten away from them on that product. But so many have had no issues. In the ‘batch’ of two that the LBS got, one being mine, the other bike has reportedly been ‘perfect’. They have had ‘no issues’. They don’t ride it as much as I did mine, but I was stunned. My first bike was creaking, popping: loud. Way louder than the Neo 2T, and H3 I have. Considering those trainers had the added noise of the bike on top of their own noise, I wasn’t expected the bike to be louder, and the noises came from the frame and not the humming of the flywheel unit.
So, Wahoo, as they do, suggested that I grease the lower rails and silicon lube the lowest bolt. Having been through this rodeo before and having followed the maintenance schedule in the past, I have the exact products they suggest using. I really lathered it on there. Surprisingly, it seemed to help! Right as I was getting excited, the creak and pop returned approximately 30 minutes into the ride. Ugh. I’m guessing it’s a tolerance issue? My last bike never creaked or popped, just was inaccurate on the power front.
I had my first Kickr Bike for almost two years with zero problems and then one day I noticed the seat moving around and it turned out that the frame piece that the seat post clamp tightens on (basically a 1 inch tall steel cylinder with a slot in it) had broken off. Wahoo replaced it with a refurbished unit and after 6 minutes of riding (the first ride) the unit overheated and shut down. Same thing happened reputably. I wondered what sort of QA they have when it fails right out of the box. Wahoo replaced it again and after about a month or so everything is working perfectly- noises, power , etc. Here is hoping that it keeps up. I did notice that this unit is hardware version 4 while my original was hardware version 2. So, they have had rolling changes. I also agree that this was not quite ready when shipped and probably still isn’t quite ready from a reliability perspective. This seems to be a common theme of Wahoo releasing new products prematurely. I had a new version of the Tickr that was not at all reliable over Bluetooth. Constant dropouts. Especially if I connected to my phone and put my phone in my back pocket. A BT signal app on my phone said that the new Tickr had about 10dB lower signal then the old Tickr. So, I figure that there is a chipset or antenna problem. The new Bolt was, according to the forums, shipped with BT sensor connectivity that didn’t work at all as well as many other problems. Firmware updates have apparently improved a lot of the problems but why ship with a major feature (BT sensors) that didn’t even work. Why not wait a week or two and fix it first? I can’t believe that releasing on an arbitrary schedule was worth more than the negative customer reactions.
I was a programmer, IT engineer and ran a networking company for 35+ years in a past life, and all I can say is the adage that rang true in my experience: ‘Nothing tests like shipping a product’.
Software is tested by many people and in numerous situations, and yet flaws are found. Some seem to be basic and often embarrassing flaws. Same with hardware. Flaws are found either immediately, or over time. It doesn’t even mean that they were not tested enough. Some problems are so complicated, that to test for them would require years. Some flaws are ‘unforced errors’. *shrug* If they can fix it with a firmware update, at least it’s fixable.
Well nobody is going to see this, but:
I am sorry to report that although the Kickr Bike is 100% functional, it just feels…cheap. Cheap crappy bad feeling bars, the shifters are sloppy, plasticky and just terrible feeling, the saddle that it come with is a completely unusable ass hatchet (not that I’d use it anyway), cheapest thinnest shittiest bar tape imaginable.
Something this expensive should feel good. I’m wondering if they gave me a used, “reconditioned” bike because it feels like something that has been heavily preused.
Yup, totally agree, except the ‘100% functional’ part – in my experience anyway. I went through 4 bikes before giving up and going back to a NEO 2T. The feel and build quality really is akin to those cheap and nasty infomercial fitness products.
I’ve been biking for quite a while, and realize that the first things I do when I buy a bike is I customize it.
My first Kickr bike, I ‘moved in’. I replaced the seat, pedals, bars, and bar wrap. I was going to spend a lot of time on it, might as well make it fit me, and feel better.
Why?
Those kind of things are usually the cheapest things to replace, and are the things that directly impact my riding experience. To slag Wahoo for those items on their ‘smart bike’ is rather inappropriate. (Can’t believe I’m defending Wahoo, but it fits with ALL bikes)
People that are paying that much for a ‘bike’, likely also have some other ‘real’ bikes in their house that are as, or more expensive, and I’ll bet that few of them have the same seat, wrap, bars, and pedals.
I found their shifters to be really pretty awesome for a ‘fake bike’, and actually expected to swap the bars, tape, and seat. Sadly it was towards the end when I stopped swapping bars, and started just over-wrapping their included wrap.
If you want to slag Wahoo for something, the inconsistency of builds would be a prime target. How can some bikes have no problems, and others be so bad. To slag them for commodity items is rather harsh. The last bike I bought came with ‘pedals’, and I offered them to the bike shop, unopened. They showed me the drawer, and box, full of them. I guess not… I kept sending Wahoo bikes back with the original pedals, unopened. I sent two bikes back with no bar tape.
Yes, customize! Tailor the experience to you. It makes a heck of a difference. It just lengthens the time to send it back though…
Hey everyone,
Terrible experience on the seatpost, handlebar front.
From the first ride they would not stay in place. I have contacted Wahoo Support over a week ago with absolutely no response. Absolutely abysmal behavior.
I ran a poll on the Facebook Wahoo Kickr BIKE Support Group with astonishing results. Over 50% of users have reported the same problem. Wahoo needs to go an a major recall. I a definite NO BUY.
Here is a link to the poll.
link to facebook.com
After my first Kickr bike, I was blown away that they used SO MUCH GREASE in those two areas. Completely blown away. The first bike, I swabbed as much of that crap out as I could. There Is No Reason To Use Grease In Those Areas, and especially not THAT MUCH!
My 4th bike, I used a couple ‘shop hand wipe’ towels to scrub the grease out, and then slathered fiber grip on both posts and tightened them as much as I could, and had ZERO slippage. Wahoo is shooting themselves in the foot with the massive amount of grease they use in the stem and seat post clamps. Someone joked if the people doing the grease are paid by the ounce. The amount of grease, through the many bikes I received, was not uniform either, so I think *someone* globs that in there.
Removing the grease does mean that the owner *should* disassemble the stem and seatpost, and check for rust, or corrosion. The grease they are using almost feels like a dielectric grease to possible prevent galvanic corrosion, but like I said, the amount they use is ridiculous in those areas. My stem would slip three to 4 ‘notches’ during climb rides, and the seatpost was a damned joke.
1) REMOVE the grease, as much as you can.
2) Thoroughly clean the stem and seatpost.
3) Use a fair slathering of fiber grip. (It is grease but has grit in it to hold clamped parts)
4) (If your bike lasts long enough) Disassemble the stem and seatpost every couple of months looking for corrosion/rust, and treat accordingly.
5) Refresh the fiber grip to make sure there is enough to grip, and prevent nastiness.
I’m surprised this is still a deal. I was on that group, and several others before I dumped all social media, and people were shocked at how ‘common sense’ my recommendation was. I took it up with Wahoo support, and they said they ‘would look into it’. Yeah, apparently not. Several people that were having slippage tried my recommendation, and said it worked perfectly. I wonder how many calls and emails Wahoo gets due to this stupid over use of grease in areas where grease would be an issue. How many bikes they have replaced over this. Apparently they have no control over their Vietnamese manufacturer, or have no one in power that is a cyclist. They could toss in little packets of fiber grip like I got at the LBS when I was having a big problem with my aging Trek.
Good luck, spread the word, and Ride on!!!
I just can’t believe that they are still having this level and magnitude of issues with the Kickr Bike almost two years after release. Indeed, many of the problems seems recurrent and it’s stunning that they weren’t resolved. Furthermore, it has filled my enthusiasm for the brand and delayed my purchase of training bike for home. Oh brother…
Then again, the Stages SB20 bike has its own detractors…
What to do….
Having had experience having owned the two largest sellers in the smart bike market, I have been disappointed. Although, so far the Neo Smart has been the least trouble prone, but it has had its issues too. When it dies, and I can’t get it fixed, I will go back to my old standby Trek Madone on either a 2T, or an H3.
A real bike has been designed to be ridden, and ridden hard. Throw it on a trainer, and it becomes the ‘perfect’ smart bike (depending on the trainer). I scoffed at people recommending to buy a second actual bike for exclusive use on a trainer, but now I can see the logic in that recommendation.
