Yes, that’s right.
Despite having a perfectly serviceable Wahoo KICKR, attached to a questionably-constructed-but-perfectly-safe-for-sweat-grotto-use titanium bike, I’ve gone and bought a Zwift Ride smart frame thingy and the associated Wahoo KICKR Core 2 indoor trainer.
So in this post:
- why I bought the Zwift Ride
- why I’ve replaced my current smart trainer with a technically inferior one; and
- my first impressions of the new turbo setup, am I happy with it and did I need to upgrade?
I can save you the bother with that last one, the answer’s obviously, ‘No I did not need to upgrade’.
PS. Here’s the video, in case you can’t be harrised to read the post:
Why Did I Buy A Zwift Ride?
Lets get this out of the way. We’re very much in first-world-problem, half-baked-reasoning territory.
Without my YouTube channel and blog, and the potential to make Zwift Ride ‘content’, there’s no way I’d have spent over a grand replacing something that works not just fine but really well.
Anyway, here are those reasons.
The bike, let’s call it that, that was attached to my KICKR, fitted ok. But after my recent hip injury, I wanted to raise the handlebars.
There’s no convenient little choad on the steerer, allowing me to insert a couple of spacers, and I don’t want to spend more time and money on this velocipedal white elephant, working out alternative ways to get the bars closer to my hands.
No, don’t talk to me about riser stems (low cost, easy to fit) because that doesn’t align with the purchase decision I’ve already made, which I’m desperately trying to justify*.
Staying on this sensible bike fit line of reasoning, I wouldn’t mind generally having more freedom to adjust the trainer dimensions as my recovery and body flexibility progresses.
Perhaps less sensibly, gazing at the slowly deflating tire week after week, whilst doing precisely nothing about it, reminds me of the march of ol’ master time, the cheeky pervert, and the futility of existence.
Also I think I fitted the shifters on the wonk.
***
So we’re agreed that swapping in a Zwift Ride is the only solution?
You can’t believe I’ve lasted this long on the existing setup?
What can I say, I’m the bastard love child of Leonides (the spartan) and Saint Monica (the patron saint of patience, natch).
Look, ultimately I fancied a switch up in the pain cave department.
I just gave the room an autumn re-org.
I’ve got some funky LED lights.
My 46-year old saddo cycling brain decided a Zwift Ride would look cool and impress my wife.
***
Reader it did not impress my wife.
(And apologies to those triggered by the term ‘pain cave’.)
Side Quest: Explain The KICKR Core
Ok, you probably noticed: I already had a smart trainer.
I already had a smart trainer that I very much like.
I already had a smart trainer that I am 99% sure without actually checking is technically and objectively better than the KICKR Core.
I already have a smart trainer with these great little squidgyfeet that give a little sidey-sidey rocker motion that may or may not translate to better road feel, but do ruffle up the trainer mat when I go, er, hard.
But what my KICKR definitely isn’t, is compatible with the Zwift Ride.
Or maybe I mean the Zwift Cog.
Either way ca ne marche pas, as les Wahoo engineers say.
PSA time (Brief Because It’s A Bit Boring)
I’ve got the V5/2020 version of the KICKR. When the Zwift Ride came out, Wahoo initially said this model would eventually get a firmware update making it compatible.
After much delay and radio silence, it never happened.
MontGPT says it was due to a lack of memory…. on the KICKR, rather than the Wahoo trainer development department.
If the KICKR V5 had ever become compatible, I’d have got the Zwift Ride yonks ago.
But it didn’t so I haven’t … until now.
Unlike ye olde KICKR, the Core 2 is compatible with the Zwift Ride. You’d hope so – Zwift bungles the Ride and the Core as a single pack-age on its website.
Everyone on the Dark Web (YouTube) seems happy with it as a product so I bit the bull between the balls and invested in a newer but lower spec trainer.
Sure, I could have bought the updated V6 version of the KICKR, but it’s more expensive and feels even more redundant. This sweet YouTube dollar dollar only goes so far.
I didn’t need 1% power accuracy, 2200W max frottage and 20% gradients before the hip break. I sure as Rod Hull don’t need them now.
Thusly we have a KICKR Core V2 dans la grotte de la douleur and I have to work out what to do with a lightly soiled KICKR.
A Brief Homage To My KICKR V5
You’ve surely grasped this already: I’m a massive fan of the KICKR, despite this one’s lack of Zwift Ride-Cog-virtual shifting compatibility.
My trainer is over 3 and a half years old and remains in great condition.
