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It’s a spectacular landscape,
It’s a spectacular landscape, you really get a sense of history. Easy to imagine hill forts, drovers, and tribal battles. An underrated part of the world, long may it stay that way. I drive to Swindon fairly regularly and always try to take the long way through Upavon and Alton Barnes
Soo…
Soo…
To summarise this thread here are my product search findings for the following requirements
1. Multiple wheel sizes
2. Zwift interactive (two-way power)
3. iOS-compatible
4. Wheel-on
5. £500 budget
Firstly, the multiple wheel size requirement rules out virtually all the “triangular” designs where the wheel mounts at the apex of the triangle. For these, the resistance unit needs to be repositioned by unbolting it each time you change wheel size, which just isn’t practical.
This limits you to scissor-type designs where the tension is set by your body weight and the wheel mouting arm pivots in a scissor-type motion around the frontmost floor mount of the trainer.
Elite make these still, as do B-Kool
However, B-Kool doesn’t play nice with iOS & Zwift because they can’t be connected using BLE to Zwift. Meaning that iOS is completely ruled out for two-way power in Zwift
(Which is a shame because the Pro 2 looks to be a great bit of kit several steps above others at its price range in terms of accuracy, max gradient, and max power)
And so, the winner is (in a field of, as far as I can tell, 1) – The Elite Qubo Smart Digital B+ (which gets a decent enough review here)
Thanks everyone. I’m the only
Thanks everyone. I’m the only one who wears cleats.
We’re definitely going to need to swap bikes to allow my son to use it, which certainly adds a bit of complexity to the trainer choice. Missus and I will probably be fine on the same bike as we’re similarly proportioned.
So that means it’s going to need to be easily adjustable.
I’ll be the only one doing structured training on it, rest of the family will just be using it for tooling around a virtual course, at least to start with.
Thanks for all the advice, it’s really helping narrow down the choice.
Well, I’ve partly answered my
Well, I’ve partly answered my own question – the only Zwift-controllable exercise bike is the Wattbike Atom, and if I’m going to spend £1500 on a bike it’s going to have two wheels 🙂
So the question remains, does Zwift cope well with users using the same profile? What are the issues with swapping bikes with different wheel sizes on a wheel-driven trainer? What about handling differing sensor packages between bikes (all the bikes can have their own speed/cadence sensors, only mine will have a power meter)
Outside – zero. I simply
Outside – zero. I simply wouldn’t leave either of my bikes unattended and hate carrying a lock strong enough to keep them safe(r)
All the budget has been spent at home – ground anchor, secure shed, etc. But ultimately I didn’t need to do that either as my house insurance fully covers me for theft. The only reason I bothered is because the bikes are self-builds and as such have a certain sentimental value. Both low-run frames that are no longer available so they’re effectively irreplaceable.
Online: No ride sharing on social media, big Strava privacy zone
When I used to commute (on my best bike) I never locked it at work in 3+ years of doing so, I guess I was fortunate in that we had very secure bike parking – unless there was an inside job.
I got one of these in the
I got one of these in the last time PBK had them on a deep discount sale. Lovely bit of kit, easy to fit, reliable, and the right price such that if you get bored with it you can sell it on at not much of loss (assuming it’s not being discounted – and for most of the autumn they weren’t)
They have got new stuff on the way (DCRainmaker has a report from CES about some cool location tracking stuff) but if you just need one-sided power this is worth going for.
And if you’ve got two or more bikes it’s a 10 minute job to swap them over, assuming you use the same crank length.
As above, I would go small and check you have some fork above the headset to play with. I go small to get a leg fit and then add a longer stem to get longer as I have *relatively* short legs.To be really pedantic one thing reach doesn’t account for is seat tube angle – a steeper seat tube will bring you forward more relative to the BB. It’s only mm’s and can be ironed out by layback but I start with seat tube angle and virtual top tube, then work with reach and stack, then HT length and wheelsbase and try and merge them all together in my mind into one complex formula where I ususally group a bunch of frames and then buy the cheapest or by colour 🙂
The guy who did my bike fit (30 years plus experience from the days where a bike fit probably involved a plumb line and a spirit level) said it all starts with the legs. Get the hip angle and knee over pedal bit right and work from there. With that in mind you certainly need to consider seat tube angle, and then it’s a question of saddle setback and stem length to get the bars in the right place.
I’ve found with one of my bikes that my ideal position requires a 35mm setback seatpost (so yeah, it’s a touch too small) and that limits your options these days. Don’t just assume you’ll be able to dial everything out with stem length and setback, a few mm reach can really make a difference to comfort. I guess that’s why you see framebuilders offering so many sizes.
I’ve got an Edge 25 (passed
I’ve got an Edge 25 (passed on to my son) and an Edge 130.
Edge 25 is still a superb device for doing the basics well – the only reason I upgraded was because I use a power meter and wanted navigation and better integration with other apps
The screen on the 130 is excellent and very configurable – a noticeable improvement over the Edge 25. And I’ve had zero issues with either unit in terms of lost rides etc.
Both will do the job – personally I’d go for a used Edge 130 (always loads on eBay) rather than a 25, simply because Garmin will/should support it for several years.