‘Smart bikes’ avoid swapping wheels for training, which is not to be dismissed. It is a pain in the butt to have to swap back and forth, as we all likely know, and there is the possibility of the frame rubbing on the trainer, but I’d choose that over failing shifters and missing cadence or power on a ‘smart bike’. The Kickr Bike adds ‘Climb’ simulation, and the Neo Smart adds the infamous ‘Road Feel’ feature.
But I have to say that with all of the issues I had with my first ‘smart bike’, I am still mystified that the LBS sold TWO at the same time. Both delivered the same day, and mine failed while the other one is still working fine (supposedly). Surprised, gobsmacked. Horrified? (When they found out how many miles I had on it, they said I ‘rode it too much’. Nice.)
It’s the inconsistency. It’s the failures, over and over again. It’s the fragility of the devices during shipment. The numerous refurbished replacements are likely just adding to the problem.
So, yeah… Should someone buy a ‘smart bike’? They are nice. Very nice, actually. Just have an alternate for when it fails and you do the ‘tech support dance’. Having to wait for parts/replacements. Wondering what I was getting anxious about: ‘What happens when the official warranty ends’. I suggested to Wahoo that they offer extended warranties, but I can only wonder the effect of suggesting extending warranty swaps for owners went over in the board room. The agent told me they ‘had my back’, and ‘don’t worry’, but after the warranty officially ends, there isn’t much that someone can do if they decide to drop support for that product. Maybe that’s alarmist, but it was a very expensive ‘toy’…
I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this but I bought a wahoo Kickr bike shortly after I read your review. It has seen light use since I enjoy riding outside and have low motivation to use the trainer in the cold weather (Yonkers) just because I have low motivation. So low hours, but this winter I got on and I am hooked up with fulgaz and started hearing an intermittent tapping sound which is definitely coming from the flywheel. I contacted support, sent in all of the required supporting info including an audio record and a video and just heard that they may be arranging for a new unit to be sent to me. Does anyone out there know what the issue is because I would like to know?
Just received a note from Wahoo support that they are arranging to send me a new “reconditioned” and updated Kickr bike and then pick up my unit. So something that they must know about in the drive unit that is causing the tapping sound. I tried to send the audio link with my original email but since it was a video, it didn’t seem to get posted.
The eye surgeon trying to figure out what is wrong with his kickr bike.
I had the knocking in most of the bikes I had, to one degree or another. It’s more likely the linkage for the Climb feature potentially. I had to disassemble all of the old ones for shipping, so if they are actually going to pick yours up, kudos to them. Getting a refurb is a bummer, but very curious what the ‘update’ might be.
Good luck, and ride on!!!
(Eye doctors use stethoscopes?)
Thanks for the reply. Looks like the free wheel is warped or the axle isn’t straight anymore since it wobbles as it turns and is hitting the cover. Wish I could send you tte video but this format doesn’t allow it.
BTW, ophthalmologists/eye surgeons are MDs and go through the same training as your internist or other medical doctor. After we finish our medical internships we do specialty training and I chose an eye residency and corneal fellowship. I am happily retired and generally try to stay upright on my bicycle. So besides being able to take out a cataract or replace a cornea I can listen to your heart and lungs with my stethoscope and know what I am hearing 😀.
I think you will be able to open this.
link to share.icloud.com
I have now owned a Kickr bike for 10months. If I could go back in time , I would not buy this bike. Read lots of wonderful reviews about the bike before I bought it and they all sounded great but there is not to many reviews of someone using it multiple times a week for many months.
This is my 2 cents worth.
1. In my mind do your research if you are over 5′ 10″ . If you are tall you might be very dissappointed. I am 6’3″ and the handlebars in the highest setting are extremely low. Look at all the pictures of the kickr bike. YOu will notice how low the front end is-
even noticeable with short riders. This is fine if you are young and a triathlete and want your hands 12″ below your saddle. I understand the importance of mimicing your road set up and aerodynamics but for me I think for a bike of this cost that it should accomodate someone that likes to have their handlebars close to the same height as their their saddle height, so I am not bent over so far for those long indoor rides.
2. After 6 months of well meaning support from Wahoo for various issues— Wattage issues(a few conplaints i recognize from other commentors), shifting issues etc I had to come to my own conclusion from my own research that basically Android and Wahoo do not tend to play well together. After removing the Wahoo App from my Android phone and investing in an expensive Apple phone- many of my long standing technical issues have gone a way.
