Elite’s New Square Smart Frame, Avanti & Justo 2 Smart Trainers First Look!

Elite has just announced a new smart-bike setup of sorts, as well as two new trainers. The new smart bike is effectively an upscale take on the also recently announced Zwift Ride, seemingly addressing the three most common complaints of that unit, albeit, for a price. This includes things like adjustable crank arm length, a belt drive, as well as Elite RIZER compatibility.

Meanwhile, the company has also announced two new trainers. Or rather, one entirely new trainer line, Avanti, and then the second edition of another, Justo 2. In both cases, both units get built-in WiFi, while the Justo 2 gets an included 12-speed cassette.

Of course, these units were just announced, and I haven’t had any real rides on them yet – just some brief time pre-show on the Eurobike show floor. Still, I’ve got a couple of quick thoughts we’ll dive into down below.

Elite Square Smart Trainer Frame:

The Elite Square follows in the mold of being a smart bike, without the baggage of a smart bike. It’s technically just a frame, but with built-in handlebars and virtual shifting like a smart bike. Except, without the baggage of the smart bike. No dealing with massive units that are impossible to upgrade, no dealing with massive units that are expensive to ship, and no dealing with massive units that are a nightmare to repair/get fixed when something goes wrong.

Of course, the even more interesting thing here is that you can actually pair this frame with *any* trainer, not just Elite trainers. That’s because, in effect, the Square is attaching to its own little cassette of sorts. So, for a 3rd party trainer, you can just mount that new belt-cassette onto the existing trainer using existing free hub standards.

But let’s back up a second, the Elite Square features four big-ticket items that the Zwift Ride Frame doesn’t:

1) Adjustable crank length (165/167.5/170/172.5/175mm)
2) Belt drive for entirely silent operation
3) Support for Elite Rizer gradient simulator accessory
4) Proper road-bike style shifters, as opposed to game-style buttons for shifters

In addition, it also has more adjustability, specifically, the ability to slide the saddle forward/back.

When it comes to that belt drive system, as noted, it effectively attaches to any trainer using a new-style cassette on the back.

To attach the frame to the trainer, you’ll lower a tension adjustment lever on the back of the frame (below the seat post, as seen in the video), which then removes tension. From there, there’s one additional bolt that must be loosened up.

From a ride feel standpoint, it felt pretty good when paired to an Elite Avanti trainer. But I was just in street clothes and running shoes on the Eurobike show floor, so hardly a very useful test. But everything did feel smooth.

Here’s a closer look at the adjustable crank length system, which is kinda like what we see on other smart bikes for adjustable crank length, except frankly, a whole lot cleaner looking than most of those.

For the remaining adjustability, here’s some fit-type spec goodness:

– Minimum rider height: 152cm / 4’11”
– Maximum rider height: 198cm / 6’6”
– Maximum rider weight: 110kg / 242.51lbs

And then here’s a quick page of all the rest of the fit coordinates:

Next up is the handlebars. These handlebars feature both clickity-clackity actual real-bike style shifters, as well as built-in Zwift Play style control buttons, for controlling both Zwift and other apps/devices. For example, here they’ve got it also set up to control the fan speed.

On the shifting, you can customize both the shifting style – such as SRAM/Shimano/Campagnolo, as well as the entire virtual gearing setup (exact gears you want, and the number of gears).

You can also do the more basic sequential style-shifting.

For gearing, you can choose a virtual cassette with 10/11/12/13 speeds, as well as the number of teeth for each cog, from 9 to 52. You can select 1-3 chainrings, and the number of teeth from 60 to 22. You can further create specific ride profiles too, saved for quick swapping (e.g., hilly vs flat). All of this is done with the Elite App, roughly like other smart bikes. The controllers are run using a coin cell battery (CR2032), which is found on the inside of the handlebars, and easily accessed. Though, the battery life there is 80 hours, so a bit less than I’d have hoped. Albeit, 80 hours of actual indoor ride time is still a fair bit for most people.

