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Review: Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer – The Nearly Perfect Training Tool (UPDATED)

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Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

The Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer introduced the concept of iPhone-controlled indoor training at Eurobike 2012, packing in a power meter with a ton of control over resistance. The result, after testing it through the winter for ourselves, adds up to an amazing tool for improving fitness on the bike, letting you train on your terms.

High quality fluid and wind trainers do a perfectly adequate job of increasing resistance as your cadence or gearing increases. And if you have a power meter already on your bike, it’s reasonably easy to adjust your cadence and gearing to stay within a desired output range. Where the Kickr improves is by doing all that with simple on screen adjustments (on your iPhone, naturally. Or current-gen iPad, Bluetooth LE Mac or ANT+ enabled PC). The biggest benefit comes with the Ergometer mode – just set the power output you want to maintain, and it’ll adjust the resistance in real time to maintain a steady effort regardless of cadence or gear selection.

Yes, it can force you to work harder…

UPDATE: Thru axle adapter now available ($29.99), older iDevices compatible with Wahoo’s ANT+ Key ($59.99).

UPDATE 2: Answers about max wattage and new product updates added at bottom of post.

FEATURES

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

The Kickr comes with quick-start instructions, a power cord and brick, and a disc brake block. It’s equipped with a 10-speed cassette and standard QR skewer. At the moment, there’s no thru-axle version, and Until one of the big-three come out with a base level 11-speed cassette (c’mon 11-speed 105…!), it won’t be cheap to make it work with your modern “A” bike. The upside is it won’t wear out your tire, and they now have a 12×142 rear thru axle adapter available for $30. A Campagnolo freehub is available for $69.99.

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

The non-drive side mount flips to accommodate 130mm or 135mm spacing….

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

…and the resistance unit cantilevers and locks into place to accommodate various wheel sizes. All of the adjustment hardware is rock solid and the entire unit has a high quality fit, finish and feel.

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings
Folded size shown in comparison with size 47 Shimano road shoes.

The arms swivel in, making it very compact when folded. This would make it good for taking to the race, except for that whole electricity thing. More on that later.

When folded out, the adjustable feet let you balance the unit evenly on the floor so it won’t wobble or rock. It’s not the widest trainer we’ve tried, but it’s plenty wide enough to hold up to aggressive standing sprints. As long as you have the quick release cam clamped down securely (which is very important for your safety!), the Kickr is rock solid.

SETUP & CONTROL

Set up is all done through the app. It’s pretty straight forward and requires a simple spool up and spin down procedure. Just turn on the Wahoo Fitness app, swipe through the screens until you get to the Kickr screen, and it’ll walk you through it on your first ride. It’s worth noting that Wahoo says the app will be updated soon and have a much improved UI. It’s not bad as is, but there’s always room for improvement. And they said it’ll make it easier to sync up other Wahoo Bluetooth apps. I still haven’t managed to get it to read cadence data from their RPM sensor, but they say the new interface may help.

After initial setup, it automatically shows four training control screens. These include four views: Level, Resistance, Erg and Sim.

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

The default is Level, which itself defaults to “2”. This means, if you simply plug in the trainer and start riding, it’s going to feel about like any other trainer. You can adjust the Level from 1 to 10, and by level 4 or 5, it gets pretty tough.

The second option is Resistance, which simply changes the percentage of resistance. Where Levels progressively ramps up the Power Curves (shown here), Resistance increases it in a more linear fashion.

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

The third, and arguably best, is the Erg setting. This one lets you set the power output you want to maintain and it automatically adjusts the resistance to keep it there. Pedal fast and resistance goes down a bit. Pedal slow and it’ll feel like your mashing through mud. Either way, and at every step in between, it’ll keep the power output within a few watts of the goal. This is the stand out feature of the Kickr, and it works phenomenally well. I’ve never worked harder or had better workouts. There’s simply no way of cheating unless you stop pedaling.