3. I have many other comments but I will finish on this one since it is kind of funny. No review that I have read talks about how sensitive the brakes are. The slighted touch and your wattage drops and takes many seconds for it to come back up. I like to use a towel draped over the hoods of my handlebars to catch sweat as I am riding. Just the weight of the towel depresses the brake lever enough that it increases the resistance and thus my wattage drops. This happens even if my hands are not on the towel. Originally I thought it was just one more glitchy wattage issues with the bike. I am embarrassed to say it took months to figure out it was the brakes. The comment I got from Wahoo support is that no one uses a towel over their bike so it is not something they want to change.
My thought is that there should be a way to disengage the brakes for those of us who for some strange reason want to put a towel over our handlebars.
Good luck with your decision to buy or not. If you are considering , I would wait for many more years before considering investing in a Kickr bike.
I rode my succession of bikes every day, for at least a half hour, and more likely over an hour. The LBS told me I ‘rode it to death’, an opinion seconded somewhat by a Wahoo support person.
That they ‘bought it back’ was odd. Maybe they agreed that I rode it too much? I don’t know…
On the brakes, I remember the first time I tried them. It was after ‘steering’ was released, and yeah, you could sure put a stop to your output using them. (The levers would also move forward, which startled me when it happened the first time) I started using them to attenuate TR rides. It was great to give a gentle squeeze for a boost in output on an interval or to add a spike at a certain point on a ride in Zwift. They ‘gripped’ better than my IRL bike brakes do! The Tacx Neo Smart brakes are not anywhere nearly as realistic, and require a heck of a lot more strength to operate. (Why doesn’t Shimano make a set of levers for the smart trainer OEM market. They could sell them to companies and still have a foot in the door of the indoor side of the bike industry, and people would have very realistic controls to ride with both indoors and out)
I’m considering buying a Kickr Bike that have been used in a store as a demo bike. Are there any known problems with older units? Specific hardware revisions with known problems? Are the software still updated on older units?
Unless you are sure how the bike was treated, and that it was setup correctly, I would pass on it. Especially if there is any question on the warranty. It’s far too fragile and expensive to repair to buy one without a clear warranty in effect. I guess it depends on the ‘born on date’ on the bottom of the bike. See if you can check that date, see how old it really is, and also depends on what they want for it, and what risk you can accept.
My LBS said that Wahoo knows if a bike was a ‘demo unit’, so that is why I’d be somewhat concerned.
DCR,
Any thoughts from you or fellow readers about what accounts for the loss of shifting on my left shifter of my year and half old, with 600 + miles on it, Wahoo KICKR Smart Bike? The failures are intermittent, temporarily re-established by unplugging power to the bike for half hour + and/or removing shifter connectors, wiping down w/ rubbing alcohol, drying fully and reinserting them, or, changing plug in positions in the head unit. (At wahoo customer service recommendation).
None of those actions is permanent. I now have only right sided shifting and no elevation/declinaton/shifting on left side. Local Trek dealer is still covid hysterical, so they won’t allow any in-home mechanic to enter my home.
FWIW, Wahoo CS has been immediate in their responses to me. I now also suspect that the head unit on the bike is implicated, but, I don’t know. I have in another message to Wahoo CS and await their response. In the interim, do you and does anyone else reading this post have any thoughts?
The shifters are ‘under designed’. Pull up the rubber cover and look at it. I was expecting more shielding and intelligence in them for some reason.
I had one bike that had one side die, and it came back only to have the other side die. It swapped back and forth until both sides died, and only one side came back (the big ring, figures)
I wondered if they have issues with shielding and possibly protection from interference/moisture/surges. Sometimes they came back by twisting the connector. I think they could have done a better job on the shifter modules (have you looked under the rubber cover?). I remember they had an issue with people causing static electric buildup, and had to add more capacitors to keep the main board from dying. And some people have to have the bike replaced because new shifter modules don’t fix it. What corner did they cut that only effects certain customers. Hmm. We will likely never know.
I had so many miles on my first bike in such a short time, someone told me I ‘rode it to death’. Nice…
I hope they can fix it for you..
Hi All.