One other nice touch is that they’ve built in a Garmin quarter-turn mount. This allows you to quickly mount your Garmin Edge device there. Of course, it’d be easy enough to get a plastic insert made for Wahoo-style mounts too:

Ultimately, the Square is a pretty interesting option. Of course, priced at 1,250EUR for just the Elite Square (not including a trainer), it’s the same price as the Zwift Ride (including trainer). Zwift expects to start selling the standalone Zwift Ride Frame later this summer (likely in late August or early September), and while they haven’t announced exact pricing, I’m told to expect it to be roughly the simple math of the total price, minus a Wahoo KICKR CORE+COG+PLAY. That’d put the Zwift Frame somewhere in the $600-$700 ballpark, depending on how one prices the above components.

So basically, the Elite Square is twice the price(ish). Of course, with that increased price you’re getting a belt drive, adjustable crank length, more adjustability in rider positioning, Elite Rizer compatibility, and much better feeling shifters. A lot of people asked for that on the Zwift Ride, without probably realizing each of those four things costs more money. Here’s roughly how much more money it costs in real life.

It’ll be up to you to decide whether or not those extra features are worth the cash – much like pretty much every other higher-priced thing in the indoor cycling world. Still, it’s cool to see these concepts exist, which continue to be a fraction of the price of the larger and bulkier smart bikes.

Elite Avanti Smart Trainer:

Next up we’ve got the new Elite Avanti lineup. This is effectively a head-to-head competitor with the Wahoo KICKR CORE series (including the Zwift Hub One variant of it). Except Elite is aiming to one-up the Wahoo/Zwift offering in pretty much every possible spec department. Albeit, at a slight premium to that price.

The biggest ticket item here is the inclusion of WiFi, but also things like Race Mode in Zwift, as well as lateral sway/movement. Plus a higher accuracy spec, higher simulated gradient, and heart rate bridging/passthrough to solve the issue on Apple TV.

Here’s the tech specs for the Elite Avanti smart trainer:

– Direct drive trainer: This means you remove your rear wheel
– Flywheel: It has a flywheel weight of 4kg/8.8lbs
– Cassette: Not included, compatible 9-12speed
– Sound: Essentially silent.
– Handle: Yes
– Flexible Feet for Motion/Sway: Yes, 4.5° lateral sway
– Protocol Compatibility: ANT+ FE-C, ANT+ Power, Dual Bluetooth Smart Trainer Control, WiFi DirCon, Bluetooth Smart Power (everything you need).
– WiFi: Yes, Direct Connect to all apps via WiFi
– Wired Ethernet: With Elite Gateway accessory
– Zwift Race Mode: Yes, 10 Hz
– Heart Rate & Cadence Bridging: Yes, can rebroadcast your heart rate sensor within a single channel, ideal for Apple TV Zwift users (who are Bluetooth channel limited)
– Control trainer from Di2 buttons in ERG mode: Using The Elite My E-Training app, you can increase/decrease resistance levels using the Di2 extra buttons
– App Compatibility: Anything and everything
– Skewer Compatibility: All the skewers and adapters you could ask for: Road 130mm, 135mm, 142x12mm
– RIZER Compatible: Yes
– Max Incline: 18% simulated grade
– Max Wattage: 2,100 watts resistance (2,100w at 40KPH, 920w @ 20KPH)
– Stated Accuracy: < +/1.0%, Automatic Calibration
– Power Cable Required: Yes, power block compatible with 100-240v
– Pricing and Availability: €749/$849 August for Europe, September rest of world

In this case, I didn’t have a chance to ride the unit yet, since it was physically mounted to a shelf. Though, I did convince them to spend about 20 minutes detaching the 78 bolts that had been used to hard-attach it to the shelf, to put on the ground for some photos. I’m sure the Elite booth folks love me now.

Below is the back of the unit, for both the power plug as well as the Ethernet adapter port (in case you wanted a wired connection via Ethernet with their Elite Gateway accessory).

My initial thoughts are that this is super interesting as a mid-tier trainer. It’s certainly one-upping the specs of the Wahoo/Zwift offerings, but at that slight price premium. The KICKR CORE is selling for about $500 these days, and with the bundles from Zwift, you’re looking at around $650 or so. This is a bit higher at $849, but with added features like Race Mode and WiFi, it’ll appeal to a higher-end audience. Same goes with higher gradient simulation. But features like heart rate bridging are genuinely useful for all riders, especially (actually almost entirely) for Apple TV users, that run up against the limitations there. All while sticking the landing with a +/- 1% accuracy claim.

