Well that's confusing. My brother had a recent model, I'd say he got it no more than 2 years ago. He used it for a year and found the speed/effort correlation shifted dramatically as the unit warmed up. It mean we couldn't ride together on Zwift. He used it anyway for a year or so and then after doing a bit of research and finding lots of people complaining about massive inaccuracy when using it with virtual power for similar reasons he decided to change to a KKRM and has been happy since.

I think your brother likely has a dud. Most of the inconsistency reports were of the older 5+ yr old ones (some of those leaked, too.) Very few reports of current-gen Fluid2s being really inconsistent - if they were so bad, they wouldn't be on sale anymore given how much competition there is out there amongst fluid and other trainers. And the Fluid2 is a popular, well regarded model as well. He should send his back.

I was having a bunch of technical issues one day last month and ended up saying "F it", turned everything off except my power meter and my Wahoo Bolt head unit. I got my prescribed workout in and felt like Rocky training in Siberia. With that being said, I can do it, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. Yesterday was a great example as to why. I had a 3 hour trainer ride scheduled... turned on an action movie I could listen to and didn't really need to watch to and found a 100k Zwift group ride that was pushing close to the watts I needed for the time I needed and had a blast. Time goes by a lot faster with Zwift b/c you have to pay attention to the group dynamics or you can get spit off the back and there's no catching up to a group of 30 when you're riding solo... at least not for me!

Agreed, I see this guy on another popular forum spouting the same drivel, and even someone relatively clueless like me can see that he doesn't really know what he's talking about. He's got some charts out there with a "plan" that isn't really much of a plan. I really don't get his crusade against software like zwift or trainerroad. I personally don't like zwift workouts and plans, but use trainerroad because I really enjoy their menu of workouts and I can either follow a plan or pick a workout to meet whatever I'm feeling. Fstrnu thinks that all of us want to futz around with watching the time and messing with resistance manually with the wahoo app, when the convenience of trainerroad's plans are just being able to ride and let the software handle the changes for you while you just focus on the effort or tv or whatever.

I pointed this out in another thread where he popped his head in, but his assertion that cyclists are dumber now because of software is so asinine. I think with the availability of these resources, we're smarter than ever. And he fails to acknowledge that the trainerroad guys freely make themselves available on their podcasts and their own forum now giving training advice and helping users get smarter. In no way do they ever say "our plans are the only way to go"

In short, fstrnu is an idiot who is trying to sell himself as some sort of expert on internet forums. I've stopped going to the other forum because people like him just ruin any intelligent discussion with their dogma.

 

Well to be fair, smart trainers make cyclists dumb.
That's why I use a dumb trainer.
But Zwift and Traineroad have no such effect. ;)

If you're a dinosaur then I'll be the trilobite: I ride my old road bike on a ten year old Blackburn trainer and do Spinervals workouts on a little DVD player in my garage. No power meter, no heart rate monitor, just Coach Troy's perceived effort graphic at the top of the screen. I think the techy stuff is great if you have the disposable income but it's definitely not essential. If you're motivated enough and put in an honest effort each time you train I think you can get fitter without the gadgets.

And remember Coach Troy's stellar advice: "If you feel faint just keep on riding - you'll pass out before you die anyway."

DVD's pretty fancy stuff. How 'bout:

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