I don't understand the complaint about CT having "too many wires" when using it on Trainer Road or Zwift via a PC or MAC. Either utilizes ANT+ or BLE heart rate and cadence sensors so there are no additional wires for them. There is a power cord, but most all newer smart trainers have one as well. That leaves the cord to the head unit/PC. Essentially one wire with a head unit attached. ONE wire. For that you get no data drops. None.

TR and Zwift do require a CT with firmware version 45.43 or later, but that is a different issue.

Last, I see no reason to abandon the CT. The added cost is simply not worth it to me.

Very dubious assumption

Why not just raise the front wheel on your existing trainer? It obviously wouldn't change in real time but would give you the same effect.

There are always cheap hacks for everything-why even use a smart trainer for example. But I want the best available and I want to get as close to reality as possible-attack a hill then recover attack again. And the climb is only something like $500, not a huge amount of money.

It’s nit an assumption, it’s fact. Differnt muscles are recruited.

On my Strava feed I noticed today that someone I follow is having trouble with their Wahoo Kicker not providing the right wattage, and two other people chimed in with similar issues. Sounded like they might be having issues with their wireless connection. Funny, thing, my old Computrainer never has these issues, it may not be very sexy with all the wires running around but it's solid as a rock.

No way I'm "upgrading" anytime soon.

To some of use that's a LOT of moolah. Esp in some asia countries w/ bad exchange rate.

Do you find your not as excited about hitting the turbo as you used to be?
Don't feel like your pushing hard enough on your workouts?

If you think a new toy is going to motivate you more than go for it!
If you just have money burning a whole in your pocket, Go for it!

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Ask me how much I love my Kiwami LD Aero Trisuit

I guess its all relative-IMHO spending $1,600 odd on a smart trainer is a crazy amount of money in the first place (I wrestled with it for ages). But once you have swallowed that pill I have found the use and enjoyment to be well worth it and it makes it a little easier to justify 'another' $500 knowing the use I get out of the kickr.

But if $500 was something that stressed me out Id not even consider it and just get a dumb trainer.

Definitely agree. YOLO.

Depends. If you are in the M60-65 YO Age Group than no don’t get it. If not, and you want to get better and can part with the money then absolutely. I did so this year and my FTP is up 16% vs this time last year...Wahoo/Zwift is WAY more motivating than chasing the silver man....

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

I ride my Computrainer on Zwift daily. I don't understand how people are using that as a reason to upgrade, with the exception being if you only use Zwift with an iPad.

To the OP. In my opinion, you're in the final generation of software that will be reverse engineered to work with the CT. That is to say, Zwift/TR was created acknowledging the Computrainer's popularity. IMO this is the last software that will cater to it, so Zwift 2 or whatever the next hot bit of trainer software that comes out will likely not be backwards compatible. If I already had a working CT (and I do) I would wait on the upgrade until it becomes necessary. If that's another couple of years (most likely) who knows what "bigger/better" trainer may also be out at that time.

The caveat to that is if you want to zwift/control your trainer on the iPad (not hardwired into a computer) or if you want to go to direct drive. OR if you just want to buy a new bit of kit... that's a perfectly justifiable reason.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

It technically isn't "backwards compatible". It's just "compatible", and since the CT isn't really being updated anymore, their API will be static so it will be really easy to maintain compatibility going forward to Gen2 and beyond. I suspect that since zwift / trainerroad, and whoever else is in this space can see what power meters / smart trainers all their users have, they'll make a decision to discontinue support once the user base of a particular product dwindles down to almost nothing.

If someone emerges other than Zwift or Trainerroad, with entirely new code, then they might not build in compatibility, but there really isn't much reason for the established products to drop it in version 2 or 4 or whatever they come out with next.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Literally what I said :)

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I also ride Zwift daily on the Computrainer. It works great. Not only do you have the advantage of no power dropouts from wireless interference, but you also have very quick power adjustments on hills/downhills, whereas other trainers can take a second or two to update their resistance.

If there are any drawbacks, it is that you really need to run your Computrainer for about 10 minutes before starting Zwift and do a roll-down calibration. Each and every ride. This definitely gets tiring. Also, having the occasional flat tire while riding can be annoying.

But I long ago got a dedicated room for Zwifting and a dedicated bike just for indoor riding, so things like cables and switching bikes wheels is not something I worry about.

Down the road when my Computrainer finally bites the dust, I'll pick up whatever the newest trainer is be that Kicker 6 or Neo 2 or whatever. But for now, it makes no sense for me to change.

BTW - I ditched the sucky Racermate HR and cadence sensors long ago and looked up an Ant+ dongle to my PC so it picks up my Garmin HR strap and Garmin cadence sensor.

I have both CT and Kickr and live in 3 locations

Both work equally well with Zwift and TR

What I love about the CT and like less about the Kickr
-CT never has connection drops, Kickr does occasionaly. Newer firmwares seem to be better
-CT power is always bang on my PM or consistently X watts above/below my PM depending on the PM. Wahoo is consistently high
- I only test on the CT for the above reasons

What I love about the Wahoo
- Send my data to my head unit which autosyncs....so I don't have to upload a CT file
- I don't need a PC or even a phone. I can use my Garmin (920 or 520)
- I can travel easily with it. Unit is somewhat foldable, no wires to wrap up......so I use the Kicr in 2 locations, CT in one
- No rear wheel, need for trainer tire, flats.....
- "Feeling" there are more apps out there although I never use them

Wait a minute! I can't let this go without a comment.

With my Gen 1 Kickr I get the benefit of intense knee shattering resistance applied suddenly and randomly when my wife opens the garage door with the remote, when she uses the microwave, when I get a text message, when I get a call on the mobile phone, when I am 1 minute away from finishing an interval at 101% FTP intensity and when life seems to be going well. Do you get any of these things? Of course not because your "smart trainer" is not as smart as mine. Mine seems to know when I am feeling a bit too cocky and humbles me.
(100% pink sarcasm)

The fix for doing a spin down is if you have a pm on your bike, connect zwift to your bike pm and not the computrainer. Your pm will then control the computrainer. Thats what I did after about a year of having to do spin downs (I would actually ride zwift for 10 min with wrong power numbers, disconnect computrainer from computer, do spin down, reconnect/repair computrainer to zwift).

I've had a kickr for 2 weeks now and my only slight dislike is riding in erg mode on zwift. I haven't figured out if its zwift or the kickr but the kickr is slower to respond than my computrainer. I did 4x10 min last night at 95%. I felt the kickr/zwift had a much wider deadband than my computrainer did. I was ranging from 90% to 110% at times. Even though I was in erg mode, I felt like zwift would make the resistance harder when going uphills (and I road a flatish course) which through me off.

I loved having the ability to change wattage with the handlebar unit right there on my computraine..... so easy when you are pushing near FTP. With the kickr/zwift, I have to do it on my phone and when my hr is pretty high, it's a bit of a struggle to do it quickly.

I'll be sticking with the kickr but its just different and I need to get used to it.

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