No.
Only you can decide the value.
Depends on whether you will use the bells and whistles to train.

Do you need it... no. Does it help motivation? My buddy LOVES his, so I'd say yes, it can help motivation. I love my bank account being $1000 heavier.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

I needed one because I don't ride outside in the winter and I am motivated by objective feedback which allows me to compete against myself.

I have had mine less than a month and I am just scratching the surface of the potential and functionality, but I love it. I didn't have another trainer and decided I would rather buy nice than buy twice. Also I got a good deal on a new in the box Kickr off the ST classifieds, very happy with that decision as well.

Just having the trainer alone won't make you suddenly ride extra hours all over the place. You need fun workouts to go with it. For me the combination of Trainer Road and KickR have been awesome, but you could still do the Trainer Road workouts on a cheaper trainer. I think on the Black Friday sale thread someone picked one up for less than $800.

If you go on the KickR website they have a list of dealers where you can go and play on it. Make sure they have a phone that can connect up to it because you need to look at the Wahoo Fitness app on the phone to understand all the cool things the trainer can do.

For me, yes. I was on a Cyclops Fluid 2 for 3-4 years before upgrading to a Kickr. I was able to pickup a new unit for $870 shipped during a flash sale which helped lesson the sting.

As mentioned above, the combination of the trainer with something like Trainer Road makes it EASY to train if you have the basic underlying motivation. It is so easy to select a workout, hop on the bike, and start riding while watching TV. You do not have to worry about setting power levels, resistance, etc. It just happens. While it does not make it any more "fun" or even less challenging when the workout is hard, it is still super accessible and very time efficient. My best riding of the season is always after a block of riding on the trainer like this...

I asked myself this same question last fall. I ended up saving $800 or so and getting a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine and signing up for TrainerRoad. With my bluetooth speed/cadence sensor, and TR, I have a really good approximation of the Kickr/a real road ride, for a fraction of the cost. Plus, since I have to work to change resistance, I think I get a better workout.

If you already have a powermeter, you certainly don't need one (especially if you also already have a good trainer) and I'd save the money.

If you don't have a PM or need a new trainer, then I'd probably say yes, spring for one. You get a really good trainer (very quite, heavy flywheel for good spindown/feel, well made) anyway. If you like to mindlessly watch videos or are a techie then it is absolutely the best since you can control resistance via bluetooth on your laptop, phone, etc. with even more uses coming down the road. It is also ant+ for existing head units.

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Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

Noone probably needs one.....but it sure is nice having one. I purchased mine about one month ago and got my subscription to trainerroad. I love the ease of the workouts, just hit play and pedal. I started a 12 week low-mid volume 40KTT workout plan. It will be interesting to see my improvement at the end of the 12 weeks. I've only been cycling for a year and 1/2 and had a cycleops fluid trainer doing spinnerval dvd's. With the kickr/TR combo, I can watch TV and/or movies which is a lot more entertaining than listening to spinnerval dvd's.

I kind of agree. As you're changing the power you have the mental training aspect as you have to commit to hitting every interval. In the Erg mode on the Kickr you basically just have to keep your legs moving so it's a slightly different mental aspect.

The Erg mode I think will be better physical training though because you can't give yourself a 'micro' break by missing the targets at any point. I made the mistake of allowing my cadence to drop on a Sufferfest Erg mode ride and the resistance got so high that I ended up grounding to a halt. I tweaked my hip a little by trying to get the legs going again (so that the Kickr would reduce resistance). I won't be making that mistake again!

I had a really crappy trainer before that had zero coasting. If you stopped pedalling the wheel would just stop almost instantly. It was great in one respect because I would do IM prep sessions at specific watts on the trainer then in the final weeks when I was riding outside the same watts felt much easier. I think the erg mode on the Kickr will replicate that effect to some effect.

I have the extra weight on my KK and I love the feel of both being able to coast while I adjust for a split second and needing to push quite hard to meet interval change,s just as in real life.

I ordered one, I'm one of the ones who got lucky and used the 30% off coupon at all3sports.com and paid $768 (deal is dead now). I'm having a few second thoughts now because of all the accuracy issues that people are complaining about but hopefully these are fixable in firmware and will be resolved soon. My other choice was the Cycleops Powerbeam Pro and there are some good deals out there (classifieds, ebay etc..) especially for older units that came with the awesome Joule 3.0 head unit.
Anyway, I live in flat Florida and my city has pretty much zero training routes that are safe. I have to drive 30min to get to some good training roads and those are flat flat flat. As a result I do most of my training indoors (year round) except for my weekend rides or long rides. I've been known to do 4h+ sessions indoors training for IMFL this summer. I'm doing Mt Tremblant next year and those 7000+ ft of climbing are e little bit scary for me so I'm thinking the course simulation potential is going to help me. The other feature that's I think I'll like is the ERG mode. I did long intervals at IM pace, below and above and it's always a pain in the ass when you can't really get into that perfect gear where the cadence is comfortable and your power output matches the target. With ERG mode, the trainer should modulate the resistance so you're always in that optimal spot.

If you spend a lot of time on the trainer it's worth it otherwise you can have a pretty good setup with a KK Road Machine + InRide + TrainerRoad. You can get the InRide power sensor for $100 and you're all set.

sp1ke, I am one of those that just posted a difference between Kickr and Quarq power comparison. Although it bugs me I am still very happy with the Kickr for other reasons. For me it is not as critical to have it dead on the money since I don't have a coach (I don't compete either) and I am not passing on bogus data to a coach to analyze. In this case it would appear with the Kickr reporting higher it would look like I am progressing quite fast, but only for a short period until you settle into week to week targets for certain durations.

One thing that matters to me the most is being consistent with training and since I train inside during the weekdays year round I want a setup that is enjoyable to use. For me personally I never could get in the groove using the KK fluid trainer so I bought eMotion rollers and used a Powertap hub on an older road bike and my weekly volume and intensity increased. I found the eMotion rollers to be really pleasant to train on. Since I purchased the Kickr back in August I have only been on the eMotion rollers once. I really like the combination of Kickr and TrainerRoad. I like the ability to be in erg mode and let the program control the resistance, whereas, using TrainerRoad and the eMotion rollers I had to constantly watch and work an extra bit just to stay in the target wattage.

I am with you that I hope the folks at Wahoo can figure out a way to get this sorted out so that my data in the PMC will not be skewed by inflated data from the Kickr.