The flip side is that it also gives you tactile feedback as to what that effort feels like. Want to know what 700 watts worth of finish line sprinting feels like? Dial it in and go for it. Do that often enough to ingrain the sensation and you’ll get have a better sense of what it takes in real life to maintain that effort for a 10, 20 or 30 second finish line hustle. And what it takes to own city limit races.

Sim is the last setting and mimics real world conditions like wind resistance and slope. It uses your weight and riding position (input during set up) and adjusts resistance to make it feel like you’re riding in certain conditions. Does it mimic reality? Don’t know, don’t care, because the other settings are so much better.

Wahoo Fitness Kickr Trainer review with power measurement and iPhone app controlled settings

At the end of the session, you’ll get a “ride” report, same as when you use the app for outdoor riding. Except that the GPS data (and arguably the Bike Power Speed data) will be meaningless. But you can upload it to Strava.

DOWNSIDES?

So, what’s not to like? Well, it’s expensive. At $1,099 MSRP, it’s one of the most (if not the most) expensive trainers on the market. But, if you’re serious about improving your cycling fitness, the price is easy enough to justify. The only other thing is that you need a power supply for it to work. The power not only lets it broadcast power data and receive control commands, it also is necessary to create resistance. That means, for now, you can’t really use it for pre-race warmups. Rumor has it they’ve provided Team Sky with battery packs to use when plug-in power’s not available, and that those packs could eventually come to market. But, for now, you’ll need to get an inverter and run it off your car battery if you want to make it portable.

Lastly, you’ll need want one of the more current iPhones or iPads with Bluetooth 4.0 (aka Bluetooth LE – Low Energy). Older versions with previous generation Bluetooth hardware won’t talk to the Kickr directly, but they will connect via ANT+ if you have Wahoo’s $60 ANT+ Key.

Wahoo-Fitness-Kickr-trainer-review-10

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Take away the iPhone controls and you have a solid, stable trainer with fairly realistic road feel and reasonably good spin down. And as long as it’s plugged in, it’ll act just like any other high end trainer. It’s also quiet, especially compared to wind-driven direct drive trainers, which makes it easier to hear The Sufferfest without drowning everything else out.

But, it does have the iPhone controls, and therefore it’s awesome. The ability to control the resistance in real time lets you better mimic whatever training video you’re watching. And in case it’s not crystal clear yet, being able to set how much power you want to crank out and then being forced to perform yields an amazing workout. It means being able to focus on building high intensity power while spinning at a furious cadence, or building powerful climbing strength while mashing at 70-80 rpm.

Not only can you control it, but it builds in automated simulation training. Or, rather, thanks to an open API, third party apps like Kinomap and TrainerRoad help automate training. And Wahoo’s own Segments lets you mimic Strava segments from the convenience of your own home. They’re an ancillary cost, but they expand the effectiveness and fun of using the Kickr. Altogether, these parts create a powerful training system that goes well beyond just maintaining base fitness in the winter. But it all starts with the hardware, and the Kickr is one helluva good trainer.

*We’ll be testing Kinomap, TrainerRoad and Segments over the next few months for separate reviews.

UPDATES:

BIKERUMOR: What’s the max wattage (resistance in watts) the Kickr can create?

WAHOO: The brake is constant torque, so it really is dependent on how fast
the user can pedal, conservatively we get 350 Watts per 5mph, so if you could pedal up to 30mph we could deliver 2100 Watts.

BIKERUMOR: Any word on the battery packs or updated app?

WAHOO: Battery packs have been a slow go, was hoping to deliver a production version to Sky for real world testing, but we ended up making a fairly custom system for them.

Our updated iOS App 4.0 is coming in the next 3-4 weeks…. Nothing new and exciting for the KICKR yet, but it was the first step to prepping it for cool new stuff.

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32 Comments
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Wheel block
Wheel block
10 years ago

Why not make the rear mounting points lower so you don’t need a front wheel block?

William
William
10 years ago

TrainerRoad, Kurt Kinetic Rock & Roll and a Stages Power Meter… PERFECT!

Rock & Roll is one of the most comfortable trainers you will ever ride and to add power and workout planning beats the Wahoo.

