grumpier.mike wrote:
They are smooth, quite, more stable, and you don't need to worry about having a dedicated wheel/tire/skewer combo. If the cost isn't a huge obstacle, then they are great.
My question would be why you need a trainer with an integrated power meter if cost is a big factor? Just use your power meter on a 100$ dumb trainer, which is what I do. Intervals are just wattage and time, so I set a lap timer, 3 second power, and average lap power on my Garmin and have at it. It is a miserable way to spend an hour compared to the 3 or 4 times a year I use a Kickr at a training studio, but it gets the job done.
Essentially this. I played around with some smart trainers. And I use a Kickr when I go to a training studio. But after dicking around for a while with these things, and fighting the trainers sometimes, I discovered that all the expensive trainer was doing was "shifting" for me. I wondered why I had spent all this money to essentially avoid having to shift my bike manually for the intervals. I already have a power meter on the bike, and I figured I could just as easily pay attention to the interval timing and shift the bike myself. I returned the smart trainer and just went back to my old setup of dumb trainer + power meter. That also eliminated all the headache I had over correlating my power meter's reported data vs the smart trainer's reported data.
I don't find it miserable though. I learned that I just prefer to do this all manually. I also find the Kickr to be a bit too cruel in how fast it clamps you down when you slightly fall off the prescribed power. I don't find that feature very useful.