I’m hardly a big power athlete – even less so now – but it really isn’t showing any signs of wear and tear.
It’s performed flawlessly throughout my stewardship. I’ve not seen drop outs or issues with connectivity. It’s just worked.
So, credit where credit’s due: the Wahoo KICKR gets a big Sportive Cyclist thumb up the bum. What an accolade.
Right, back to the Zwift Ride.
Zwift Ride: Unboxing and Setup
Here it is. Three boxes. The trainer. The frame. The electro-gubbins.
The build was intuitive enough to avoid repeated consultation of the instructions. Which is good because in this moody cinematic lighting, my ageing eyes could barely read them.
The Core 2 was literally a case of attaching the legs – 4 bolts – and powering it up – one plug. The Zwift cog came pre-attached.
The Ride frame involved a few more bolts, to attach the front end thingummy and the handlebars, but was made pleasurable by this funky orange hex key that’s both kind on the palm and neatly magneto-lives under the top top tube.
Then it was a case of consummating the Ride frame with the Core 2, not forgetting to install the correct thru axle adaptors, pulling the chain into place on the cog and then releasing the kraken. Or the chain tensioner as they’re more likely to call it.
For the pedals, I’m re-using an old set of Speedplays taken from the outgoing titanium turbo bike.
The supplied flat pedals, along with miscellaneous Core 2 bits ‘n’ bobs go in the pile marked, ‘I’m not sure where I can store these without losing them and I’m sure as hell not keeping all the masseev boxes this thing came in’.
The Core needed a firmware update – don’t we all – so I plugged it in, found it in the Wahoo app and let the trainer do its business.
I should probably have done the same for the Ride Controllers – the buttony flashy bits on the handlebars and faux gear levers – but I got excited and just connected to Zwift instead.
Where they seemed to work fine – at least well enough to run through the tutorial. Which I’m glad I videoed, albeit badly, because I didn’t pay attention at the time.
Dialling In The Fit
I won’t labour this one. I took the measurements from my latest bike fit and tried to port them across to Ride.
Which you can see me doing here.
With the aforementioned hex key, we can tweak saddle height, as well as move it fore and aft and set the angle of attack.
At the front, in the cockpit as we bike bells call it, the bars can up and down, forwards and backwards, as far as the eyes can see arms can reach.
One thing you can’t do, at least without spending extra for an aftermarket crankset, is vary the crank length, which is a bit of a bummer because, like many people, I’ve consumed the bike industry 165mm kool aid. So for now I’m back to the stock 170mm length.
Anyway, once you’ve sorted your fit, you can note the settings, denoted by letters, on a handy card for both you and your best bike friend.
How Much Did The Zwift Ride Cost?
I paid – yes, paid; Zwift didn’t gift it – I doubt they know of my existence – £999 for the Ride plus Core 2 combo. That was £100 off in the Black Friday sale.
I note it was even cheaper post Christmas… which is great.
The warm glow of the saving was almost totally negated by the £65 delivery charge slapped on at checkout.
A delivery charge that:
- seems high in absolute terms – my masseev fragile TV was free;
- is unavoidable – there’s no other way to buy a Zwift Ride;
- and is only inserted into the transaction when you’ve clicked ‘Buy’, added all your details and you’re psychologically committed.
All of which felt, if not shady, perhaps a little deflating.
I’m not sure at this point whether I’m cosplaying an altruistic consumer champion, doling out truth bombs, or that my deep pocketed, short-armed little Yorkshireman has come to the psychological surface.
Either way, consider yourself warned that the price you see on the screen is not quite the price that hits your banque de porc.
Zwift Ride: My First Impressions
Hmm, now would you believe it. The Zwift Ride actually feels quite different from my previous setup.
Well at least quite different enough that I noticed. I was fully prepared for there to be very little in it.
The Ride feels very solid and planted, which I suppose makes sense given how much it weights (a lot). It seems really stable both in and out of the saddle. I can see it suiting heavier or more powerful riders not wanting to risk the dropouts on their carbon best bike.
The Zwift Ride seems quieter than my bike and KICKR combo. Presumably that’s the absence of an inexpertly fitted drivetrain and a chain line that is now perfectly in line, irrespective of my gear selection.
Talking of gears, I very much like the simplicity of the sequential ones* simulated by the Ride controllers, the Zwift software and the trainer resistance.
[*you can set them to mimic real world Shimano and SRAM systems as well]
It’s easy and quick to move up and down the gears as the virtual gradient varies, so you can maintain target power and cadence, without blowing up or spinning out.
