Upgrading from wheel on to direct drive

dazza007

Hi
I have been using a Tacxs Flow Smart for over a year now and it has been great. I use it quite regularly and am looking at direct drive trainers.
I have a few niggles with my wheel on trainer, in that when the gradient in bkool goes from 0 to 5% gradient the change in the braking is rapid (at the end of the block). This is again the same when the program changes from a 5% gradient down to 0. Do direct drive trainers process this signal as a gradient change or as a rapid change at the end of the block.

Having done my research the consensus is better accuracy, higher gradient simulation, less wear and tear and less noise. Is there anything else that people have noticed transitioning from a wheel on to a direct drive trainer?

Cheers
Darren

daniel_b

I have never used BKool, so maybe not best placed to comment, but what I will say is that direct drive should be exceedingly accurate, and takes a little bit of faff out of things.

For example, and I appreciate these are not life changing.

With the Vortex, it was fairly fiddly initially, using their app, to get the dial at the right place, with the tyre at a certain pressure, I went for 100psi, to get the app to say the tension was right - that bit was done - all good.
Then everytime I would carry out a trainerroad session I had to:

- Check the tyre pressure, attach a pump and inflate as required
- Lock the roller onto the tyre
- Calibrate through Trainerroad (They recommend you do this before every workout IIRC)

Calibration is not major, speed up to 20mph and then coast - takes a minute or so.

*There may be some DD trainers that still require regular calibration.

Minor irritants, but if I am trying to get a 90 minute session in early before taking my daughter to school and going to work, every minute counts, and the more fiddly bits there are to do, the more chance will decide not to do it.

Oh and also post ride, you have to remember to release the roller from the tyre, otherwise it can do a kind of a melty thing.

Accuracy is phenomenal, on pretty much all of the big players I think.

I haven't regretted it one bit, looking forward to developing a lot over the winter.

Oh and as I just commented on another thread, my Vortex was over reading my power by about 10%, so going onto a direct drive was a mental blow at first, as I was unable to hold the power requirements! Got past that though in time.