MTB
MTB
10 years ago

I’ve been using a KICKR all winter, and compared with previous years of using a regular Kurt Kinetic combined with a SRM my sustained efforts have increased significantly since using the KICKR. The KICKR simulates resistance feedback great, I can recreate 20% plus graded climbs at a low cadence no problem. The KICKR creates the demand for effort, unlike a fluid trainer where you have to shift gears and increase the speed of the flywheel unit to create more resistance.

As noted in the article, it is expensive, and as the unit heats up the resistance drifts down a little over the course of an hour, but my Kinetic did the same. However, paired with TrainerRoad, iMobile Intervals, or other software, the drift can be compensated for by tweaking the EGR values on the fly.

jlrichar
jlrichar
10 years ago

I’ve had a KICKR for a few months and it is fantastic. I also really like the imobileintervals.com site and iPhone app.

Wheel block
Wheel block
10 years ago

If they made the rear mounts lower they would not need a wheel block.

spokejunky
spokejunky
10 years ago

, just wondering what is the max wattage in ergometer mode? Also, how long of a delay does it have when entering a high intensity segment? For instance, I had one of the original stand alone Cycle Ops power trainers. It took about 10-15 seconds to go from a steady 200 watts to 400 watts in a pre-programmed training session.

Karlwithak
Karlwithak
10 years ago

I use imobileintervals with the Kickr, the shorter intervals like 40/20 and 1 min on and off are programed in all i do is pedal and the kicker hits what i entered for watts exactly

it is really a new world since these workouts on the road are extremely hard to do, before i would hit too high a number for like 5 sec and it would mess up the entire 40 sec interval.

Corey
Corey
10 years ago

@spokejunky – I find that it takes 3 to 5 seconds for the Kickr to adjust resistance either up or down. It’s a smooth transition and since the delay also applies to the end of the interval, it means your interval isn’t any shorter – it’s just offset from the workout by a few seconds.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/496146-Sufferfest-The-Downward-Spiral

This trainer is absolutely brilliant!

Chris
Chris
10 years ago

Using the unit cantilever and lock to adjust the height, you don’t have to use a block.

Robin
Robin
10 years ago

@wheel_block – you don’t need a riser, the rear is adjustable for 700/650B/29/26 wheels. Who knows why they have one in the pic…

@spokejunky – I’ve seen >1800W recorded, so no drama with the output, what sort of person is setting more than 999W for an ergo anyway!!

Alex
10 years ago

@ “wheel block” You do not need a wheel block with the kickr. I assume the reviewer was trying to simulate a climbing position or was confused.

David
David
10 years ago

No love for Android?

spokejunky
spokejunky
10 years ago

@Robin…race finish workouts with a 10 second interval at your 10s CP number.

Jon
Jon
10 years ago

@David – there is an Android beta app that works on some phones. Also, the KICKR will work with older iOS devices with an ANT key.

Wil
Wil
10 years ago

Pricing is on par with trainers with similar feature sets: Bushido, Powerbeam, and cheaper than Computrainer

Greg in Ohio
Greg in Ohio
10 years ago

Yep, no need for a wheel block as others have said. Have had mine for a month and love it. Training with power is much harder and provides a better measurement of actual training level.

Its also crazy easy to take on trips since it folds and software to run workout is on iPhone or laptop. Trying to decide which third-party program to use. Looking at Trainerroad now and like it so far. For iPhone, ImobileIntervals is good along with Kinomap.

Karlwithak
Karlwithak
10 years ago

Imobileintervals enables you to enter 4 digit wattage intervals. the kickr trainer is supposed to go up to 2000.

I have programed in 5 sec at 1250 and tested it against my stages crank. it is very close

keville
keville
10 years ago

No problems here using the KICKR, a Wahoo RPM cadence sensor, a RFLKT and a Polar Bluetooth HRM all connected for my stationary workouts. The RFLKT is especially handy when doing Sufferfest workouts and chewing on your stem during the tougher sections.