Gear changes are just as smooth in low cadence, high strain scenarios without letting off the effort. Which I couldn’t say about my mechanical gear setup.
And the whole buttons thing generally is quite fun and novel, at least to this luddite that has used Di2 only once in shall-we-call-it-a-career.
I’m pleased with how easy it is to adjust the fit – a difference I was expecting. This plus the surprisingly comfortable saddle, at least for these particular sit bones, makes the Ride an agreeable instrument of torture ‘pon which to mount yourself.
Whilst balls to the wall intervals are hard and unpleasant in the moment, my bigger challenge in the past is feeling bored and uncomfortable whilst in cruise and recovery modes.
The Zwift Ride, coupled with my uberfan, my funky LEDs and YouTube pumping direct to my rectinal nerve, is, to use the car journalist cliche, ‘a nice place to be’.
The KICKR Core 2 And A Not So Short Word About Gradients
Whilst this post is mainly about the Zwift Ride, I shouldn’t forget that we’re also test-driving a new supposedly lower spec trainer.
Well, not supposedly.
It is lower spec, but does it matter?
Well straight out of the gate, I can confirm no discernible reduction in road feel – an ephemeral characteristic at the best of times. My indoor setup is there to build my fitness, not my handling skills. If I want road feel, I go and feel the road.
I haven’t missed the lack of squidgy feet. Even with the static horizontal legs there’s a still a little sway whence out of the saddle. And there’s less tendency for the trainer to go for a little walk when I’m deploying power bombs.
Which brings us to max wattage…. And that’s where we’ll conclude max wattage.
I can’t hit 2200 watts. I can’t hit 1600 watts. Maximum power output is an irrelevance to me.
Moving on to gradient, where I inadvertently set up a before and after test. Or so I thought…
In the weeks before the switch, quite by accident, I treated myself to a damn good thrashing on the Hardknott Pass Zwift climb on my older KICKR.
Like the real version, this Zwift climb has at least three sections where the gradient exceeds 16%. There might have been some variation in difficulty above this level but it was barely noticeable and all fell squarely in the nightmarishly unpleasant category.
Then the portal to Hardknott pass closed. And I’m struggling to find an equivalent climb portal that will open in the foreseeable.
So I’ll make some points whilst you watch me ride Radio Rendezvous, a route containing The Grade and the Radio Tower KOM.
Even with an improvement in fitness since my ‘before’ test, I am still fighting the trainer on the steepest sections. None of these exceed 16%.
You still have to generate the same amount of power to get through the climb. Doing it with a 16% rev limiter makes little or no difference in the headbanger-realism stakes.
As we’ve seen, there aren’t many Zwift climbs with gradients higher than 16%. They’re only in the portals [AFAIK]. And they’re plenty difficult without the marginal increase in resistance variability.
And the vast majority of us are not using indoor training to target specific fitness for 1 in 5 muurs.
So I’m fine with the CORE’s gradient mimicking abilities versus my original KICKR.
Bringing this section to a close then. There will be other more comprehensive comparisons of the KICKR and the KICKR Core on the Interhub but my snap judgment is that for my needs, solving for convenience and fun, there’s little between them.
Which is fine other than I’ve spent quite a lot of money for this little discernible difference.
Am I Happy With The Upgrade?
Actually yes. The decision to do it was financially dubious, but now it’s done, I’m very pleased.
The Ride frame looks good in the hurt grotto – certainly better than Eric the half a bike.
It frees up said bike for further outdoors modification and experimentation. Or the skip.
I’m looking forward to finding out if the Ride controllers aid my transition to D-class Zwift racing warrior and beyond.
Should You Buy A Zwift Ride?
If you’re like me, with a dedicated trainer bike on a high quality trainer that is nonetheless incompatible with the Zwift cog, you probably shouldn’t make the switch.
That is, unless you can sell that existing trainer and offset a large part of the cost. Dropping over a grand for a marginal improvement is a touch cuckoo.
But if you don’t own a smart trainer and are looking to level up your indoor cycling game, the Zwift Ride is definitely an option I’d recommend.
Equally, if you have a compatible trainer, and want to remove your single bike from the setup, the Zwift Ride, sans the Core, makes a lot of sense.
There you go. Profound.
If You Buy A Zwift Ride, Here Are My Links…
So these are affiliate links and they *should* include a 10% discount for you.
Make sure you click the correct link for where you live – they’re different for the UK, US and EU:
