Author Topic: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?  (Read 1216 times)

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« on: 10 February, 2019, 06:22:24 pm »
I'm sure you'll have some.

I have a second hand (ten years plus) Tacx Fortius run through TTS 4 on a Win10 laptop.

I was going to wait until after a potential injury claim for my recent off, but I'm hacked off with it enough to press the button now.  I'm sure there are many more of you out there that are familiar with the perpetual hunt for a consisutent calibration, going from riding through concrete to floating on marshmallow for no apparent reason between sessions, adn the PIT of cables, changing wheels etc.

Anyway, I'm looking seriously at the Stac Zero Halcyon mostly because it means no need to remove/change the wheel, which is a particular PITA in the case of the Cruzbike.

Questions
1) anyone have any experience of these, good or bad?
2) wht software are you running it with and why?
3) any experience of running it with an ANT+ dongle on TTS4?  I have several RLV downloads I'd like to keep if possible (I know the new Tacx app willl not play nicely with other things)

Ta Muchly
Dave
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« Reply #1 on: 10 February, 2019, 06:27:12 pm »

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« Reply #2 on: 10 February, 2019, 06:45:37 pm »
Yes thanks Ham, I do tend to look there as well, particularly on GPS type devices he does some good tech reviews, but doesn't tend to have things for long term
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« Reply #3 on: 10 February, 2019, 07:53:57 pm »
one of my chums has the stac and 1600km in, it seems to be pretty good so far.

FWIW I think you learn to pedal better and handle a bike better if you ride the rollers, but this is clearly old fashioned, not on-message thinking.... ;)

A real difference is that most home trainers put a load of weird loads through the back end of the bike that don't occur when you are actually riding it; I don't know how likely this is to break a frame but it can't do it any good.  Between that and the potential sweat damage I have suggested that my chum gets an old frame, handlebars, saddle and pedals and uses that on the trainer; he reckons he may not even need gears per se because the contraption can be set to require constant power regardless of cadence.

cheers

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« Reply #4 on: 10 February, 2019, 10:03:16 pm »
Thanks Brucey,

I'm using an old road bike at the moment, 12 yo Al frame, not expensive, but has served me well.  I'm looking to replace it at some point and had planned to relegate it to general duties at best, but I take your point.  I was looking for an old hack a while ago, but got bored wading through e-bay dross.  May have a look in the local small ads instead.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: New Turbo Trainer - Opinions?
« Reply #5 on: 26 February, 2019, 02:54:05 pm »
one of my chums has the stac and 1600km in, it seems to be pretty good so far.

FWIW I think you learn to pedal better and handle a bike better if you ride the rollers, but this is clearly old fashioned, not on-message thinking.... ;)

A real difference is that most home trainers put a load of weird loads through the back end of the bike that don't occur when you are actually riding it; I don't know how likely this is to break a frame but it can't do it any good.  Between that and the potential sweat damage I have suggested that my chum gets an old frame, handlebars, saddle and pedals and uses that on the trainer; he reckons he may not even need gears per se because the contraption can be set to require constant power regardless of cadence.

cheers

Two meaningful sessions and some farting around to set up and I'm convinced.  Far smoother than the old Taxc turbo with the tyre pressing on the roller. 

Plus points
- it's so quiet, I can watch stuff on my tablet without having my blue tooth speaker at max, you hear nothing other than your drivetrain
- smooth, far smoother than the tacx, and I think it hits the box of pedalling better - the resistance is more uniform throughout the pedal stroke
- Power - it's telling me i have more than the Taxc ever did, so how can it be bad.  It's supposedly a very accurate power meter - it should be based on the tech it uses, and it was telling me I was holding 190-210W for about 5mins with HR around 140-149 yesterday. A cheap way of getting a power meter?

Not so good
- wheel weight attachment is a bit fiddly, so I may just leave them on a spare wheel for the upwrong
- Simulated speed is way off the wheelspeed by the Garmin sensor (about 10km/h difference, but that is algorithms and neither here nor there in reality, when the real measure on a turbo is power.   I'll be sending soem data files to them to have a look at and see if there's an issue, but good customer service so far
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens