No. If you want a direct drive, you are much better off with a Neo.

What kind of issue are you having with tires? Are you using a Continental Trainer tire?

I have 2 Kickrs and they are both super close to my power meter, my P1 pedals and Vectors show 5W-7W more.

All you need to do is to calibrate kickr properly. Ride hard for one hour first time, and then while still hot perform spin down, don't wait for kickr to cool down. You need to perform spin down each time you move your kicker (after you ride for 45-60min while is still hot). If you have dedicated place, you don't need to touch it for long time. Last time I calibrated my kicker was 2 months back, and still shows exactly the same difference between power meter.
In Erg mode do not ride 53-11, shift to 53-19 or 53-21. Just sharing what works the best for me.

ERMAHGAWD

Now we're all going to read more about accuracy issues because you created this thread!

No. Its junk.

I think this has a lot to do with many of the accuracy issues people are having. For instance if I perform a spindown after a 15 min warmup, the unit reads 15 to 20 watts over what my pm shows. If I do the spindown later in the workout or near the end once it gets hot, the unit is no more than 5 watts off from my p2m which is acceptable which would put it within 2 to 3 watts of my powertap. It was frustrating for a while trying to figure out how to get it to read closer to my pm but after some experimentation, this was the solution in my case. And I agree, then leave it alone as long as you don't move it or unplug it.

---

A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

I wrote about this a while back:

http://www.manyniches.com/triathlon/kickr-quarq-power-data/


What I have found in the ensuing year is that my Kickr is routinely 5-10% over the Quarq Elsa readings. I train using the Quarq numbers inside and out.


However, when your Quarq battery dies, and your head unit switches over to the Kickr, you see results like this (from this Tues):


https://www.strava.com/activities/484520316


The day I am doing 221w at 135 avg BPM is a day for a party...where in the goodie bag I get a new 2032 battery for my Quarq. :)

Here's a link from the previous day (Monday) workout for reference:


https://www.strava.com/activities/484520302

A trainer tire is like...$20 (I think the Cyclops Branded ones are better than the contis) and direct drive trainers are over $1000. I am not sure you are seeing this rationally. Hell, a trainer tire plus a stages PM is still less than a direct drive trainer.

There isn't a single damn person on these boards that knows the answer to that question because no one here knows what is/was ever wrong with them in the first place or how widespread the problem was, let alone if they fixed it. Instead you're going to hear from the same handful of people who hit every one of these threads to either condemn or praise it based on their own n=1 experience.

Alternatively you could maybe go talk to your LBS and ask them how many returns they typically see on it and what their take is on customer satisfaction. Or just straight up email Wahoo and state that this is a concern of yours and ask if they can address it if they want you as a customer.

There is certainly no guarantee that either of those parties will be objective but the one thing I can absolutely guarantee you is that you aren't going to get to the truth here.

Ive had zero issues with kickr. DC R claims all bugs are fixed.

Zero problems. If the numbers are off they are consistent so who cares

Is Ray talking about new Kickrs or all?

I posted an update this morning from an active recovery session last night. I still have a 15 watt difference between my power meters for the overall session average.
The session was the Kickr (latest FW update), Quarq ELSA, PerfPro (latest edition using power meter control).

When do you calibrate your Kickr. I have almost the same setup but with P2M. Kickr is reading max +/- 5 watts. I have one of the first Kickr's delivered.

You are one of the lucky ones as it seems that those first batches of Kickrs are the closest to being in line with decent power meters. + / - 5 watts is about the difference between by Powertap G3 is to my Quarq ELSA and Riken of about 4 watts. That is very good - IMO considering it is further down the drive train.

Since the Quarq ELSA is in control and it does not drift and I leave on the Kickr's bike it is very stable. I have stopped doing a spindown as I found it made no difference. Being time crunched I no longer worry about equipment warm up and get right into training. Previously (before power meter control) I was doing like an earlier post suggested and would do the spindown at the end of an one hour session. I found this method to be a little better than a spindown after a 10 or 20 minutes. Some people say they have drift on the Kickr, but mine is pretty stable. The room temperature and humidity level does not fluctuate much.

My N=1 protocol has come about by continually comparing the Kickr's data to the power meter data. (My Kickr was purchased August 2014)

Anyone who says otherwise is peddling fiction.

Thanks.

Mine fluctuates between being the same as my vector pedals and 15w too low. I have noticed that they are the same within the first 10mins of a workout during the warmup and then get farther apart as I crank up the watts (i.e. for a 30min thresh sesh last night the vectors reported 322 and the kickr was 332 despite being the same in the w/u). however, I move my kickr quite a lot as I bring it to a local indoor-training class 2x per week and admittedly do not do the spindown after moving.

has anyone else noticed that frequently moving the kickr has a notable effect on its accuracy, especially if the spindowns are not done immediately?

jj

Today's workout 92 minutes with 4x8min@90%FTP with 4min pause. Overal Kickr was within 0,5 watt of P2M.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ps0p08bwgrta62j/pp.pdf?dl=0

Just got my P1 and compared them to the kickr. The P1 were reading about 20W lower then the Kickr. I guess i can try the spindown after a long workout but of all my spindowns the offset was always the same, or very close.

I can't tell you the last time I did a spin down on my Kickr. It was definitely before I moved last April, and this thing has traveled with me while I raced this past summer. I don't record power on my workouts from the Kickr, but from my P2M. The other day, I watched the power difference from my Kickr and P2M. At the start of the ride, the P2M was reading 10w higher than the Kickr. By the end of the ride some 2+ hours later, the Kickr was reading 25w higher than the P2M.

I decided to update the firmware on the Kickr to the latest rev available. I did a 2 hour ride Friday, and for the entire ride, the Kickr read about 5-7w less than the P2M. I still have not performed a spin down, and I'm pretty happy with it, though I do not use ERG mode on it currently. Maybe I will now that the power it reading properly, but more testing will need to be done first.

I have a kickr and P2M as well. My kickr, even after firmware updates and warm spin downs, routinely reads about 20 watts higher than my P2M. And its worse at lower wattages. For example, if my Kickr has me at 100 watts, my P2M is reading more like 60. I have a feeling the P2M is the more accurate of the two.
That said, the kickr has been -consistent-, and because i do my FTP tests for indoor training on the kickr, it therefore still pushes me as hard as it should and I get great workouts.

I really hate the tire interface, and required calibration every ride, of the computrainer. If it weren't for those two things, I'd probably go with a CT instead.

To the OP - if your only reason for switching trainers is because you want to save tires, that seems kind of silly. Buy a cheap $20 tire once a year to destroy on the trainer. Or, whatever tire you used for your racing rear wheel all Summer, use that for the winter training, and put a new racing tire on in the Summer.

My Kickr is about 5 to 7 W off from my Quarq

---

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