Tacx T1940 Fortius I-Magic VR Trainer

Crankmeister

Ive just been looking at the T1940 its quite expensive but it looks great to keep you interested at improving your performance especially in weather like we have at the moment.have any of you got these trainers if so how do you rate them.

Percy Veere

I have the Tacx I-Magic, with the steering frame and the new TTS (Tacx Trainer Software). This new software lets you upload a GPS route and then you can cycle it using Google Earth,

This adds a lot more variety than the standard 3 virtual courses, and means you effectively have an unlimited supply of courses to go at.

The Max gradient is 5%, so for hills steeper than this it artificially reduces the speed, and as Work Done = Force x Distance (ie not time related), you effectively do the same work. Not ideal, but it does help keep your base fitness.

With the Google Earth add-on, you can cycle holiday routes before you go !

DaSy

I've had a Fortius for about 3 years, and have done thousands of miles on it.

I really believe it has improved my training many fold. I'm as happy to train indoors on it as to go outside, especially when the weather is bad.

I can highly recommend it, but you do need a good spec PC and a descent monitor to get the most out of the RLV's, so factor that into the cost too.

The Fortius will replicate grades of upto around 14% accurately, and as such I think it is worth the extra outlay.

Percy Vera

Do you have problems with the motor overheating therefore resistance reducing during a session?

lloydy75

Does anybody know if the tacx turbos are Mac compatible. I use an old Flow at the moment but I'm doing a bit of research for a new turbo later this year,
cheers,
Llloydy

DaSy

Percy Vera - I have as powerful fan that blows both me and the motor, so this may assist, but no, I have not noticed any serious degradation in resistance with heat.

I use the Catalyst program a lot, and do my intervals with it based on power, so it is monitoring the amount of power produced and varying resistance accordingly, so it wouldn't show up there too much anyway.

On long RLV climbs like Ventoux and Tourmalet, my real life time up them was within a few minutes of my RLV time, and using pretty much the same gears at the same time, so the realism is pretty good.

I recently did a climb on Majorca (Randa) that I had done dozens and dozens of times on an RLV, and in real life it was almost funny how I knew what was coming and what gear to be in on a climb I was doing for the first time in real life.

Lloydy75 - The Fortius software, and as far as I know the new TTS that replaces it, is not Mac compatible.

Crankmeister

Thanks to all who replied.well i only have a lap top at the moment so i doubt very much that it has the capabilities of running the software smoothly so i guess i will have to wait until im really flush so i can buy a good pc and monitor also,so i could get the best out of the system.oh well at least it something to look forward to maybe for next winter? but by then the next wave of virtual trainers will be out and costing even more money

slunker

How accurate is the power read out on the imagic? I have one and use the catalyst software for doing 2 on 2 off intervals. When "on" the power reads 330 watts, how accurate is this?

I keep the tyre on the turbo at the same pressure and calibrate it after a 10 min warm up.

Percy Veere

Crankmeister wrote:

Thanks to all who replied.well i only have a lap top at the moment so i doubt very much that it has the capabilities of running the software smoothly so i guess i will have to wait until im really flush so i can buy a good pc and monitor also,so i could get the best out of the system.oh well at least it something to look forward to maybe for next winter? but by then the next wave of virtual trainers will be out and costing even more money

I ran it on a laptop for 3 years with no problems, only upgraded when TTS came out so I could use Google Earth plug in at reasonable speed. Mind you, it was a 3.2GHz laptop with 1G RAM.

I shopped around and bought a new base unit, reconditioned from PC world. It only cost £400 but is a high spec, and it copes well with all the Fortius software. Most people have a monitor and keyboard/mouse kicking around somewhere.

bilbo.baggins

Does the TTS software now come as standard with the Fortius/iMagic or is this an additional expense after purchase.

Thanks.

Percy Veere

As far as I know, TTS is an extra, although Tacx have split it into two products, the earlier TTS1.3 and now TTS2.

The difference seems to be TTS2 comes with the Extreme MTB and Velodrome courses, and integrates the virtual reality section into the trainer. The earlier TTS1.3 does not have these courses on the VR built in, so you would still need your original Fortius software.

Registered users were given a discount on both TTS1.3 when it came out, and then TTS2. It may be that Tacx are offering TTS 1.3 with new trainers, but I can't say for sure. I would imagine that by integrating the VR, they intend to phase out the old Fortius software eventually.

Note that many users have reported huge problems with TTS. I have not seen many issues. The only fault for me so far is that when you finish a VR ride and save the time, the program locks up. It does store the details however, so you can re-start and analyse the ride as usual.

Hope this helps.

inseine

How accurate is the power read out on the imagic? I have one and use the catalyst software for doing 2 on 2 off intervals. When "on" the power reads 330 watts, how accurate is this?

I don't think they are very accourate but they are quite consistant so yours might be by chance. Mine seems to read sensible numbers on climbs but not on the flat or downhill.
The thing is thety seem to be consistant so it doesn't really matter whether they display the right numbers unless you really need to compare them with another power metre.
If your seeing 330 now and in a while you see 340 then great, whether it's really 200 or 400 matters not.
FWIW I'd be registring nearer 230 and then only on a climb.

Bream

I bought a 2nd hand Fortius setup a couple of months ago and am now using it 4-5 times per week, my view is:

Pros: fantastic system to consistently train using wattage, RLVs are very very good, catalyst is perfect for focussed training sessions hitting numbers and then you can use the analyser to keep track on workouts etc.

Cons: relatively expensive to get set up (cheaper when bought 2nd hand obviously), can be a real pain to get 1st set up, can have a few quirks you need to work through with the help of the Tacx forum so you need to be PC literate.

So, in summary if I were to buy again I would still buy the Fortius although I wouldn't buy the steering controller as whilst it works for me its not needed.

Cheers,

Jeff

Percy Vera

With the Fortius when setting up your own workout (say 6x1mile or 6x2mins) can you set it to record HR at the end of each rep, and time if doing miles?

At the minute I have to have pen & paper beside me which is the last thing I want!

DaSy

Percy Vera - the workout on Catalyst in Fortius shows a constant readout of your power, HR, cadence and speed. At the end of the seesion you can go back over that data via the Analyser program, which gives you several options, one is a graph that shows all the above data against time for the entire ride. There is a table option that gives a text readout of those parameters on a timed basis (I forget how often the data is recorded on that one), or an overview of the average, max and min values for the parameters above.

Percy Vera

Cheers for that DaSy.
I thought it would at that price but just wanted to confirm as its a big outlay.