Top Trainers for the Winter and Beyond

Virtual-racing-ready machines for indoor fitness and fun

Virtual racing-ready machines for indoor fitness and fun

As we experienced this past spring, trainers and virtual rides aren’t just for the days when the roads are covered with snow. The trainer is an indispensable tool for all seasons. The four machines reviewed here will all patch you into your favourite training platform or app. While you might find a lot of the names familiar, they feature refinements that will make your rides on the spot even better.

Tacx Neo 2T $2,000

I got a quick peek at the Tacx Neo 2T at the 2019 edition of Eurobike. It features some nice upgrades on its predecessor, the Neo 2. If you have sprinter’s legs, you might have been able to make the Neo 2’s resistance unit slip a bit. Designers at Tacx worked to fix that issue on the Neo 2T. They also redesigned the magnets inside, which help to reduce the noise by rumbling less and causing less air displacement. It seems Tacx is really looking for marginal gains. But, the Neo 2T can provide a whopping 2,200 W of resistance. It can simulate inclines of 25 per cent, which is as brutal as it is infrequent in real life. (The Alto del Angliru, which appears in the Vuelta a España, has a maximum gradient of only 24 per cent.)

Setting up the trainer is quite easy. You’ll need to have a few tools on-hand, especially your chain whip and lockring tool because there’s no cassette attached. The Neo 2T vyes with the Wahoo Kickr for the smallest footprint of the trainers tested. Technically, by my measurements, the Kickr (75 cm x 53 cm) has the smaller footprint compared with the Neo 2T (75 cm x 57 cm). The Neo, however, only extends back 28 cm from your bike’s rear axle, while the Kickr has 30 cm of machine behind the axle.

When running with Zwift, the Tacx trainer works quite well in erg workouts. The real magic is in sim mode, in which you can take advantage of the trainer’s road feel feature. When you ride over pixel-built gravel roads, wooden bridges and cobblestones (to name a few road-feel supported surfaces), the trainer gives you appropriate feedback. Road feel helps you feel more immersed in your ride, and, like rumble strips on the highway, it elevates your alertness on your long sessions in the saddle. ( tacx.com)

Elite Direto XR and Elite Sterzo Smart $1,299 and $130

Of all the trainers in this group, the Elite Direto XR is definitely the most-improved when compared with the Direto X. The XR comes with its stabilizer legs already attached. It’s a small touch, but it means you’ll save time, lots of time if you, for example, had put the Direto X legs on backward at first when you tested the machine last year. (This is all hypothetical, of course.) Other improvements include an increase in resistance to 2,300 W, an increase in slope simulation to 24 per cent (6 per cent more than the Direto X) and a heavier flywheel (up 0.9 kg to 5.1 kg). The most significant improvement is the trainer’s behaviour in erg mode. The Direto XR is much better than the Direto X in this department. I’d say the Direto XR’S erg mode quality is close to that of the Tacx.

The Direto XR comes with a front-wheel riser, but I left it in the box. I had the new Sterzo Smart to set my front wheel in. The Sterzo Smart gives you the ability to steer within Zwift. You can move your avatar to the left and right side of your lane. Since you can position yourself more precisely on the road, you have to be more diligent when you want to slip into another rider’s draft. Yes, that’s more work for you, but that’s not only part of the fun, it offers you a different set of advantages. You can take shorter, inside lines in corners, which non-steering riders can’t do. Also, you can put that wheel suck behind you into the wind merely by moving over.

While the Tacx has its road feel and Wahoo makes its Kickr Climb to mimic the effects of grade changes, I’d say that what the Sterzo adds to your virtual ride is more significant than the behaviours of the other two. Sure all three are attempts at simulation, which, for all the technology and innovation that went into them, are still pretty rudimentary. How can I call them rudimentary, you might ask? Do I have access to some kind of cycling holodeck à la Star Trek that’s so much better? No. I like these features, but they’ll never make me forget that I’m riding inside on a trainer. But the Sterzo lets me interact with the virtual environment. I have to be more engaged, which does make the time on the trainer more enjoyable. ( elite-it.com)

Kurt Kinetic Road Machine Control $660

What’s an on-wheel trainer like the Kinetic Road Machine Control doing getting all mixed up with a bunch of direct-drive machines? I thought it was important to highlight a sub-$1,000 option for virtual rides. The Kinetic Road Machine Control is a prime machine in that category.

With the Kinetic app, it was easy to update the Road Machine Control’s firmware. It was also a cinch to pair the trainer with Zwift. I put a pair of Garmin Vector 3 pedals on my bike and connected them to my head unit to compare the power numbers I’d see within Zwift that came from the trainer. In general, the power numbers from the trainer were lower than those from my pedals. Sometimes there were differences of 10 to 20 W. Other times they were as high as 30 W. Kurt says the trainer has an accuracy of +/- 3 per cent. I’d say the figure is higher than that. If you already have a power meter on your bike, use its data in Zwift and leave the trainer to simulate the effects of the virtual terrain, which it does quite well, thanks in part to the 5.4-kg flywheel.

The Road Machine has the lowest resistance figure of all the trainers: 1,800 W. But you know what? That’s really not a big deal. Those 1,800 W will provide enough resistance for most riders as they struggle up virtual climbs. The more than 2,000 W of resistance offered by other trainers is, you could argue, more bravado than functionality.

The Road Road Machine Control, however, is quite functional and will get you riding on virtual courses for almost half the price of a direct-drive trainer. ( kurtkinetic.com)

Wahoo Kickr $1,800

The latest Wahoo Kickr came out this past August. It’s the fifth generation of Kickr by the Atlanta-based company and it comes with the new Axis feet. They let your bike move about five degrees side to side as you do your trainer workout. You adjust the squish of the feet with one of the three pairs of discs supplied. I used the smallest discs, which are designed for lighter riders.

The movement and effects of the Axis feet are subtle. I found it hard to say if the sway reduced the onset of discomfort during a trainer session. On trainers without any comfort features, I can be fine throughout a whole workout. Other times, I’ll be standing and shifting a lot. The Axis feet didn’t completely eliminate all in-saddle squirming, but I did welcome the movement they provided.

During my time on the previous generation of Kickr, I found myself quite addicted to a feature that’s also on the latest trainer. You can set it to smooth your power in erg mode. With that setting on, you hit the target wattages of a workout easily. You’ll get a steady power number and you’ll rack up the stars in Zwift as you complete your workout as long as you keep pedalling. Go ahead: check your phone during easier intervals. You’ll nail it. No problem, right? Well, if you are a real stickler for accuracy, you won’t be seeing the actual spikes and dips that happen naturally when you are in erg mode. With other trainers, you still have to manage these with your cadence. With power smoothing – not so much. I’m sure it all averages out nicely, but it’s kind of lazy training. Now, I try to maintain intervals without assistance. It keeps me more engaged, and it’s a more realistic management of my effort. Then again, on some endurance workouts, it’s not so bad to check social media, is it? ( wahoofitness.com)