But of course, my favorite feature is the tiny little drawer holding all the axle adapters, that hangs out in the bottom of the trainer:

Years ago, when James Huang reviewed the Wahoo KICKR CLIMB, he noted that it’d be awesome to have a small compartment to hold all these adapters, else they get lost. Finally, that’s arrived. Only took 6 years. Still, kudos to Elite here.

Nonetheless, I’m keen to see how all these things hold up in real-world usage of course – including both bits like road feel, as well as, of course…accuracy. Assuming it’s just a mini-version of the Elite Justo, then all will likely be well.

Elite Justo 2 Smart Trainer:

Next up is the Elite Justo 2, which is a minor incremental update to the Justo 1, which was announced two years ago this week, which adds the following features:

– WiFi built-in
– Switch to 12-speed cassette included

That’s it. Quick and easy. Elite says that they didn’t want a scenario where the cheaper Avanti had WiFi, but the Justo 2 didn’t. This solves that. And of course, the upgrade to 12-speed is logical given the target market here.

In any case, here’s the Justo 2 specs:

– Direct drive trainer: This means you remove your rear wheel
– Flywheel: It has a flywheel weight of 7.2kg/15.98lbs
– Cassette: 12-speed cassette
– Sound: Essentially silent
– Handle: Yes
– Flexible Feet for Motion/Sway: Yes, both 7° and 4.5° lateral sway feet
– Protocol Compatibility: ANT+ FE-C, ANT+ Power, Dual Bluetooth Smart Trainer Control, WiFi DirCon, Bluetooth Smart Power (everything you need).
– WiFi: Yes, Direct Connect to all apps via WiFi
– Wired Ethernet: With Elite Gateway accessory
– Zwift Race Mode: Yes, 10 Hz
– Heart Rate & Cadence Bridging: Yes, can rebroadcast your heart rate sensor within a single channel, ideal for Apple TV Zwift users (who are Bluetooth channel limited)
– Control trainer from Di2 buttons in ERG mode: Using The Elite My E-Training app, you can increase/decrease resistance levels using the Di2 extra buttons
– App Compatibility: Anything and everything
– Skewer Compatibility: All the skewers and adapters you could ask for: Road 130mm, 135mm, 142x12mm
– RIZER Compatible: Yes
– Max Incline: 24% simulated grade
– Max Wattage: 2,300 watts resistance (2,100w at 40KPH, 920w @ 20KPH)
– Stated Accuracy: +/1.0%, Automatic Calibration
– Power Cable Required: Yes, power block compatible with 100-240v
– Pricing and Availability: €1099/$1,199 – August for Europe, September rest of world

Just in case you’re trying to figure out the actual differences between Avanti and Justo 2, they are:

1) Justo 2 is $1,199 vs $849 on Avanti
2) Gradient simulation is 24% on Justo 2, and 18% on Avanti
3) Justo 2 includes a 12-speed cassette, Avanti doesn’t include a cassette
4) The flywheel weight is bigger on Justo 2 at 7.2kg versus 4kg on Avanti
5) Justo 2 claims greater than +/-1.0 % accuracy, versus +/- 1% for Avanti
6) Justo 2 includes two different flex feet styles, versus one set for Avanti
7) Slightly higher max wattage of 2,300w on Justo 2 versus 2,100w on Avanti
8) The Justo 2 includes 2 years of the Elite app, versus 1 year on the Avanti
9) That said, only Avanti includes the new bottom axle accessory drawer

Got all that? Good.

Going Forward:

Obviously, down the road, I’ll have in-depth reviews of all these things. Likely Avanti and Justo 2 first, sometime in the August-ish timeframe, and then following with the Square in the November-ish timeframe. Some of that will depend on exactly when units arrive at the DCR Cave, and how deep the queue is at that point. Currently, I’m predicting a very long queue this year, between indoor trainers and smart bikes.

Still, I’m looking forward to it – especially for both Avanti as well as the Square, and then, the two of them together of course.

With that – thanks for reading, and stay tuned for plenty more from Eurobike!

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