I am not sure what an electronic trainer will do that the KK, trainer road and a power meter won't.

I would save your money. BTW, see you at Mt Tremblant.

I guess the only thing is it would control the resistance automatically. I also may be able to use those apps that have a video of a route and control resistance to simulate riding said course. Saving money is not one of my strengths :). See you at MT, is it your first?

I have a Kickr, It's a nice luxury item, but you don't need it to become a better athlete. Your current setup will get you where you to be.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

You don't need an electric trainer, but it will make your training more enjoyable, precise and productive.

Sure it's a luxury item, but so are wetsuits, tri bikes and racing flats.
You could train using a KK and power meter.
You could also complete your race wearing baggy shorts, riding a hybrid and wearing basketball shoes, but why would you want to?

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Lewis

I agree with above. But at the same time, while it's undeniably a luxury item, I would replace mind instantly with the same if it broke or somehow got lost with the same, even if I had to stretch more than a little bit to do so, as it's become so vital to my training routine as a mostly indoors cyclist now.

This.

So if you could buy a Quarq or a Kickr right now what would you do? I have a Kurt kinetic road machine and will be getting trainer road

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the kickr is a really nice trainer, its solid and heavy and you dont have to mess with rear tire issues. The flywheel is very heavy which gives it a nice inertia. Since it has an ergo function, you can do videos like sufferfest where the load is controlled by the action in the movie, which is a lot of fun.

I personally like ergo training, it's nice to have that load you have to master or face the shame of losing to the machine.

Do you have a power meter now? If so I'd go with the Kickr. Depending on where you live you'll probably be inside riding a lot. I had a KK too and hated riding inside. Got the Kickr for Christmas last year and it made riding inside tolerable. Plus by the time spring comes around you can have saved up for the Quarg.

I do not have a power meter yet

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

There will def be different opinions on this, a lot of which has to do with your ratio of indoor:outdoor training.

For someone like me who is 90+% indoors even during summer for bike training, it's no question Kickr, even if I had to give up the power numbers on race day. I have a powertap wheel which I had before the Kickr and used with a Fluid2, and after the Kickr, I'd def say for me it's Kickr over powertap+fluid trainer any day.

I probably would prefer the Powertap / Quarq if I were riding over 50% of my miles outdoors (did this previously.)

I have no problem riding inside. I love it. I ride outside only when I have a group or someone to ride with. I also would have no problem hitting the intervals on Trainer Road or any oher software. Can you get just as good of a workout with a Quarq and Kurt Kinetic compared to the Kickr using Trainer Road on both?

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If you go the Computrainer route try the Ergvideo of IMMT. My favorite.

Personally I couldn't get the same workout. I think that was due to my hatred of riding inside. The plus side of the Kickr is ERG mode. It doesn't care if you're tired, you're hitting that interval. Sounds like you don't have that issue though so the benefits I got from it might not apply to you. Above that I enjoy the real courses and being able to build my own workouts and have the Kickr do all the work.

You can get the same quality workout, yes, but the main differences:

- Less concentration needed to hit steady power on the harder intervals. On the fluid trainer, you'll see as you start to do VO2-level intervals that your power will bounce more than you'd like due to the effort, even with the 3-5 sec averaging on. With the Kickr, it's pretty close to level all the time (still hurts!)

- You actually can increase your workout power or FTP by 1-2 watts gradually and actually do it. There is no way you can do this with the fluid trainer+powertap, as you will not be able to pedal closer than 5 watt differentials, and that's with close concentration to the power readings. With the Kickr, you really can just add 1 watt per week, which pays dividends over, say, 16 weeks.

But yes, you can def still bust your tail on the fluid trainer, and give more concentration to get the same quality workout. You only get faster if you suffer, and you can suffer plenty well on both. Just that the Kickr allows the precision to more finely increment the suffering upwards.

Can a Garmin 910 pickup the power meter on the Kickr? If not, how do you upload data to Training Peaks? I like the idea of buying the Kickr now and saving money for a Quarq in the spring

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Is sufferfest part of trainerroad or is it a separate app?

I was using Trainerroad which recorded the power data; I believe all the software out that that does erg mode records power data so you can upload in gpx or similar.

I don't use my Garmin 910xt to record data, not sure it can record off the Kickr, actually.

I am very far from a expert, but I just bought a kickr and did my first ride an hour ago. I love it and am I am very happy with my investment. I am saving for a power meter by spring

I'm not sure if you can use your 910 but TR has ab icon to download the workout, If you have a MAC just drag it from the downloads folder into the TP device agent. I'm sure its something similar for a PC.

you purchase individual sufferfest videos, so when you are tooling along it says to go at level X for X seconds, when you add a subscription to trainer road and the kickr trainer, when it says go 340 watts for 30 seconds, the trainer clamps down and you have to put out the juice or the pedals just stop. It can be kind of cruel.

People do not need a lot of things. They still get those anyways. Define what need is. Each person has their own idea about it. So your question really comes down to following: can you afford it and if you can do you want/value it. That is all about it. KICKR currently is about the only computer controlled trainer that has everyone my dog included making compatible software (we are guilty as well ;) )
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Oh, I thought that you can pair the Wahoo with TrainerRoad and the Garmin 910 and that it would work. Trainer would display the info and guide you through the workout by controlling the Wahoo and the Garmin will also receive the ant info and log the activity. Is that not right? I want the ability to have all my workouts uploaded to GC.

just export the gpx file from trainerroad and upload to GC