So after my post #503 below, I went ahead and bought a Kickr bike. I wish I hadn’t.
On the plus side, I was worried that it might not be big enough for my 6’4″ frame, but it was.
On the downside:
– the left crank arm clicked from day one. Clearly something mechanical going on.
– the climb functionality doesn’t work in ERG mode
– I struggled to connect it to ipad, iphone, Windows and Apple TV on various ocassions, but eventually managed to connect them all. Generally the solution was uninstalling the Wahoo app and/or Strava. The bike doesn’t seem to be happy unless you connect it to something right after installing whatever app.
To be fair to Wahoo, they agreed the clicking wasn’t supposed to happen and agreed to replace the unit. A further debacle in that regard has resulted in me returning instead. £3k is a significant investment for me, and I need something perfect for that kind of money. I was a little irritated that a brand new faulty unit seemed to be such a regular occurrence to Wahoo. That comment is supported by the custom packaging they have for returns and by the extensive video guide they’ve put together to dismantle it (into far more pieces than it got delivered in).
For me, this bike just isn’t of good enough quality to justify the price. Did anyone arrive at the same conclusion and try a Tacx bike? I can live without the climb functionality and the saving of £1,000 would be welcome. I’d hate to be disappointed again, but will just either wait for second gen or buy a wheel-off trainer if that’s what I need to do.
Thanks,
Lee
Almost every trainer has their issues. I got Wahoo to ‘buy back’ the bike. I have a Tacx Neo Smart, and it hasn’t been totally without issues, and idiosyncrasies.
Tip: Check the non-drive crank pinch bolt every ride for the first month, and if it ever loosens, take it out and see if it’s bent. Replace with a cap screw, and use penetrating loctite after resetting the preload nut on the crank arm.
The brakes do work, but give your hand a workout.
‘Road feel’ is a gimmick. Disable it for workouts and group rides/races on Zwift. It is ignored on TrainerRoad, obviously.
Use the levers for the adjusters for the first month or so until you dial it in.
Other than that, it seems to work pretty darned well. You can replace the bars, but why. The stock bars are pretty nice, and Fisik bar tape is good, although I did overwrap them with some NOS Specialized Roubaix tape I had. Steering is ‘coming real soon’. Don’t hold your breath.
But all in all, I really like it. It certainly can do the steep climbs.
Hello everyone,
So i very rarely use Zwift or trainer road. My main application will be following a set workout that i upload to my Garmin Edge and use it to control the trainer. So mostly in ERG mode. I’d love to have a bike trainer, and not have to use my own bike on the trainer.
Is that possible with the Wahoo Kickr bike? Will i have power meter data? Cadence data?
Will i have all the other issues people are talking about?
I used to have a wahoo kickr trainer, and now a Tacx Neo and that’s how i use it with no problem. And yeah, even on the Tacx the power meter is not very smooth on the set intervals.
Thanks
Joe
I was very disappointed when I tried it. I got no data on the ride as the Edge was driving the trainer at the time. After doing that, I never tried again. ‘Just because something *can* do it, doesn’t mean it *should* do it’.
There are several ways to get rides converted into Zwift routes. Maybe look that way instead?
Maybe someone else has more experience doing this?
Thanks Rob,
Interesting that the bike trainer won’t do what their normal trainer would…
I did not say that it wouldn’t do it, there are just tradeoffs if you do.
For me, it’s like trying to ‘work’ with a ‘chromebook’, or watching a video on a really small screen. You *can* do it for sure, but there are some (big) tradeoffs…
For one, the Edge is driving. I don’t know if you would get any telemetry out of the bike without using a separate device (Actually I think it may have worked, it’s been a while). Yet I wouldn’t want to use an Edge to drive a trainer on a consistent basis, especially if you are paying for Zwift already.
Have you looked at the Custom Workout section in Zwift?
I have what seems like hundreds of workouts, and even copy workouts from the Zwift Workouts section, and edit them and tweak them. (Usually I remove cadence demands (old knees)) And have even setup workouts there based on my favorites from TR and Peloton.
I’d consider using an Edge to drive a trainer if that was the last resort like on a biking trip or vacation, and that was all I could do. (On a trip upstate last year, I took my Neo, bike, mat, and notebook, and was HOPING that the hotel internet would be adequate to avoid having to ride outdoors (in the rain and windy coldness) and it did work very well, surprisingly well, but the thought of using my Edge to drive it was as I said, a last resort)
But seriously, look at Custom Workouts in Zwift. It provides a lot of ways for customization and punishing workouts.