CXisfun
CXisfun
10 years ago

“Want to know what 700 watts worth of finish line sprinting feels like?” Back of the pack is what it feels like.

lonefrontranger
lonefrontranger
10 years ago

CXisfun – that entirely depends on your age, weight, category and gender tbh. I know for a fact that the 12 year old girl who trounced the Cat 3 women all year in ‘cross in my region can’t make that much wattage because I’ve seen her files. Doesn’t matter anyhow because she weighs like sixty pounds tops.

A couple of our teammates have been testing Kickrs over the winter and I concur with Karlwithak; compared to hub and crank based powermeters (stages, powertap) they are very accurate. Not having to tear up a rear tire is a plus, too. The only real down side I see is having to dedicate a spare cassette for use or if you don’t have a compatible device to take full advantage of the feature set.

Chuck M
Chuck M
10 years ago

LOL on the 700w comment…so true. Even in CAT 5 that’s pointless.

Love my Kickr btw, but I do feel like the wattage at higher CAD is “easier” than it should be, compared to my powertap.

Derek Lessard
Derek Lessard
9 years ago

Anyone else have problems with the brake seizing up (particularly during climbing/low cadence work). I am a 200lbs rider and at one point was unable to turn the pedals. I did a spin down and still the same result. Is there a certain cadence under which the KICKR doesn’t like? Here’s a copy of last night TR ride and you’ll see mid-way through my first climbing interval I had to stop as it was impossible to overcome the friction that the KICKR was applying to the fly wheel.

http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/880667-Sufferfest-The-Hunted

Marc s
Marc s
9 years ago

Just purchased the kickR I’m having problems with the watts. Even with easy pace the watts will read 400 very high I’m strong but not that strong help!!

Sebo
9 years ago

set your Kickr at 100-150W and go on it for 20 min then perform spin down calibration. I had the same issue. After spin down my Kickr is very close when comparing to my Garmin Vectors. for first 20-30min it is identical +- 1W, then it will start to drift slightly up to 8W at the end of 60min due to temperature. Wahoo doesnt compensate for temperature changes, I’m sure they will enable that in the future as it has built in thermometer but for now it doesn’t. Right now after 90min workout my average Wahoo power is 9W more than on my Vector. That is not much in my books. You can always compensate manually and apply 1% more resistance.

Keith
Keith
9 years ago

Anyone had issues with the Kickr sensor not being picked via Bluetooth on the IPad.
I’ve had my Kickr over a year, but only used it during the winter months.
Over the last month it’s taken over an hour to connect every time I use it. A real ball ache.
The hr and cadence sensors work straight away.

Milan
Milan
9 years ago

Hi

has anyone had issues in reaching the granny ring when simulating a steep hill? my derailleur hits the fly wheel and won’t engage the highest gear. Would love to hear if this is an issue for anyone else

Ian
Ian
9 years ago

Hey Keith – you don’t have another device connecting over Bluetooth which is blocking the iPad making the connection do you – perhaps a phone or a laptop? I think you can only have one device with a bluetooth connection at a time

Ted
Ted
9 years ago

Milan: I’m having the same issue. Can’t get the chain on my largest rear cog. Dérailleur is hitting the flywheel. No idea how to correct, so until a solution comes along resigned to not being able to access that gear.

Dave
Dave
9 years ago

Just spent over an hour trying to get Kickr to connect to iPad. Haven’t been able to use for past three months due to injury. Have there been changes? Kinemap says the Kickr is there but no data or resistance. IPhone sees it but no resistance or data. I’ve tried just one device at a time. Very upset.

Steve H
Steve H
8 years ago

Ted/Milan : Had the same issue I solved it by putting a spacer onto the cassette hub before putting on the block, the gap between the Dérailleur and the kickr flywheel case is about 2mm.

Timothy Faust
Timothy Faust
7 years ago

If you are lucky enough to get one of these that works they are great. However, I have been going back and forth with Wahoo for months because the trainer is defective. They keep sending parts or having me return it to them so they can spend a month fixing it before sending back the same unit that still doesn’t work.

I have spent the last six months with a $1,200 bike stand.

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