Prior to the Garmins I had a few Wahoo devices – starting with the bike case which let me stick an iPhone on my bars. They were good, but somewhat geeky, and I started to get issues.
I wouldn’t use my phone on my bars unless it was cheap/disposable.
Here’s the story on the 53/34
Here’s the story on the 53/34 setups used by some teams on Los Machucos
But yes – these are Di2 setups.
It’s all very well saying it won’t work, will inevitably be jarring, won’t be pleasant, will be unreliable etc etc, but have all those commenting actually tried it? VeloUSA obviously has and didn’t get his to work cleanly.Ive got a Rotor 3d+ crank with ‘no q’ (round rings) in 52/34 with Shimano Dura Ace di2. It shifts flawlessly. No jarring, no scraping, no clunking, no miss-shifts, no dropped chain, it just shifts exactly as it did when I was running it 52/36.
Perhaps that is the power of a di2 front shift which is so positive making it work.
The precision and ease of a Di2 front shift is the only reason I’d go back to electronic – and I think you’re on to something in that the chain basically has no choice when it’s shoved by a Di2 front mech. I guess the only risk is it not reaching the ramp and then jamming/destroying the mech.
With a cable mech you as a rider need to be able to throw the lever hard enough to shift back up to the big ring, and maintain that pressure, possibly with a bit of overshift, and potentially in horrible crossed combinations. Factor in cold/wet hands and a tired rider and I think you’ll end up with unreliable shifting. In my experience it’s easy enough to fluff an upshift on a CX crankset (46/36) when knackered and that will require much less effort than an 18 tooth difference.
The other thing to perhaps factor in is changing the rear mech at the same time to one of new clutched road mechs to better control the chain in a front downshift.
Meanwhile I have decided to go for preliminary bike fit so I hope that might help me with my decision making.If you’ve not done much road/drop-bar riding a full roadie position will feel very odd and probably uncomfortable. Will take a while for your thigh muscles and core to adjust to it. Ask your fitter for a touring/endurance position rather than a full-on race one.
It will work, but it won’t be
It will work, but it won’t be reliable or pleasant. Pretty sure I saw photos of some of the pros with this setup on the ’17 Vuelta for that insane section with the concrete 20%+ ramps
Shimano’s recommended maximum difference is 16 teeth so it’s not too far out spec. Might need some serious cable tension and a perfectly-aligned front mech to get it shifting reliably. Will also need good shift technique.
Also bear in mind the Secan’s
Also bear in mind the Secan’s proportional geometry option, if you’re long bodied/short-legged or the other way around. If you have some bike fit data Fairlight will do a great job of matching your proportions to the frame.
In my experience Fairlight’s customer service is excellent, whereas I hear mixed reports of Canyon’s, particularly on delivery times.
You mention that you do a lot of climbing – is that on or off-road? I’d imagine that the Grail being carbon fibre will be significantly lighter than the Secan.
I’ve just got my Tempest in Large. I’m just under 6′ and it fits me well, if a little on the smaller side of what I expected. If you want minimal saddle-bar drop, I’d size up rather than down.Thanks, that was what I was going to do. However I stumbled upon a Kinesis Ti Gf disc on eBay.
Top tube is 55cm and headtube is a healthy 15cm, I’d have probably prefered the next size up, but the headtube was only another 1.5cm taller, and the top tube was over my usual size, long legs shorter body
It has all the elements I was looking for, although twice the price of the tempest, but including the forks.
So hopefully that’ll do for me?
I’d say so – fine bike, I’ve never seen a bad review and it was on my list for a long time as the do-it-all, keep forever bike.
Then I fell out of love with disc brakes and couldn’t find the rim-braked version in time, and settled on a Bowman Layhams instead.
So to resurect this thread, I’ve been looking at getting a Tempest V3, as they’ve just reduced them to £610 from £899But here’s my dilema, what size to go for?
My Usual size is a 55/56 road frame, with a 110mm stem. I’m 5’10
So going by their size chart, I should go for the medium, but its headtube is only 125mm. As I’m not that flexible in the spine, I prefer a taller headtube, so the large with a headtube of 155mm is the headtube length of most of my bikes. But the top tube is 57 on the large.
So go for the large, with an inline seatpost & shorter stem, or go for the medium?
I’ve had a frame with a short headtube & I couldn’t get on with it, and I’m not a fan of riser stems?
Similar Reilly frames have taller headtubes thier medium is 140mm, but twice the price of the Planet X
The Pickenflick has a 155mm headtube, but I prefer the Tempest v3 as it has flat mount calipers
Help!!!!!
Other than the reach the important relationship to get right is saddle setback. Pop the geo of your current bike and the Tempest in to one of the online geometry trackers and see which works best. In my experience my fit is more sensitive in terms of placement of saddle over the BB than the reach.
See if you can get the reach to bars where you want it and the saddle in the same place relative to the BB.
This probably won’t affect you but the days of long-setback seatposts seem to have come to an end – the only one I’ve found readily available with more than about 30mm is the Nitto S83 which has around 45mm (currently on sale at PlanetX…)