But, as in all things, it’s what you can tolerate. I like the video gaminess of Zwift, and the ability to tweak workouts to fit me and my expectations/limitations. It helps make time fly. YMMV, ride on…
Again thanks for the reply Rob.
My main other activity whilst on the trainer is watching Netflix and not other fellow riders :-). Hence i guess why i don’t use Zwift and doin’t have a subscription
Joe
You said you ‘rarely use Zwift’. I assumed you had a subscription.
Hope you find your answer…
I was wondering if this would be worth a purchase now that the new version is coming out. I’ve already seen it drop to 2949 usd on some pages.
Wait and see it it drops more as stocks are getting cleared or go for it?
If you can afford it, get it. Don’t wait too long or they will all be gone. I would not buy a used one under any circumstances. No, it’s too intricate and used, the cost of repairs could be incredibly expensive. I haven’t heard of Wahoo provides support for second owners, but the risk is too great in my mind.
But ‘winter’ is coming in the northern hemisphere, so buy now, buy often, buy and be happy. (Obscure movie reference)
Down to $2300 bucks.
> Note: when the Wahoo app accommodates for a more aggressive fit, this may be accompanied be a slight reduction on downhill maximum slope from 15% to around 7-10%, depending on aggressiveness.
> Note though that certain bike fit positions will max out the CLIMB’s downwards incline capabilities to a lesser number (such as –10%).
How exactly do I adjust my fit to get the maximum decline of -15%? I currently max out at -11%, and I’d like to know which part of my fit is causing this limitation. Anyone run into this?
It pivots at the base. The only thing I can think of is if the fit part of the app is set to have very low bars and higher seat possibly? Tipping forward with that setup could make it a rather uncomfortable feeling. There doesn’t appear to be any way the bike can tell what those settings are unless you tell it. I don’t have one anymore so I can’t experiment. I don’t think it can sense any increase in weight as the front goes down.
I would think that there would be a document somewhere that would explain how that works and limits movement. I know I had plenty of movement for me, depended on the route I took. Obviously flatter routes are not going to allow for much descent. Can you manually run it to the bottom? Are you sure of the angles you are getting? On an aside, I had a bike not go to the normal neutral position for being packaged to ship back (it wouldn’t fit properly in the Styrofoam cutouts). It’s version of neutral was tipped back farther. If it started at a neutral tipped back, that would seem to possibly throw off the entire system and limiting the backward tilt.
Also are you aware that Zwift limits the climb function?
link to zwiftinsider.com
I’m observing the -11% limitation using the manual control on the shifters while standing next to the bike. The display clearly does not update past -11%.
I am aware of the zwift limitations.
Update from wahoo customer service:
> After further review, we have decided that the cable strain is the cause of your issue, and that the Bike will ultimately have to be replaced.
Very happy they are willing to exchange it. I love the bike so far.
More updates:
The replacement bike finally came…but it has THE SAME ISSUE. After another support ticket, cable strain is again blamed for the reason why the bike stops at -11%/-12% on manual declines. Wahoo offered me a new element roam or another replacement bike. I chose the latter.
OUCH! But I had a bike arrive with a problem, and had to ship it back out again.
That sucks. I loved the idea of the bike. I was just disappointed with the execution. I do miss it.
So you took the Roam? But you gave up! Third time is the charm. But I gave up too. I’m just glad they ‘bought it back’. Was this the ‘new one’? Could you have asked for a new model?
The decline function was a bit disconcerting the first time it kicked in hard. I remember having a near panic attack thinking I was going to fall off the front of it. Quite a feeling. 😆
I asked for a new replacement bike. TBH not declining the full way isn’t a big deal, but I don’t want this to be an issue if I end up selling this down the road. I already have an element bolt, so don’t need a new computer :)
I was thinking third time’s the charm, but do I count the third bike or the third replacement? I guess I have patience for at least one more…
Is there any way to replace the KICKR Bike v1 with a v2?
Oh, your post wasn’t clear. Check the ‘born date’ on the bottom of the bottom bracket areas. See how old your current and replacement bike is. (Not saying it’s bad, but it might be interesting, if they still do it)
My last replacement was almost perfect, but on SIM rides the steps between the different ‘gears’ was way too massive. I finally just gave up. They took it back, and I got my money back. (I think I was on bike 4 or 5 by then)
Steve A: Is there a way? Hmm, not likely. Sell yours and buy a new new one?
Good luck y’all… And Ride on!!!
But, Steve, if you aren’t having problems, don’t change the bike. Seriously.
Hi, thanks for a perfect review. I have a specific problem. My left leg if is producing roughly 55% and the right one is 45% of power (Assioma favero due). Does kicker bike reflect this imbalance? Thank you for the answer Stan
The Kickr reports “total power” since it is getting forces from both legs (i.e. 100% as combined for both legs). But the Kicker can’t and doesn’t report individual percentage per leg. It is the entire power produced with no split or distribution.
Thank you, I know that it doesn’t measure legs separately, my concern is whether the total output is correct (if only right side is measured then the total power is 0,45 x power x 2, which is 90% of the output)
Yes, it is both legs combined for true 100% power. It is NOT doing a single leg measurement doubled like we see with single-sided power peter pedals or cranks.
It is essentially like the old wheel hub-based power meters.
I hope it’s as you described, but the wahoo support page says:
Factors responsible for this difference (power accuracy) include:
….
….
Leg imbalances
hi, many thanks for your review. i wonder if you can get me an idea installing additional set of shifter buttons as i like to use my triathlon handlebars so I don’t need to change position when shifting. You may have heard about a remote shifter hack? many thanks in advance. BR Thomas
I’m dying to hear your thoughts on v1 vs v2. Structurally and feel wise are they identical? If I’m not a serious esports competitor who NEEDS the better connectivity am I best served with $2200 for a v1 or $4k for a v2?
Go for V1 at that price. Having ridden it enough now, while the WiFi is kinda nice, it’s not something I’d pay nearly $2K for.
The Kicker Bike is the perfect trainer form; 76 years old with bionic knees. My only complaint is the high pitch scream it makes around a cadence of 76. Fortunately my hearing sucks so I can turn off the external sound input and crank up my i-phone music input! My bike shop could not fix it and Wahoo says sounds normal to them! They should fix this issue
I had one that hummed, more like a moan. It was perfect because the active noise cancelling ear buds were able to block it very well. Have you tried those types of ear buds?
Spot on review!!
So is the noise normal for all models or just some? Mine certainly has the hum and gets the 78-ish rpm noise reported here. Picked it up for 2k on sale which is nice but coming from a Saris H3 that was completely silent it falls short there. Are noise canceling earbuds the only hack?
Or turn the volume up? My experience is some hum slightly more than others, but the hum is there. Coming eventually from an H2, I actually liked the hum, and Beats noise cancelling buds seem to do a good job with consistent noises like the hum.
New owner of a v1, i am noticing like many others it is reading 5% higher than my assioma. Is there a way to change something to decrease number sent by kickr bike…. I believe no unfortunately but i ask in case…
I don’t believe so: I have the same problem with Garmin Vector 3 pedals. It could be due to the difference in the way power is measured, but I stopped using the KICKR power output and use the Vector values because otherwise there is no consistency between outdoor rides and indoor rides when you’re training or analyzing performance/power. Would love to hear if someone found a way to manually adjust KICKR power to match pedal values.
There is no way to calibrate the K Bike. It is what it is. Maybe call Wahoo, but they have other things more pressing at the moment I think. I had one. I experienced what I thought were major issues with it. I sold it back. At some point you have to decide what you will accept.
I’m sure if you took it apart, you could find some potentiometers on a board somewhere, but the struggle would be tweaking it, reassembling it, testing it, and doing it all over again. Any warranty would be voided, and I’d bet if there are adjustable bits in there they used for calibration, they are likely glued down or sunk in resin, unless there is a software tweak that people don’t know about. Someone on YouTube said they did find a way to calibrate them, but I think it was BS.
I just bought a Bike V1. According to the app, this has hardware version 6. Does anyone know what has changed in the individual versions?
Fyi,
the Biki-fitting via photo taking is not an option anymore on the Wahoo app!